♪♪♪ 2023 was an incredibly strong and memorable year in cinema, from movies that created unforgettable worlds and imagination and fantasy to others grounded in touching, real-world characters and scenarios, there was no shortage of exciting and heart-stirring work.

I feel really honored.

I mean, it's a great year for movies, and this is a great, movie-loving organization, and I just feel honored to win this group thing because I know how many good movies are out there.

So are you like a cow or a Dalmatian?

I am the Spot.

[ Laughs ] It's not funny.

Don't -- Don't do that.

It's pretty humbling and it's pretty amazing because this is a very small community, filmmakers and animation, artists that all know each other, and we're all really trying to make films for ourselves and for each other.

And to know that all these people that we look up to and that we've, you know, admired our whole careers are also admiring the work that we've done is pretty amazing.

Miles' grades are pretty good.

A in AP physics, That's my little man.

And a B in Spanish.

What?!

Hoo, okay.

Miles, mira.

Are you trying to kill me?

I gotta go, all right?

Bye.

He's lying to you.

Powers: I mean, honestly, the biggest relief for us is that the film came out, people enjoyed it, and it connected to an audience.

Knowing that we were doing something so different, this is all just like a cherry on top to be a part of this.

The fact that the film found the audience, that was really the big one for us.

Arthur: What a good story this is.

Childhood sweethearts who reconnect 20 years later and realize they were meant for each other.

In the story, I would be the evil white American husband standing in the way of destiny.

Shut up.

Magaro: I just knew that this was something special.

And to have people respond to it and have, you know, like the NBR and the Globes and everyone really recognize it has been so rewarding.

Green: I mean, you make a film and you just are in a dark room, you don't know what's going to happen to it.

And this weird movie about sound has been very successful.

So it's gratifying to be here.

I'm listening to a whole other world down there, aquatic insects, bugs, fish.

I think of sound as being a channel of connection.

[ Ship horn blares ] Right now I'm soaking it all in, and I'm just -- 'Cause this is just like a miracle.

I mean, I love it.

I wrote this deeply personal love story, you know, about these three broken people who find each other and heal each other in the kind of like the season of miracles, and this is kind of a miracle for me.

I can't believe I'm here.

It's just really wonderful and I'm really, really grateful.

Paul: Do you think I want to be babysitting you?

No, I was praying your mother would pick up the phone or your father would arrive in a helicopter or a flying saucer to take a-- My father's dead.

I receive this Best Actor award, I can look at this bookended two decades and say, okay, I -- I actually did something.

Telling quality stories of Black women is not often occurring, so I take deep pride and focus in trying to make that as authentic and as real as possible.

Mary: You don't tell a boy that's been left behind at Christmas that nobody wants him.

What's wrong with you?

The chance to play a woman with such beauty and such depth.

I like to think that a little spark of Mary was swirling around in the universe, searching for me.

I want to gracefully thank the NBR for bestowing me with this amazing honor.

I'm beyond touched and I'm so grateful.

Thank you for seeing me.

Inez: All right.

We're gonna go to Harlem, where I grew up at.

The city had him.

He's not supposed to be with me.

Can't you get locked up for that?

Not if you keep it to yourself.

Everything that is happening for me is happening in the time that it needed to happen.

I am blessed, and I'm not even no longer living in the, you know, what should have been given to me.

I'm living in the now.

I'm grateful.

I'm thankful.

A good friend, Michael J.

Fox.

So it's always great to honor someone who you've been friends with and well deserving of the recognition he gets tonight.

We tend to think of documentaries as journalism, and our journalism, but they're also cinema.

And he's a master.

He tricked me into saying [bleep] I never would.

[ Laughter ] Anybody.

It's hard to really even imagine sustaining that kind of, everyone, you have to stop what you're doing and pay attention level of excellence that Martin Scorsese has maintained all these years.

Hale: The Osage, they have the worst land possible.

But they outsmarted everybody.

The land had oil on it, black gold.

Money flows freely here now.

I do love that money, sir.

The deliberate care that was taken by the team during production and while sharing the film with audiences to treat Osage people with the reverence, respect that they deserve.

So I want to thank Marty.

I want to thank the cast.

I'd like to thank all that's involved in this movie for reaching out through this barrier that we have among our people, showing love, care and respect.

Scorsese: I thank the Osage.

I thank the Osage Nation for all of it.

I thank you.

And a generous, generous honor here tonight with this film.

Thank you so much.