Boyhood is showing us just how much it has grown this year

Awards season is here, ladies and gentlemen, and there is one film that has been consistently taking home the trophy from coast to coast. Boyhood, directed by Richard Linklater, and starring Ellar Coltrane, Patricia Arquette, and Ethan Hawke, has been garnering praise ever since it opened back in August.

Now that praise is being stamped and approved by the voting boards surrounding the festival circuit. On Saturday, December 6, the film dominated the Los Angeles Film Critics Association after taking home awards for Best Actress (Arquette), Best Director (Linklater), Best Editing (Sandra Adair), and finally Best Picture. Runner up was Wes Anderson‘s The Grand Budapest Hotel, which took home the prize for Best Screenplay but still can’t seem to get ahead of the successful coming-of-age film.

Other Best Picture and Director awards for the film came from The New York Film Critics Circle, Boston Society of Film Critics and The Berlin International Film Festival. Boyhood was shot intermittently over the course of 12 years to show the real life growth of the protagonist, Mason (Coltrane), as he ages from 5-18, moving from boyhood to adulthood.

This is Linklatter’s 17th film, undoubtedly his most critically acclaimed and second most successful at the Box Office behind School of Rock (2003). Other notable films of his include Dazed and Confused (1993), A Scanner Darkly (2006) and Bernie (2011). He is currently working on developing School of Rock as a TV series.