Todd Field’s dark drama “Tár” has been named the best film of 2022 by the New York Film Critics Circle, the oldest film critics association and the first major critics group to vote for the end-of-year awards. year.
In the NYFCC’s most shocking decision, Indian “Tollywood” director SS Rajamouli received best director awards for action film and musical extravaganza “RRR.”
Colin Farrell was named best actor of the year, not only for “The Banshees of Inisherin,” for which he is a strong Oscar nominee, but also for director Kogonada’s suave and provocative Sundance film “After Yang.” The best actress award went to Oscar favorite Cate Blanchett for “Tár.”
In the supporting actor category, the award went to “Everything Everywhere All at Once” star Ke Huy Quan, four days after winning in the same category at the Gotham Awards. In a surprise choice, Keke Palmer won the award for supporting actress for “Nope.”
The nonfiction film award went to Laura Poitras’ “All the Beauty and the Bloodshed,” while the animated film award went to the independent film “Marcel the Shell With Shoes On.” Jerzy Skolimowski’s “EO,” whose lead character is a donkey, won best international film, and Charlotte Wells’ “Aftersun” was named best feature debut.
“The Banshees of Inisherin” writer-director Martin McDonagh won best screenplay, while Claudio Miranda won cinematography for his work on “Top Gun: Maverick.”
The NYFCC has been handing out awards since 1936. In the past, the group often awarded its top prize to a film that would go on to win the Best Picture Oscar: the two groups met 31 times in 87 years, including 17 times in the 23 years. between 1945 and 1967. More recently, however, the NYFCC has rarely honored the same film as the Academy, with just four awards in the past 27 years and none since “The Artist” in 2011.
While the awards don’t directly influence the Oscar race, they can focus attention on certain movies at a time when Oscar voters and guilds are deciding which movies to see. In this case, the members of the NYFCC may have given a slight boost to the visibility of “Tár”, even though that film should have already been on the voters lists, and they may have encouraged Academy members to see “ RRR”, which tends to be very popular, especially if seen in a theater with an audience. (For voters who don’t want to go that far, the film was added to the Academy Screening Room online portal on Friday.)
The New York Film Critics Circle currently consists of 42 critics from New York-based newspaper, magazine, and online publications.
Winners:
The best movie: “Tár”
best director: HH Rajamouli, “RRR”
best Actor: Colin Farrell, “After Yang” and “The Banshees of Inisherin”
Best actress: Cate Blanchett, “Tár”
Best Supporting Actor: Ke Huy Quan, “Everything everywhere at the same time”
Best Supporting Actress: Keke Palmer, “No”
Best screenplay: Martin McDonagh, “The Banshees of Inisherin”
Best Nonfiction Film: “All Beauty and Bloodshed”
best international film: “EO”
Best Animated Feature: “Marcel the shell with his shoes on”
Best Photography: Claudio Miranda, “Top Gun: Maverick”
Best First Feature: “After the sun”
special prize: Jake Perlin, Curator, Distributor, and Publisher
special prize:dGenerate movies
special prize: Jafar Panahi
Prize money for film criticism/journalism students: Nico Pedro-Setzer (undergraduate), Greg Nussen (graduate)