LA Critics name ‘Call Me By Your Name’ best film of 2017

Luca Guadagnino (Director), Timothee Chalamet, Armie Hammer, Michael Stulbarg (Photo by Call me by your name/Facebook)

NEW YORK — The Los Angeles Film Critics Association voted “Call Me By Your Name” the best film of the year, bestowing a total of three awards on Luca Guadagnino’s erotic coming-of-age tale.

The critics, who announced their awards Sunday on Twitter, also named the film’s breakout star, Timothee Chalamet, best actor. Guadagnino shared in the award for best director with Guillermo del Toro for “The Shape of Water.” Del Toro’s Cold War-era fairytale also came away with three awards, including best actress for Sally Hawkins.

The wins further solidified “Call Me By Your Name” as an Oscar favourite. The Sony Pictures Classics release, which last week set the year’s box-office record for best screen-average in its limited-release debut, also won best feature at last week’s Gotham Awards. Chalamet, though just 21, has won three awards just in the past week, besting veteran names like Gary Oldman (“Darkest Hour”) and Tom Hanks (“The Post”).

Greta Gerwig’s “Lady Bird,” which the New York Film Critics Circle named best film, landed one award from the Los Angeles critics: Laurie Metcalf for best supporting actress. The Los Angeles critics also gave Gerwig, whose film is her first solo directorial effort, its “new generation” award.

The Los Angeles critics matched in some categories with their New York counterparts, who announced awards on Tuesday. Both groups selected Willem Dafoe (“The Florida Project”) for best supporting actor and Agnes Varda’s “Faces Places” for best documentary.

But as usual they deviated in most other ways. (Last year, the New York critics voted “La La Land” best picture, while the Los Angeles critics went for “Moonlight.”) Christopher Nolan’s “Dunkirk,” which is considered an Oscar favourite though it has won little in the early going, took best editing for Lee Smith.

The group also opted not for Pixar’s “Coco” as best animated film, but “The Breadwinner,” an international production about a girl in Afghanistan. Best screenplay went to Jordan Peele for “Get Out.”

Best music or score was given to Jonny Greenwood for Paul Thomas Anderson’s “Phantom Thread.” The Los Angeles critics arrived at a tie for foreign-language film, splitting the award between the French “BPM” and the Russian “Loveless.”

Other awards included Dan Laustsen for the cinematography to “The Shape of Water” and Dennis Gassner for the production design of “Blade Runner 2049.”

The awards will be handed out in a ceremony January 13 in Los Angeles. The critics earlier chose actor Max von Sydow for its career achievement award.