2020 Austin Film Critics Association Award Winners

The AFCA presents their winners list for the 2020 awards season

The Austin Film Critics Association (AFCA) announced its 2020 awards, with Minari at the top of the pack, winning 6 awards from its 11 nominations.

Acting award winners include Carey Mulligan as Best Actress for Promising Young Woman, Riz Ahmed as Best Actor for Sound of Metal, Youn Yuh-jung as Best Supporting Actress for Minari, and Daniel Kaluuya as Best Supporting Actor for Judas and the Black Messiah. The outstanding performers in Minari garnered that film the AFCA’s Best Ensemble award.

The winner of this year’s Robert R. “Bobby” McCurdy Memorial Breakthrough Artist Award is Radha Blank for her remarkable work, The 40-Year-Old Version.

Other major awards include a Best Adapted Screenplay and Best Editing win for Chloé Zhao (Nomadland), Wolfwalkers winning Best Animated Feature, and Boys State winning Best Documentary.

The full list of winners, plus the AFCA Top Ten Films of 2020, is included below.

Best Film: Minari (dir: Lee Isaac Chung)

Best Director: Lee Isaac Chung, Minari

Best Actress: Carey Mulligan, Promising Young Woman

Best Actor: Riz Ahmed, Sound of Metal

Best Supporting Actress: Youn Yuh-jung, Minari

Best Supporting Actor: Daniel Kaluuya, Judas and the Black Messiah

Best Ensemble: Minari

Best Original Screenplay: Lee Issac Chung, Minari

Best Adapted Screenplay: Chloé Zhao, Nomadland

Best Cinematography: Joshua James Richards, Nomadland

Best Score: Trent Reznor, Atticus Ross, and Jon Batiste, Soul

Best Editing: Chloé Zhao, Nomadland

Best Foreign-Language Film: Minari (dir: Lee Isaac Chung)

Best Documentary: Boys State (dir: Jesse Moss, Amanda McBaine)

Best Animated Film: Wolfwalkers (dir: Tomm Moore, Ross Stewart)

Best Stunts: The Invisible Man

Best Motion Capture/Special Effects Performance: Elisabeth Moss, The Invisible Man

Best First Film: Promising Young Woman (dir: Emerald Fennell)

The Robert R. “Bobby” McCurdy Memorial Breakthrough Artist Award: Radha Blank, The 40-Year-Old Version

Austin Film Award: Greenland (dir: Ric Roman Waugh)

Special Honorary Award: Honoring Miss Juneteenth with a “Texas Spirit” award, for exemplifying the creative output of the film industry here in the Lone Star State, as well as embodying the character of our community.



AFCA 2020 Top Ten Films:

  1. Minari
  2. Nomadland
  3. Promising Young Woman
  4. First Cow
  5. Never Rarely Sometimes Always
  6. One Night in Miami…
  7. (tie) Palm Springs and Sound of Metal

9. (tie) The Invisible Man and Mank



Founded in 2005 by Cole Dabney & Bobby McCurdy, the AFCA has seen its membership grow from single digits to well over 30 members. The diverse outlets our members contribute to include Austin American-Statesman, the Austin Chronicle, Austin360.com, But Why Tho Podcast, Cinapse, Daily Grindhouse, the Daily Dot, the Daily Texan, Double Toasted, Fangoria, Film School Rejects, FirstShowing.net, GotchaMovies, Hammer to Nail, Hill Country News, Horror’s Not Dead, KOOP 91.7 FM Radio, Movies.com, Nerdist, Next Projection, One Movie Punch, One Of Us, ScreenCrush, Slashfilm, Smells Like Screen Spirit, and True View Reviews.


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