The 23rd Annual Black Reel Awards announced its winners during a live stream on Monday evening. The top prize went to “The Woman King,” which also topped OMCP’s Best Films of 2022.
WTOP’s Jason Fraley Recaps The Black Reel Awards (Part 1)
The 23rd Annual Black Reel Awards announced its winners during a live stream on Monday evening.
The top prize went to “The Woman King,” which also topped OMCP’s Best Films of 2022.
That’s the vindication of Viola Davis’ action war epic, which was snubbed by the Academy with zero Oscar nominations last month, but is now getting its due at the Black Reel Awards.
“The Woman King” not only won the top award for best picture, but also the best director award for Gina-Prince Bythewood. Best known for its sports romance ‘Love & Basketball’ (2000), Bythewood has added the thrill of diversity to the good old-fashioned show story for the best war epic since ‘Braveheart’ (1995) and ‘Gladiator’ (2000).
Jeremy Pope won Best Actor as a young gay black man who is rejected by his mother and decides to join the Marines in “The Inspection.” Pope visited the WTOP in 2018 when he performed in The Temptations musical “Ain’t Too Proud” at the Kennedy Center.
Danielle Deadwyler deservedly won Outstanding Actress for ‘Till’ as the grieving mother of Emmett Till, who was infamously lynched in 1955. Deadwyler was also snubbed by the Oscars, despite a heartbreaking courtroom scene trying to bring the perpetrators to justice. WTOP spoke with 14-year-old Jalyn Hall in October about her work with Deadwyler.
Brian Tyree Henry won Best Supporting Actor for ‘Causeway,’ playing an auto mechanic traumatized by a family car accident as he bonds with injured US Army veteran Jennifer Lawrence traumatic brain injury while fighting in the war in Afghanistan.
Angela Bassett won Best Supporting Actress for Marvel’s “Black Panther: Wakanda Forever,” playing T’Challa’s grieving mother, Ramonda, trying to hold on after the real-life death of Chadwick Boseman. Bassett is now widely considered the favorite to win her first Oscar, having previously lost for ‘What’s Love Got to Do With It’ (1993).
Zoe Saldana has won the Outstanding Vocal Performance award for her motion capture performance as blue heroine Na’vi Neytiri in James Cameron’s blockbuster ‘Avatar: The Way of the Water’.
Outstanding Emerging Director went to Nikyatu Jusu, a professor of film at George Mason University, who became the second black filmmaker to win the Grand Jury Prize in the American Drama Competition at the Sundance Film Festival for her film “Nanny” horror.
Based in DC, the Black Reel Awards were founded by Washington Area Film Critics Association President Tim Gordon to shine a light on filmmakers of color, who too often go unnoticed or overlooked by Academy members.
View all winners here.
WTOP’s Jason Fraley Recaps The Black Reel Awards (Part 2)
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