L.A. Film Critics Name BBC/Amazon Prime Anthology Series ‘Small Axe’ Best Movie of 2020

The Los Angeles Film Critics Association (LAFCA) named their best films and performances of 2020 on Sunday. The awards were announced via the critics group’s Twitter account. The group is led by Claudia Puig as president, with more than 60 other journalists composing the voting body.

The LAFCA shifted drastically from Friday’s New York Film Critics Circle winners, which gave Kelly Reichardt’s “First Cow” the best film of the year prize. The L.A. critics crowned Steve McQueen’s “Small Axe,” a BBC anthology series, as the best “film” of the year. 

Quotations are indeed needed for “Small Axe” as it is composed of 5 different films, the shortest clocking in at 68 minutes (Lovers Rock) and the lengthiest at 122 minutes (Mangrove) With the Oscars delayed until April 25, this puts some much-needed pressure for the AMPAS voting body to make McQueen’s films eligible for every major category as it most certainly has films and performances deserving of being honoured – last year’s top LAFCA prize was awarded to Bong Joon Ho’s “Parasite,” which went on to win Best Picture at the 2020 Academy Awards.

Officially, the definition of “feature-length” varies according to the source. The Screen Actors Guild declares it as “a film that is at least 75-minutes long”, while AMPAS, BFI, and AFI mention a “runtime superior to 40 minutes”. The Cambridge Dictionary says 90 minutes.

I’ve always felt as though the method of distribution (and how the distributors categorize the work) should be how we look at it. On the other hand, though, Oscar eligibility rules changed to waive the theatrical release requirements in 2020 due to the pandemic. So movies released on streaming platforms can be submitted to the Oscars without a qualifying theatrical run. “Small Axe” should qualify, except that the BBC decided to submit it as a TV series for next year’s Emmys. Yikes.

There have been some interesting wrinkles in the difference between “film” and “TV” in recent years, especially with streaming and a rise in popularity of the anthology series, but “Small Axe” being treated like a single film by the most prestigious critics organizations (NYFCC and LAFCA) seems a noteworthy and important event.

It’s the “Twin Peaks: The Return” situation all over again.

McQueen’s triumphant film, series, whatever you want to call it, is an anthology of feature-length films, all sharing the same theme of the Black British experience, some of which are almost biopics, and dramatizations of real-life historic events. The runtime of the Small Axe films are :

Mangrove: 127 minutes
Lovers Rock: 70 minutes
Red, White and Blue: 80 minutes
Alex Wheatle: 66 minutes
Education: 63 minutes

FULL LIST OF LAFCA WINNERS