New York critics pick The Artist best film

The New York Film Critics Circle on Tuesday named silent film The Artist the best movie of the year, and gave its top acting honors to Meryl Streep and Brad Pitt. Michel Hazanavicius won best director for The Artist, a black-and-white film about Hollywoods transition from silent films to talkies in the late 1920s and the toll it takes on one actors life. In the romantic drama, a couple played by Jean Dujardin and Berenice Bejo find themselves on opposite sides of a career arc -- his descending as her star begins to shine.