{"id":19004,"date":"2025-12-16T16:46:51","date_gmt":"2025-12-16T21:46:51","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/sonic-cinema.com\/wordpress\/?p=19004"},"modified":"2025-12-24T14:23:32","modified_gmt":"2025-12-24T19:23:32","slug":"southeastern-film-critics-association-winners-2025","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/sonic-cinema.com\/wordpress\/2025\/12\/southeastern-film-critics-association-winners-2025\/","title":{"rendered":"Southeastern Film Critics Association Winners 2025"},"content":{"rendered":"

Earlier this year, I was honored to join the Southeastern Film Critics Association<\/a> critics group. It is my third critics group to vote in, and was the second that needed my ballot this year. Unfortunately, I had no real time to get to anything between AFCC and SEFCA, so it was basically the same ballot. Hopefully, next year I’ll have more time.<\/p>\n

Here are this year’s winners. If anything, it reinforces some of the films I really need to catch up with the rest of the year, and awards season.<\/p>\n

Thanks for listening,<\/p>\n

Brian Skutle
\nwww.sonic-cinema.com<\/a><\/p>\n

Southeastern Film Critics Association Names \u2018One Battle After Another\u2019 as the Best Film of 2025<\/i><\/b>
\nWriter-director Paul Thomas Anderson\u2019s topical comedy-drama also takes home awards for Adapted Screenplay and Best Supporting Actor<\/i><\/p>\n

Monday, December 15, 2025 \u2013 The Southeastern Film Critics Association (SEFCA) has named Paul Thomas Anderson\u2019s “One Battle After Another”<\/i> as the Best Picture of the Year. SEFCA\u2019s 99 members, located across nine Southeastern states, also recognized Anderson for Best Adapted Screenplay and Benicio del Toro as Best Supporting Actor. <\/p>\n

The other big winner was “Sinners”<\/i>, which won Ryan Coogler the Best Director award and Michael B. Jordan Best Actor. Its large cast also received the award for Best Ensemble.<\/p>\n

Jesse Buckley was named Best Actress for her work in Chloe Zhao\u2019s “Hamnet”<\/i> while Amy Madigan triumphed as Best Supporting Actress for Zach Cregger\u2019s Atlanta-filmed “Weapons”<\/i>.<\/p>\n

Many races were decided by only a few votes, most notably Best Foreign Language Film, where Jafar Panahi\u2019s “It Was Just an Accident”<\/i> narrowly beat Joachim Trier\u2019s “Sentimental Value”<\/i>.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s been an exceptional year for film, both blockbusters and smaller independent works,\u201d says Jim Farmer, Vice President of SEFCA. \u201cAs film critics throughout the South, it\u2019s our honor to recognize the best of a truly memorable season.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cIt was really satisfying to see a genre film like “Sinners”<\/i> performing so well with critics across the country while also being a sensation at the box office,\u201d says Scott Phillips, President of SEFCA. \u201cI\u2019ve always been a big supporter of horror films, and three of our Top 10 films fall into that genre.\u201d<\/p>\n

The Southeastern Film Critics Association is one of the oldest regional film critics associations in the country. Its mission is to represent \u2013 as an impartial, organized working unit \u2013 the profession of film criticism, to recognize the highest creative achievements in the field of motion pictures and uphold the integrity and significance of film criticism.<\/p>\n

SEFCA\u2019s full list of 2025 are winners below. Visit SEFCA on the web at SEFCA.net<\/a> to learn more about its members as well as past winners. You can also follow SEFCA on Twitter at @SEFilmCritics.<\/p>\n

Top 10 Films of 2025<\/b>
\n1. “One Battle After Another”<\/a>
\n2. “Sinners”<\/a>
\n3. “Marty Supreme”
\n4. “It Was Just an Accident”<\/a>
\n5. “Sentimental Value”<\/a>
\n6. “Hamnet”
\n7. “Train Dreams”<\/a>
\n8. “Weapons”<\/a>
\n9. “Frankenstein”
\n10. “The Secret Agent”<\/p>\n

