N.Y. Film Critics go ‘Sideways’ for comedy

updated 4:38 p.m. ET Dec. 13, 2004

NEW YORK - “Sideways” has taken another step forward with critics, winning top honors from the New York Film Critics Online.

The group named the comedy, about mismatched best friends on a wine-tasting road trip, as the year’s best film Saturday. Two of the movie’s stars, Thomas Haden Church and Virginia Madsen, won the supporting acting categories.

Jamie Foxx was named best actor for his uncanny portrayal of Ray Charles in “Ray,” and Imelda Staunton won the best-actress award for playing a housekeeper who secretly performs abortions in 1950s England in “Vera Drake.”

Martin Scorsese was named the top director for the Howard Hughes epic “The Aviator,” and Charlie Kaufman won screenplay honors for “Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind,” about a lovelorn man who wants to erase his ex-girlfriend from his memory.

The Los Angeles Film Critics Association also chose “Sideways” as the year’s best film on Saturday, and earlier this month the National Board of Review of Motion Pictures listed it among the top 10 movies of the year.

Other 2004 picks from the New York Film Critics Online, composed of writers who are either exclusively online or who are broadcast or print critics with a strong online presence:

Cinematography: “Hero,” Christopher Doyle.
Animated film: “The Incredibles.”
Foreign-language film: “The Motorcycle Diaries.”
Documentary: (tie) “Broadway: The Golden Age” and “Fahrenheit 9/11.”
Breakthrough performance: Topher Grace (“p.s.” and “In Good Company.”)
Debut director: Joshua Marston “Maria Full of Grace.”

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