American splendour named best picture by US critics

American Splendor, the autobiography of a grumpy file clerk who attains cult celebrity status by becoming a comic book writer, took best picture honours at the National Society of Film Critics awards in the US.

Clint Eastwood’s working class crime drama, Mystic River, was second in the voting for best picture and Sofia Coppola’s Lost in Translation, a quirky tale of two Americans finding friendship while in Japan, took third.