Best Actor<\/b>
\nWinner:<\/i> Michael B. Jordan, “Sinners”<\/a>
\nRunner-Up:<\/i> Ethan Hawke, “Blue Moon”<\/a><\/p>\n

Best Actress<\/b>
\nWinner:<\/i> Jessie Buckley, “Hamnet”
\nRunner-Up:<\/i> Rose Byrne, “If I Had Legs I\u2019d Kick You”<\/p>\n

Best Supporting Actor<\/b>
\nWinner:<\/i> Benicio del Toro, “One Battle After Another”<\/a>
\nRunner-Up:”<\/i> Sean Penn, “One Battle After Another”<\/a><\/p>\n

Best Supporting Actress:<\/b>
\nWinner:<\/i> Amy Madigan, “Weapons”<\/a>
\nRunner-up:<\/i> Teyana Taylor, “One Battle After Another”<\/a><\/p>\n

Best Ensemble:<\/b>
\nWinner:<\/i> “Sinners”<\/a>
\nRunner-Up:<\/i> “One Battle After Another”<\/a><\/p>\n

Best Director<\/b>
\nWinner:<\/i> Ryan Coogler, “Sinners”<\/a>
\nRunner-Up:<\/i> Paul Thomas Anderson, “One Battle After Another”<\/a><\/p>\n

Best Original Screenplay<\/b>
\nWinner:<\/i> Ryan Coogler, “Sinners”<\/a>
\nRunner-Up:<\/i> Joaquim Trier and Eskil Vogt, “Sentimental Value”<\/a><\/p>\n

Best Adapted Screenplay<\/b>
\nWinner:<\/i> Paul Thomas Anderson, “One Battle After Another”<\/i><\/a>
\nRunner-Up:<\/i> Clint Bentley and Greg Kwedar, “Train Dreams”<\/i><\/a><\/p>\n

Best Documentary<\/b>
\nWinner:<\/i> “The Perfect Neighbor”
\nRunner-Up:<\/i> “Predators”<\/p>\n

Best Animated Film<\/b>
\nWinner:<\/i> “KPop Demon Hunters”
\nRunner-Up:<\/i> “Zootopia 2”<\/p>\n

Best Foreign Language Film<\/b>
\nWinner:<\/i> “It Was Just an Accident”<\/i><\/a>
\nRunner-Up:<\/i> “Sentimental Value”<\/a><\/p>\n

Best Cinematography<\/b>
\nWinner:<\/i> Autumn Arkapaw (“Sinners”<\/a>)
\nRunner-Up:<\/i> Michael Bauman (“One Battle After Another”<\/a>)<\/p>\n

Best Score<\/b>
\nWinner:<\/i> Ludwig Goransson (“Sinners”<\/a>)
\nRunner-Up:<\/i> Jonny Greenwood (“One Battle After Another”<\/a>)<\/p>\n

Jim Farmer
\nFestival Director, Out On Film\/Atlanta
\nFreelance Arts Writer\/Critic
\nfarmanilla8@aol.com
\njim.farmer@outonfilm.org
\nwww.outonfilm.org<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Earlier this year, I was honored to join the Southeastern Film Critics Association critics group. It is my third critics group to vote in, and was the second that needed my ballot this year. Unfortunately, I had no real time to get to anything between AFCC and SEFCA, so it was basically the same ballot. […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":18973,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[3,26],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-19004","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news","category-news-general"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/sonic-cinema.com\/wordpress\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/11\/DE31F5C6-41CF-441D-BFF2-5D245B935B3A.jpeg","jetpack-related-posts":[],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/sonic-cinema.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19004","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/sonic-cinema.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/sonic-cinema.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sonic-cinema.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sonic-cinema.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=19004"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/sonic-cinema.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19004\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":19050,"href":"https:\/\/sonic-cinema.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19004\/revisions\/19050"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sonic-cinema.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/18973"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/sonic-cinema.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=19004"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sonic-cinema.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=19004"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sonic-cinema.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=19004"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}