'Wonder Woman's Gal Gadot And Patty Jenkins Win NBR Spotlight Award

The year hasn't officially come to a close and the biggest film awards ceremonies won't be held until early 2018, but Wonder Woman has officially scored accolades from the National Board of Review. The organization awarded actress Gal Gadot and director Patty Jenkins the Spotlight Award for the film's accomplishments.

What makes this specific award so unique is that, rather than a traditional category like Best Actress or Best Director, the honor can be bestowed to anyone or anything, whether it be a filmmaking team or specific movie. Given the volume of compelling cinema released in 2017, this makes the accolade even more highly regarded.

One factor that makes this organization unique is that, with the awards being declared so early on in the awards season, it can add legitimacy to a film's aspirations in the awards circuits. For example, the NBR championed Mad Max: Fury Road for its accomplishments, leading to the action masterpiece earning a bevy of nominations at that year's Academy Awards.

The Spotlight Award is only the latest in a long line of achievements for the superhero film, including becoming the best-reviewed superhero movie of all time on review aggregator site Rotten Tomatoes. The site, which compiles reviews of a film based on a binary fresh-rotten indicator, not only tabulated the ratio of positive and negative reviews, but also accounted for the number of reviews a film had received to determine that Wonder Woman topped Logan and The Dark Knight.

Critical praise isn't the only accomplishment the film achieved, as it also became the top-grossing superhero origin movie of all time, surpassing 2002's Spider-Man and its $821.7 worldwide gross with a number that continues to grow.

The superhero genre is often dismissed when it becomes time for awards season, but Warner Bros. is pushing for the various awards groups to notice Wonder Woman's accomplishments, launching a massive For Your Consideration campaign for the film.

In addition to nine of its cast members being submitted for consideration at the ceremony, including Gadot, Chris Pine and Connie Nielsen, the film also could score big in the technical department with campaigns for Best Cinematography, Best Film Editing and Best Visual Effects.

Wonder Woman is now available on home video.

[H/T National Board of Review]