LA Film Critics name Roma best film of the year

Alfonso Cuaron's acclaimed film Roma is described as being deeply personal. Photo / AP

The Los Angeles Film Critics Association has named Alfonso Cuaron's deeply personal drama Roma best film of the year, adding to the acclaimed film's steadily mounting honours.

Cuaron's black-and-white film, a Netflix release, has been cleaning up many of the top prizes of awards season. It won the Golden Lion at the Venice Film Festival and likewise topped the New York Film Critics Circle.

Roma is widely expected to land Netflix its first best-picture nomination at the Oscars.

The Los Angeles critics, which announced their awards on Twitter, also awarded best cinematography to Cuaron.

But it notably deviated from the Roma drumbeat in the directing category. Instead, Debra Granik (Winter's Bone) was named best director for her off-the-grid father-daughter drama Leave No Trace.

Critics groups can influence the larger Oscars race, which has thus far struggled to elevate a likely female filmmaker contender, a sore point for some considering the wealth of options (including Chloe Zhao for The Rider and Marielle Heller for Can You Ever Forgive Me?) and the historic male dominance of the category. The Golden Globes last week named an all-male field of directing nominees for the fourth time in a row, a record that has drawn increasing criticism.

The LA critics named Olivia Colman (The Favourite) best actress and Ethan Hawke (First Reformed) best actor. Hawke was also the New York critics' choice and the winner at last month's Gotham Film Awards.

Best supporting actor went to Steven Yeun for Lee Chang-dong's existential thriller Burning, which was also the group's runner-up for best film. Taking best supporting actress was Regina King for Barry Jenkins' James Baldwin adaptation If Beale Street Could Talk.

The critics named Sandi Tan's Shirkers best documentary, the comic-book adaptation Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse best animated film and Nicole Holofcener and Jeff Whitty's script to Can You Ever Forgive Me? best screenplay.

Other winners included Nicholas Britell for his score to If Beale Street Could Talk, Hannah Beachler for the production design on Black Panther and Joshua Altman and Bing Liu for editing Minding the Gap, the documentary about friends in a small Rust Belt town in Illinois.

The critics will also honour Japanese filmmaker and animator Hayao Miyazaki with their career achievement award.

- AP