Not that you'll care on the day - you'll be too busy wondering where Reese Witherspoon bought her wonderful shoes - but No Country For Old Men looks like the movie to beat come Oscar Night.

The New York Film Critics Circle yesterday announced the winners of their annual awards, and No Country For Old Men came out on top. As with all movie awards, industry experts are already analysing the results to see how the New York awards will influence the result of next year's Oscars, which already looks like a two-horse race between No Country For Old Men and There Will Be Blood. That's at least until the East Surrey Association Of Women Who Get The Bus To The Supermarket On Thursday Mornings reveals that I Now Pronounce You Chuck And Larry is their choice for top movie of the year. Very influential bunch, them.

No Country For Old Men, the new movie by the Coen brothers, is quite good - and we know this because a bunch of dusty old historians just said so.

The National Board of Review yesterday voted No Country For Old Men as the best film of 2007, the first high-profile movie awards to be handed out in what's due to become a predictably tiresome three-month awards season. But that's not the only reason why the National Board of Review awards are significant - they've also ensured that everyone will be so sick of the babble surrounding No Country For Old Men by February that it doesn't even stand a sniff of a chance of winning an Oscar any more.