An emotional plea by Iranian filmmaker Jafar Panahi and moving words from Ryan Coogler on the violence in Minneapolis stirred a National Board of Review Awards ceremony Tuesday in which Paul Thomas Anderson’s “One Battle After Another” was again crowned the best film of the year.
Coming two days after Sunday’s Golden Globes, the annual, untelevised New York gala, held in the cavernous midtown banquet all Cipriani 42nd Street and hosted by Willie Geist, played out as a more intimate and frank-spoken alternative.
The winners themselves were already announced, so the night was always going to belong to “One Battle After Another.” The National Board of review, a group that is made up of film enthusiasts and dates to 1909, not only named it 2025’s best film but awarded the best actor prize to Leonardo DiCaprio, best director to Anderson, best supporting actor to Benicio Del Toro and breakthrough performer to Chase Infiniti.
Yet in an ongoing parade of awards for “One Battle After Another,” its night at the NBRs still stood out. The surprise presenter of the movie’s best film award was Martin Scorsese, who praised “the audacity” of Anderson’s narratives and the accomplishment of his latest.
“Like all great films, it can’t really be compared to anything else,” Scorsese said. “It stands alone. It’s a great American film.”
Anderson, trying to take in the wealth of honors, attempted to describe what ” One Battle After Another,” his father-daughter tale of revolution, might represent. His answer came in pointing out his own daughter, sitting at his table.
“I don’t know what our movie is about, but I do know it’s about loving your kids,” Anderson said.
For many of the honorees, the world outside the starry banquet weighed heavily. Coogler’s speech was among the night’s most poignant. The “Sinners” director was honored for his screenplay for the vampire thriller and was introduced by the film’s star, longtime collaborator Michael B. Jordan.
Both were honored 13 years earlier by the board for their first movie together, ” Fruitvale Station.” Recalling that film, based on the true story of the 2009 killing of Oscar Grant by a Bay Area Rapid Transit police officer in Oakland, California, Coogler turned to the recent fatal shooting of Renee Nicole Good by an immigration enforcement agent in Minneapolis.
“I was young and naive, and I thought the movie was going to change the world and make it so you didn’t see people executed by civil service on camera anymore,” Coogler said. “I was proven wrong again and again. And it’s tough to be here and not think about Minnesota.”
“I can’t be here and not think about Renee,” Coogler added.
Still, the ceremony’s most powerful words came from Panahi, the dissident Iranian filmmaker who for nearly two decades worked clandestinely in his native country while being placed under house arrest and jailed. Panahi’s latest, ” It Was Just an Accident,” was awarded best international film.
The movie, inspired by Panahi’s own imprisonment, is a revenge drama about stopping the cycle of violence and oppression in Iran. On Tuesday the death toll from a nationwide crackdown on demonstrators in that country surpassed 2,500, according to activists.
“As we stand here, the state of Iran is gunning down protesters and a savage massacre continues blatantly on the streets of Iran,” Panahi said. “Today the real scene is not on screens but on the streets of Iran. The Islamic Republic has caused a bloodbath to delay its collapse.”
“This is no longer a metaphor,” he continued. “This is not a story. This is not a film. This is a reality written with bullets day after day.”
Panahi called on the film community to speak out and “use any voice and any platform you have.”
“Today, cinema has the power to stand by defenseless people,” Panahi said. “Let’s stand by them.”
Panahi’s remarks, delivered through an interpreter, shook the audience. And when the next award went to Clint Bentley and Greg Kwedar, for adapted screenplay for their plaintive Pacific Northwest period drama “Train Dreams,” the filmmakers seemed to cut short their speech, which was partially about how making the movie and then promoting it through awards season meant sacrificing time with their young children.
“When the world is kind of burning down, it can feel frivolous at times,” Bentley said. “I just want to say thank you most of all to Mr. Panahi for reminding us for what we can do with the medium and why it can be worth doing.”
