New York Film Critics Circle Award / Best First Work

Winner of the New York Film Critics Circle in the category Best debut ( Best First Film ). The category was originally introduced in 1989 as Best Directing Debut ( Best New Director ). In 1997 the name was changed to the current name. The category is awarded separately from that for the best film .

Of the previously award-winning works, only A Piglet Named Babe (1995), In the Bedroom (2001) and Capote (2005) received Oscar nominations in the Best Picture category . The 2015 winner, Son of Saul , later won the Academy Award for Best Foreign Language Film .

The annual figures in the table indicate the film years assessed; the awards were given in the following year.

year	Award winners	German title	Director
1989	Henry V	Henry V.	Kenneth Branagh
1990	Metropolitan	Metropolitan - Damn, bourgeois, in love	Whit Stillman
1991	Boyz n the Hood	Boyz n the Hood - boys in the neighborhood	John Singleton
1992	Gas Food Lodging	Gas Food Lodging	Allison Anders
1993	Prize not awarded
1994	I like it like that	Life is Trouble	Darnell Martin
1995	Babe	A pig named Babe	Chris Noonan
1996	Big night	Big night	Campbell Scott
1997	In the Company of Men	In the Company of Men	Neil LaBute
1998	Love and Death on Long Island	Life and death on Long Island	Richard Kwietniowski
1999	Being John Malkovich	Being John Malkovich	Spike Jonze
2000	George Washington	George Washington	David Gordon Green
2001	In the bedroom	In the bedroom	Todd Field
2002	Roger Dodger	Sex for beginners	Dylan Kidd
2003	American Splendor	American Splendor	Shari Springer Berman Robert Pulcini
2004	Maria Full of Grace	Mary full of grace	Joshua Marston
2005	Capote	Capote	Bennett Miller
2006	Helped Nelson	Helped Nelson	Ryan Fleck
2007	Away from Her	At your side	Sarah Polley
2008	Frozen River	Frozen River	Courtney Hunt
2009	hunger	hunger	Steve McQueen
2010	Animal Kingdom	Kingdom of Crime	David Michôd
2011	Margin call	The big crash margin call	JC Chandor
2012	How to Survive a Plague	How to Survive a Plague	David France
2013	Fruitvale Station	Next stop: Fruitvale Station	Ryan Coogler
2014	The Babadook	The babadook	Jennifer Kent
2015	Saul fia	Son of Saul	László Nemes
2016	The Edge of Seventeen	The Edge of Seventeen - The year of decision	Kelly Fremon Craig
	Krisha	not known	Trey Edward Shults
2017	Get out	Get out	Jordan Peele
2018	Eighth grade	Eighth grade	Bo Burnham
2019	Atlantique	not known	Mati Diop

Nominations

1. ↑ In 1989 Steve Kloves ( The Fabulous Baker Boys ) and Jim Sheridan ( My Left Foot ) received nominations.
2. ↑ In 1991, Anthony Minghella ( How Crazy and From the Bottom of the Heart ) received a nomination.
3. ↑ In 1992, Tim Robbins ( Bob Roberts ) and Quentin Tarantino ( Reservoir Dogs ) received nominations.