Green Book in Oscars race after National Board of Review award

Best film prize goes to drama starring Mahershala Ali and Viggo Mortensen, in US awards with form in picking Oscar contenders

The National Board of Review, the New York-based film-industry association with a small but influential membership, has named the racial-discrimination comedy drama Green Book as its best film of the year. With a history of picking major Oscar contenders – such as The Post in 2017 and Manchester By the Sea in 2016 – the NBR’s awards are seen as an early Oscar bellwether as awards campaigns get under way.

Directed by Peter Farrelly, Green Book stars Mahershala Ali and Viggo Mortensen as an African American pianist and his Italian American driver/bodyguard as they travel across the deep south on a concert tour. It is named after a well-known guidebook considered vital for African American travellers in the US southern states during the Jim Crow era.

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