At the NBR Awards, emotional speeches by Jafar Panahi and Ryan Coogler stir the room

NEW YORK (AP) — An emotional plea by Iranian filmmaker Jafar Panahi and moving words from Ryan Coogler on the violence in Minneapolis stirred a National Board of Review Awards ceremony Tuesday in which Paul Thomas Anderson’s “One Battle After Another” was again crowned the best film of the year.

Coming two days after Sunday’s Golden Globes, the annual, untelevised New York gala, held in the cavernous midtown banquet all Cipriani 42nd Street and hosted by Willie Geist, played out as a more intimate and frank-spoken alternative.

The winners themselves were already announced, so the night was always going to belong to “One Battle After Another.” The National Board of review, a group that is made up of film enthusiasts and dates to 1909, not only named it 2025’s best film but awarded the best actor prize to Leonardo DiCaprio, best director to Anderson, best supporting actor to Benicio Del Toro and breakthrough performer to Chase Infiniti.

Yet in an ongoing parade of awards for “One Battle After Another,” its night at the NBRs still stood out. The surprise presenter of the movie’s best film award was Martin Scorsese, who praised “the audacity” of Anderson’s narratives and the accomplishment of his latest.

“Like all great films, it can’t really be compared to anything else,” Scorsese said. “It stands alone. It’s a great American film.”

Anderson, trying to take in the wealth of honors, attempted to describe what “ One Battle After Another,” his father-daughter tale of revolution, might represent. His answer came in pointing out his own daughter, sitting at his table.

“I don’t know what our movie is about, but I do know it’s about loving your kids,” Anderson said.

For many of the honorees, the world outside the starry banquet weighed heavily. Coogler’s speech was among the night’s most poignant. The “Sinners” director was honored for his screenplay for the vampire thriller and was introduced by the film’s star, longtime collaborator Michael B. Jordan.

Both were honored 13 years earlier by the board for their first movie together, “ Fruitvale Station.” Recalling that film, based on the true story of the 2009 killing of Oscar Grant by a Bay Area Rapid Transit police officer in Oakland, California, Coogler turned to the recent fatal shooting of Renee Nicole Good by an immigration enforcement agent in Minneapolis.

“I was young and naive, and I thought the movie was going to change the world and make it so you didn’t see people executed by civil service on camera anymore,” Coogler said. “I was proven wrong again and again. And it’s tough to be here and not think about Minnesota.”

“I can’t be here and not think about Renee,” Coogler added.

Still, the ceremony’s most powerful words came from Panahi, the dissident Iranian filmmaker who for nearly two decades worked clandestinely in his native country while being placed under house arrest and jailed. Panahi’s latest, “ It Was Just an Accident,” was awarded best international film.

The movie, inspired by Panahi's own imprisonment, is a revenge drama about stopping the cycle of violence and oppression in Iran. On Tuesday the death toll from a nationwide crackdown on demonstrators in that country surpassed 2,500, according to activists.

“As we stand here, the state of Iran is gunning down protesters and a savage massacre continues blatantly on the streets of Iran,” Panahi said. “Today the real scene is not on screens but on the streets of Iran. The Islamic Republic has caused a bloodbath to delay its collapse.”

“This is no longer a metaphor,” he continued. “This is not a story. This is not a film. This is a reality written with bullets day after day.”

Panahi called on the film community to speak out and “use any voice and any platform you have.”

“Today, cinema has the power to stand by defenseless people,” Panahi said. “Let’s stand by them.”

Panahi’s remarks, delivered through an interpreter, shook the audience. And when the next award went to Clint Bentley and Greg Kwedar, for adapted screenplay for their plaintive Pacific Northwest period drama “Train Dreams,” the filmmakers seemed to cut short their speech, which was partially about how making the movie and then promoting it through awards season meant sacrificing time with their young children.

“When the world is kind of burning down, it can feel frivolous at times,” Bentley said. “I just want to say thank you most of all to Mr. Panahi for reminding us for what we can do with the medium and why it can be worth doing.”

Jafar Panahi attends the National Board of Review Awards gala at Cipriani 42nd Street on Tuesday, Jan. 13, 2026, in New York. (Photo by Evan Agostini/Invision/AP)

Leonardo DiCaprio attends the National Board of Review Awards gala at Cipriani 42nd Street on Tuesday, Jan. 13, 2026, in New York. (Photo by Evan Agostini/Invision/AP)

Ryan Coogler attends the National Board of Review Awards gala at Cipriani 42nd Street on Tuesday, Jan. 13, 2026, in New York. (Photo by Evan Agostini/Invision/AP)

Chase Infiniti attends the National Board of Review Awards gala at Cipriani 42nd Street on Tuesday, Jan. 13, 2026, in New York. (Photo by Evan Agostini/Invision/AP)

Michael B. Jordan attends the National Board of Review Awards gala at Cipriani 42nd Street on Tuesday, Jan. 13, 2026, in New York. (Photo by Evan Agostini/Invision/AP)

Benicio Del Toro attends the National Board of Review Awards gala at Cipriani 42nd Street on Tuesday, Jan. 13, 2026, in New York. (Photo by Evan Agostini/Invision/AP)

Leonardo DiCaprio attends the National Board of Review Awards gala at Cipriani 42nd Street on Tuesday, Jan. 13, 2026, in New York. (Photo by Evan Agostini/Invision/AP)

Sara Murphy, from left, Teyana Taylor, Paul Thomas Anderson, and Chase Infiniti pose in the press room with the award for best motion picture – musical or comedy for "One Battle After Another" during the 83rd Golden Globes on Sunday, Jan. 11, 2026, at the Beverly Hilton in Beverly Hills, Calif. (AP Photo/Chris Pizzello)

DUBAI, United Arab Emirates (AP) — Iran on Tuesday denounced the most recent U.S. strikes as a sign of “bad faith and unreliability” as negotiations pressed on toward a possible deal to end the war, and the Islamic Republic began restoring internet access after one of the longest nationwide shutdowns ever.

