Many believe that The New York Film Critics Circle Awards serve as a portent of what to expect during Oscar season. If this is true, then THE SOCIAL NETWORK and THE KIDS ARE ALL RIGHT have a lot to look forward to.

THE SOCIAL NETWORK was able to nab the awards for Best Picture and Best Director for David Fincher, while THE KIDS ARE ALL RIGHT took home the most awards with three.

Two of the last three years, the Academy Awards have named the same best picture winner as the New York Film Critics. Its only exception was that MILK beat out SLUMDOG MILLIONAIRE two years ago. This win, along with their win from the Los Angeles Film Critics Association, now ushers THE SOCIAL NETWORK into a whole new standing for Oscar voters. What started out as "the Facebook movie," jumped to critical success, then commercial success, and finally blossomed as an awards' season force. Fincher was seen by many as one of the best directors to never receive a nomination for an Oscar until he received one for THE CURIOUS CASE OF BENJAMIN BUTTON in 2009. He is all but assured an Oscar nomination this time around and could be viewed as the favorite.

THE KIDS ARE ALL RIGHT picked up the awards for the screenplay by Lisa Cholodenko and Stuart Blumberg, the female lead played by Annette Bening, and the male supporting role played by Mark Ruffalo. No other film garnered multiple awards. Colin Firth took home the best actor award for THE KING'S SPEECH and Melissa Leo won best supporting actress for THE FIGHTER. Both Firth and Leo have been nominated for Oscars in the last two years.

BLACK SWAN received one award for Matthew Libatique's cinematography, while the best animated feature and first feature awards both went to foreign films; France's THE ILLUSIONIST won the former and Australia's ANIMAL KINGDOM won the latter. However, the French/German film CARLOS took home the best foreign film award. INSIDE JOB, a film about the crash of Wall Street, rounded out the awards by taking home the non-fiction film prize.

The most conspicuous omission from the winners would be Christopher Nolan's INCEPTION. Many believed INCEPTION would be the big budget special effects film that could challenge for the Best Picture Oscar the way AVATAR did last year and LORD OF THE RINGS: THE RETURN OF THE KING did when it won in 2003. If the New York Film Critics are any indication, Christopher Nolan's film has a lot of catching up to do.