The French-language drama Amour was chosen on Sunday as the year’s best film by the Los Angeles Film Critics Association, whose prizes are among a flurry of year-end honours that help sort out the Academy Awards race.
The Master also was chosen as best-picture runner-up. The film stars Phoenix as a volatile second world war veteran who comes under the sway of a charismatic cult leader. Adams co-stars as the cult leader’s tough-minded wife.
Amour star Emmanuelle Riva, who plays an elderly, ailing woman being cared for by her husband, shared the best-actress honour in a tie with Jennifer Lawrence of the lost-soul romance Silver Linings Playbook.
Newcomer Dwight Henry was chosen as supporting actor for the low-budget critical darling Beasts of the Southern Wild. The film’s writer-director, Benh Zeitlin, received the group’s New Generation Award and shared the prize for best music score with composing partner Dan Romer.
Directed by Michael Haneke, Amour is Austria’s entry for the foreign-language Oscar and won the top honour at the Cannes Film Festival in May.