The U.S. military characterized Monday's strikes in southern Iran as defensive, saying targets included missile launch sites and minelaying boats, and said the U.S. acted with “restraint" in light of the weekslong ceasefire.

Iran's foreign ministry called the strikes a ceasefire violation and warned that Washington would bear responsibility for “all consequences,” without elaborating.

“The Islamic Republic of Iran will leave no act of aggression unanswered,” it added in a statement.

Iran’s Revolutionary Guard said Tuesday that it shot down at least one drone and deterred another drone and a fighter jet that entered its airspace, according to Iran’s official Mizan news agency. It didn't specify when the incidents occurred.

Iran's supreme leader, Mojtaba Khamenei, used a statement about Islam's annual Hajj pilgrimage to address his country's confrontation with the U.S. and Israel, declaring that other Mideast nations “will no longer serve as a shield” for U.S. military bases. Iran has previously complained about U.S. military facilities in the region and targeted them.

It was not immediately clear what the developments would mean for negotiations.

Iranian state TV reported Tuesday that Iranian Parliament Speaker Mohammad Bagher Qalibaf and Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi left Qatar, where talks had been taking place. The report did not elaborate or point to any next steps. In Washington, U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio projected that talks on extending the ceasefire and reopening the crucial Strait of Hormuz will “take a few days."

Meanwhile, Iranian authorities eased a monthslong internet shutdown that they cast as a wartime necessity, but that has cost the country's economy an estimated $30 million to $40 million a day. Internet users reported that access was gradually being restored, at least in some places. State media reported that fixed broadband service was partially restored. Mobile internet wasn't yet working.

Iran has long enforced filters and policed content on platforms such as YouTube and Instagram. But before the war, Iranians could bypass restrictions with cheap virtual private networks, known as VPNs, and other easy workarounds.

Authorities cut off internet access in January during massive anti-government demonstrations and later began to relax those restrictions before imposing a complete internet blackout after the U.S. and Israel attacked on Feb. 28.

The internet outage made it difficult for Iranians outside the country to maintain contact with loved ones, and the lack of connectivity devastated the country’s relatively vibrant online businesses, putting further pressure on an already battered economy.

In other developments, Iran hanged a man it convicted of spying for Israel, the latest of more than two dozen allegedly espionage- and security-related executions since the war intensified a crackdown on dissent.

The Iranian judiciary’s news outlet, Mizanonline, identified the man as Gholamreza Khani Shakarab, calling him “a ringleader” for operations for Israel’s intelligence agency, the Mossad, and accusing him of recruiting members inside and outside Iran to work against the nation’s security. He was involved in sports and traveled to neighboring countries, according to the news agency.

Activists and rights groups say Iran routinely holds closed-door trials in which defendants are unable to challenge accusations and often are forced to confess.

The official judiciary agency said the country’s Supreme Court had upheld Shakarab's death sentence.

The U.S. strikes were the latest flare-up in the fragile ceasefire that began April 7 and has largely held.

Negotiations center in part on the Strait of Hormuz, the crucial waterway off southern Iran through which a fifth of the world's crude oil and natural gas passed before the war began. Once the fighting started, Tehran retaliated by effectively closing the strait, stranding hundreds of ships, shocking the global economy, disrupting energy markets and squeezing fertilizer supplies worldwide.

The full effect of the fertilizer crunch might not become clear until harvests that are months away. U.N. Food and Agriculture Organization Director-General Qu Dongyu, warned Tuesday at an event in Rome that “the decisions we make now will determine whether this remains a manageable shock or evolves into a deeper global food security crisis in 2026 and 2027 and beyond."

The strait has become a powerful lever for Tehran in talks, joining the long-running issue of Iran's nuclear program and its highly enriched uranium. Iran wants the U.S. to lift its military blockade of Iranian ports that began on April 17.

In the nearby Gulf of Oman, an explosion was reported Tuesday aboard a tanker, according to the U.K. Maritime Trade Operations Center. No one was injured, and there was no immediate information on the cause.

A woman crosses a street in front of a painting of the late Iranian revolutionary founder Ayatollah Khomeini and paramilitary Basij forces in downtown Tehran, Iran, Sunday, May 24, 2026. (AP Photo/Vahid Salemi)

Government supporters hold Iranian flags and pictures of Iran's Supreme Leader, Ayatollah Mojtaba Khamenei, during a ceremony honoring the armed forces and those killed in the war with Israel and the U.S. at the Imam Khomeini Grand Mosque in Tehran, Iran, Sunday, May 24, 2026. (AP Photo/Vahid Salemi)

President Donald Trump speaks during the 158th National Memorial Day Observance coinciding with the nation's 250th anniversary, at the Memorial Amphitheater in Arlington National Cemetery, Monday, May 25, 2026, in Arlington, Va. (AP Photo/Alex Brandon)