London critics pick A Prophet and Fish Tank
Mark Brown www.theguardian.com
Jacques Audiard's gripping prison drama and Andrea Arnold's unflinching portrait of an Essex girl were the big winners at the London Critics' Circle awards
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the Guardian
Forget the big blue aliens, the best film of the year – according to 91 of Britain's professional critics – is the brutal, gripping French prison drama A Prophet.

The Jacques Audiard saga was tonight named film of the year at the 30th London Critics' Circle awards in central London, at a ceremony where James Cameron's Avatar did not even get a mention.

Chairman and Observer writer Jason Solomons called it a victory for world cinema and said critics were fed up with "the ghettoisation of films at awards ceremonies". He added: "The overwhelming feeling was that this year, the energy, daring, skill and drama of the best European film-makers should be recognised at the highest level possible. For those who love film, the only real language is that of cinema itself and, in A Prophet, director Jacques Audiard articulates it beautifully."

The win will be welcomed by those who argue that it has been a far from vintage year for English language films, while the three head-and-shoulders best films of the past year have arguably been A Prophet, Michael Haneke's The White Ribbon and Tomas Alfredson's Let the Right One In. The latter, a delightful Swedish vampire movie, was awarded best foreign film by the Critics' Circle.

The most awards, however, went to Fish Tank, Andrea Arnold's kitchen sink-style account of a dysfunctional working-class Essex family. It was named best British film while lead actor, newcomer Katie Jarvis, won best young performer for her memorable portrayal of Mia, the confused and angry 15-year-old at the heart of the film, and Michael Fassbender won best British supporting actor.

Arnold herself won best British director, part of a double victory for women directors, as Kathryn Bigelow was named best director for another unflinching film, the Iraq war drama The Hurt Locker.

Quentin Tarantino was at the ceremony in person to receive an outstanding achievement award named in honour of the great Sunday Times critic, Dilys Powell. His highly individual take on the second world war, Inglourious Basterds, brought an award for Christoph Waltz, who won best actor for his portrayal of the sadistic Nazi "Jew hunter".

The best actress award went to Mo'Nique for her extraordinary performance as the mother in Precious. Her win is the latest in a long list of critics' awards and she is odds on to take the best supporting actress category at the Oscars and this Sunday's Baftas.

Other winners included Carey Mulligan, whose best British actress prize was the only one of An Education's seven nominations to bear fruit; Colin Firth was best British actor for A Single Man; Anne-Marie Duff was best British supporting actress for playing John Lennon's mum in Nowhere Boy; Duncan Jones was breakthrough British film-maker for Moon; and Armando Iannucci, Jesse Armstrong, Simon Blackwell, and Tony Roche won the screenwriting award for In the Loop.