Grand Prix 2021 to “Nomadland”

Chloé Zhao’s “Nomadland” Chosen Best Film of the Year
Detailed results of the FIPRESCI Grand Prix 2021 poll
(The following details are for FIPRESCI members, and not for public information. Thank you.)

The FIPRESCI Grand Prix 2021, awarded by the International Federation of Film Critics to the best film of the past year, goes to Nomadland by Chloe Zhao. A total of 633 members throughout the world voted in one or both phases of the online poll.

In the final poll, the 567 valid responses received were distributed in the following way among the five finalists:

1 “Nomadland”, Chloe Zhao: 185 (31.46 %)
2 “Another Round” (Druk), Thomas Vinterberg: 137 (23.30%)
3 “Bad Luck Banging or Loony Porn” (Babardeală cu bucluc sau porno balamuc), Radu Jude: 101 (17,18%)
4 “Quo Vadis, Aida?”, Jasmila Zbanic: 77 (13,10%)
5 “What Do We See When We Look At The Sky” (Ras vxedavt rodesac cas vukurebt?), Alexandre Koberidze: 52 (8,84%)

This five finalists emerged from the initial poll, in which 256 colleagues sent one, two or three open nominations, proposing a total of 251 eligible films (including 160 titles mentioned by only one person).

The top 20 scores were:

1 “Nomadland”, Chloe Zhao: 81
2 “Another Round” (Druk), Thomas Vinterberg: 47
3 “Bad Luck Banging or Loony Porn” (Babardeal? cu bucluc sau porno balamuc), Radu Jude: 34
4 “Quo Vadis, Aida?”, Jasmila Zbanic: 21
5 “What we See When We Look At The Sky?” (Ras vxedavt rodesac cas vukurebt?), Alexandre Koberidze: 21
6 “The Father”, Florian Zeller, 16
7 “Beginning” (Dasatskisi), Dea Kulumbegashvili: 14
8 “The Disciple”, Chaitanya Tamhane: 14
9 “Wheel of Fortune and Fantasy” (Guzen to sozo), Ryûsuke Hamaguchi: 14
10 “Mank”, David Fincher: 13
11 “Petite maman”, Céline Schiamma: 11
12 “I’m Thinking of Ending Things”, Charlie Kaufman: 9
13 “City Hall”, Frederick Wiseman: 7
14 “Drive my car” (Doraibu mai kâ), Ryûsuke Hamaguchi: 7
15 “Minari”, Lee Isaac Chung: 7
16 “Never Rarely Sometimes Always” (Nunca Raramente Às Vezes Sempre), Eliza Hittman: 7
17 “New Order” (Nuevo orden), Michel Franco: 7
18 “Promising Young Woman”, Emerald Fennell: 7
19 “The Man Who Sold His Skin” (L’Homme qui a vendu sa peau), Kaouther Ben Hania: 7
20 “Dear Comrades!” (Dorogie tovarishchi), Andrey Konchalovskiy: 6

In case of double votes by a same person, only one was counted. If both responses were different, it was assumed that the second vote was meant to replace the first one, and therefore it was the first vote that was deleted.

All feature films that had their world première no earlier than July 2020 were eligible. Older films were not considered.

Thank you very much to each one of the 633 members of FIPRESCI who took part in the poll, in one or both phases.

Eva Peydró
Valencia/Munich, August 18, 2021