SF Film Critics Circle names its favorite film for 2022

Award-winning playwright and filmmaker Martin McDonagh’s dark Irish comedy about a fractured friendship that just keeps getting uglier and uglier — “The Banshees of Inisherin” — took home top honors and collected two other awards from the San Francisco Bay Area Film Critics Circle, a group of Bay Area film journalists who announced their annual film awards Monday, Jan. 9.

Colin Farrell’s heartbreaking performance as a lost soul trying to figure out why his friendship fell apart in “Banshees,” along with Kerry Condon’s incredible supporting performance as his sister ,who is itching to move away from a claustrophobic village, was also awarded by the group. Condon, however, is sharing her honors with Jamie Lee Curtis, hilarious as an IRS worker with a weird trophy and bizarre sausage fingers in that metaphysical adventure  “Everything Everywhere All at Once.”

“Everything,” a head-tripper of a film, was one of the few breakout indie hits in 2022. Along with “Tár,” it was presented with four honors. “Goonies” star Ke Huy Quan’s acclaimed supporting performance in “Everywhere” as the harried, compassionate family guy trying to wade through not only laundry and debt but the multiverse won the group over.

Todd Field’s virtuosic, unconventional flourishes behind the camera with “Tár” landed the heralded filmmaker — who hadn’t made in a movie in 16 years — best directing and best original screenplay honors while Cate Blanchett won for her electrifying turn as a lauded conductor who sabotages her own career.

Meanwhile, Berkeley filmmaker Phil Tippett influential and pioneering stop-motion animation and special effects career, which included this year’s release of his decades-in-the-making cult fave “Mad God” (now available on Shudder!) was given the Marlon Riggs Award — “presented to Bay Area filmmaker(s) or individual(s) who represents courage and innovation in the world of cinema.”

The group also singled out the Amazon Prime comedy with bite “Emergency” — which debuted at last year’s Sundance Film Festival — with its Special Citation for Independent Cinema.

Here are the group’s awards.

Best picture: “The Banshees of Inisherin” 

Best director: Todd Field, “Tár”

Original screenplay: Todd Field, “Tár”

Adapted screenplay: Sarah Polley, “Women Talking”

Actor:  Colin Farrell, “The Banshees of Inisherin”

Actress: Cate Blanchett, “Tár”

Supporting actor: Ke Huy Quan, “Everything Everywhere All at Once”

Supporting actress: Jamie Lee Curtis, “Everything Everywhere All at Once,” and Kerry Condon, “The Banshees of Inisherin” (tie).

Animated feature: “Guillermo del Toro’s Pinocchio”

International Feature Film: “Decision to Leave”

Documentary feature: “All That Breathes”

Cinematography: Florian Hoffmeister, “Tár”

Production design: Jason Isvarday (production designer), Kelsi Ephraim (set decorator), “Everything Everywhere All at Once”

Film editing: Paul Rogers, “Everything Everywhere All at Once”

Original score: Hildur Guðnadóttir, “Women Talking”

Special Citation for Independent Cinema: “Emergency”

Marlon Riggs Award: Phil Tippett