Seventeen out of the past 20 New York Film Critics Circle recipients for Best Film have achieved a Best Picture nomination at the Oscars including winners No Country for Old Men, The Hurt Locker, and The Artist. Will Brady Corbet’s The Brutalist join that list? It’s almost a certainty. The epic historical drama won the NYFCC top prize in addition to Adrien Brody’s performance for Best Actor. These are the first major precursor honors for the pic I currently have ranked #1 in my BP derby (same goes Brody). It’s highly unlikely to be the last.

Corbet, however, did not take Director. That honor went to RaMell Ross for Nickel Boys and his film also took the Cinematography prize. I currently don’t have Ross in my director lineup though I do have it scoring a BP nod. 11 out of the previous 15 behind the camera winners did end up with an Oscar nomination.

In Best Actress, it was Marianne Jean-Baptiste for Mike Leigh’s Hard Truths. Half of the previous ten NYFCC leading women received Academy recognition. That seems appropriate as Jean-Baptiste’s odds are around 50/50 in my view.

That’s not the case in Supporting Actor where Kieran Culkin (A Real Pain) took that Big Apple competition. He’s widely expected to be one of the final five and perhaps even make a podium walk.

The NYFCC did manage to provide a shocker with Carol Kane taking Supporting Actress for the little-seen Between the Temples. The veteran performer is not expected to contend at the Oscars.

Finally, All We Imagine as Light (which India did not submit as their horse in International Feature Film) is the Best Foreign Language Film. No Other Land, which could be a player in the Academy’s Documentary Feature race, was NYFCC’s Best Non-Fiction Film. Both of those pics won their respective categories at the Gotham Awards yesterday as well. Latvian tale Flow is the Best Animated Feature and it should follow suit with Oscar.

Keep an eye on this blog for all Oscar precursor coverage!