US producers name Green Book as their best film of the year

Peter Farrelly’s racial comedy Green Book has received a boost in its quest for Oscar glory, being named the best film of 2018 by the Producers Guild of America.

Viggo Mortensen and Mahershala Ali star in Peter Farrelly’s Green Book

The PGA Awards, often an accurate predictor of Oscar success, were handed out in Hollywood, two days before the announcement of the Academy Award nominations.

Days after the director Peter Farrelly and writer Nick Vallelonga made public apologies for past behaviour, their Golden Globe winner for Best Comedy – in which Viggo Mortensen plays the driver of Mahershala Ali’s black pianist in the early 1960s Deep South – was chosen over nominees included A Star is Born and Roma.

The PGA named Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse as its best Animated Feature and gave its Best Documentary prize to Won’t You Be My Neighbor?

The final season of The Americans – about Russian spies living in suburbia – won the PGA’s Best TV Drama award.

Amazon’s The Marvelous Mrs Maisel was named the Best Comedy Series, The Assassination of Gianni Versace: American Crime Story won the limited series prize and Fahrenheit 451 – which screened as part of the official Cannes Film Festival selection – was named the Best TV movie.

Winners in other categories included RuPaul’s Drag Race as the best reality competition series, Sesame Street being named the best children’s programme and Last Week Tonight with John Oliver winning the prize for the best live entertainment/talk show.