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I have to be very, very careful filling out my Southeastern Film Critics Association award ballot every year, lest I devote hours obsessing over which performance is best, and which deserves my support in the voting. I keep my sense of proportion when I remember that I’m one of 46 voting critics representing nine states, and usually my top choices don’t make the final tally. Mostly I’m pleased that SEFCA remembered my No. 3 pick Zodiac, which is brilliant yet has been ignored almost completely in the year-end wrap-ups.

TOP TEN FILMS

1. Ratatouille

2. Sweeney Todd

3. Zodiac

4. The Savages

5. Hot Fuzz

6. No Country for Old Men

7. Deep Water

8. Atonement

9. There Will Be Blood

10. Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix

(It was hard excluding Knocked Up, Before the Devil Knows You’re Dead and In the Shadow of the Moon from my top 10.)

BEST ACTOR

1. Philip Seymour Hoffman, Before the Devil Knows You’re Dead

2. Daniel Day-Lewis, There Will Be Blood

3. Brad Pitt, The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford

(I almost picked Hoffman twice, for The Savages as well. I also almost picked Simon Pegg from Hot Fuzz.)

BEST ACTRESS

1. Marion Cotillard, La Vie en Rose

2. Laura Linney, The Savages

3. Carice van Houten, Black Book

More categories and obsessive-compulsiveness follows.

BEST SUPPORTING ACTOR

1. Javier Bardem, No Country for Old Men

2. Paul Rudd, Knocked Up

3. Philip Seymour Hoffman, Charlie Wilson’s War

(Oddly enough, I had a hard time filling out this category and came this close to naming Will Arnett from Blades of Glory as my No. 3.)

BEST SUPPORTING ACTRESS

1. Tilda Swinton, Michael Clayton

2. Saoirse Ronan, Atonement

3. Romola Garai, Atonement

(In contrast, I had a ton of strong contenders for this category, including Imelda Staunton from Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix and Sigourney Weaver from The TV Set.)

BEST DIRECTOR

1. David Fincher, Zodiac

2. Tim Burton, Sweeney Todd

3. Ethan and Joel Coen, No Country for Old Men

BEST DOCUMENTARY

1. Deep Water

2. In the Shadow of the Moon

3. Sicko

BEST FOREIGN LANGUAGE FILM

1. The Diving Bell and the Butterfly

2. Persepolis

3. The Host

BEST ANIMATED FILM

1. Ratatouille

2. Persepolis

3. Beowulf

BEST ORIGINAL SCREENPLAY

1. Before the Devil Knows You’re Dead, Kelly Masterson

2. The Savages, Tamara Jenkins

3. The Host, Baek Chul-hyun, Bong Joon-ho

BEST ADAPTED SCREENPLAY

1. Atonement, Christopher Hampton

2. Zodiac, James Vanderbilt

3. There Will Be Blood, Paul Thomas Anderson

(If I’d thought of it, I might have actually picked Beowulf for one of those. But I didn’t think of it.)

The GENE WYATT AWARD for BEST FILM WITH A SOUTHERN THEME

1. A Man Named Pearl

2. Great World of Sound

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