Taking a female-centric position on awards, the Women Film Critics Circle gave their top honors to “She Said” and “Women Talking.” Michelle Yeon would still win Best Actress for her role in “Everything Everywhere All At Once,” and she would share the Best Screen Couple award with Ke Huy Quan.
BEST MOVIE ABOUT WOMEN
“She Said”
Directed by Maria Schrader
Produced by Dede Gardner and Jeremy Kleiner
Universal Pictures
RUNNER-UP: “Women Talking”
NOMINEES:
“Till”
“The Woman King”
BEST MOVIE BY A WOMAN
“Women Talking”
Sarah Polley
Produced by Dede Gardner, Jeremy Kleiner, and Frances McDormand
MGM / United Artists Releasing
RUNNERS-UP: “Till” – Chinonye Chukwu & “The Woman King” – Gina Prince-Bythewood
NOMINEES:
“Don’t Worry Darling” – Olivia Wilde
BEST WOMAN STORYTELLER
SCREENWRITING AWARD
Sarah Polley
“Women Talking”
Produced by Dede Gardner, Jeremy Kleiner, and Frances McDormand
MGM / United Artists Releasing
RUNNER-UP: Rebecca Lenkiewicz – “She Said”
NOMINEES:
Emma Donoghue – “The Wonder”
Dana Stevens (and Maria Bello, story) – “The Woman King”
BEST ACTRESS
Michelle Yeoh
“Everything Everywhere All at Once”
Directed by Daniel Kwan and Daniel Scheinert
Produced by Joe Russo, Anthony Russo, Mike Larocca, Dan Kwan, Daniel Scheinert, and Jonathan Wang
A24
RUNNER-UP: Danielle Deadwyler – “Till”
NOMINEES:
Vicky Krieps – “Corsage”
Cate Blanchett – “TÁR”
BEST ACTOR
Brendan Fraser
“The Whale”
Directed by Darren Aronofsky
Produced by Jeremy Dawson, Ari Handel, and Darren Aronofsky
A24
RUNNER-UP: Colin Farrell – “The Banshees of Inisherin”
NOMINEES:
Ke Huy Quan – “Everything Everywhere All at Once”
Bill Nighy – “Living”
BEST FOREIGN FILM BY OR ABOUT WOMEN
“Happening”
Directed by Audrey Diwan
Produced by Alice Girard and Edouard Weil
IFC Films
RUNNER-UP: “Corsage”
NOMINEES:
“Murina”
“Rickshaw Girl”
BEST DOCUMENTARY BY OR ABOUT WOMEN
“The Janes”
Directed by Tia Lessin and Emma Pildes
Produced by Emma Pildes, Jessica Levin, and Daniel Arcana
HBO Documentary Films
RUNNER-UP: “Lucy and Desi”
NOMINEES:
“Aftershock”
“Gabby Giffords Won’t Back Down”
BEST EQUALITY OF THE SEXES
“Good Luck To You, Leo Grande “
Directed by Sophie Hyde
Produced by Debbie Gray and Adrian Politowski
Searchlight Pictures
RUNNER-UP: “Black Panther: Wakanda Forever ”
NOMINEES:
“Fire of Love”
“The Woman King”
BEST ANIMATED FEMALE
Meilin
“Turning Red”
Voiced by Rosalie Chiang
Directed by Domee Shi
Produced by Lindsey Collins
Walt Disney Pictures / Pixar Animation
RUNNER-UP: Izzy Hawthorne – “Lightyear”
NOMINEES:
Belle Bottom – “Minions: The Rise of Gru”
BEST SCREEN COUPLE
Michelle Yeoh and Ke Huy Quan
“Everything Everywhere All at Once”
Directed by Daniel Kwan and Daniel Scheinert
Produced by Joe Russo, Anthony Russo, Mike Larocca, Dan Kwan, Daniel Scheinert, and Jonathan Wang
A24
RUNNER-UP: Kevin Kline & Sigourney Weaver – “The Good House”
NOMINEES:
Olivia Colman and Micheal Ward – “Empire of Light”
Emma Thompson and Daryl McCormack – “Good Luck To You, Leo Grande”
BEST TV SERIES
(TIE)
“Yellowjackets“
Showtime
“The Handmaid’s Tale“
Hulu
RUNNER-UP (TIE): “Dead to Me” & “Julia”
ADRIENNE SHELLY AWARD
(for a film that most passionately opposes violence against women)
(Adrienne Shelly was a promising actress and filmmaker who was brutally strangled in her apartment in 2006 at the age of forty by a construction worker in the building, after she complained about noise. Her killer tried to cover up his crime by hanging her from a shower rack in her bathroom, to make it look like suicide. He later confessed that he was having a “bad day.” Shelly, who left behind a baby daughter, had just completed her film Waitress, which she also starred in, and which was honored at Sundance after her death.)
“Women Talking”
Directed by Sarah Polley
Produced by Dede Gardner, Jeremy Kleiner, and Frances McDormand
MGM / United Artists Releasing
RUNNER-UP: “She Said”
NOMINEES:
“Don’t Worry Darling”
“Holy Spider”
JOSEPHINE BAKER AWARD
(for best expressing the woman of color experience in America)
(The daughter of a laundress and a musician, Baker overcame being born black, female and poor, and marriage at age fifteen, to become an internationally acclaimed legendary performer, starring in the films Princess Tam Tam, Moulin Rouge and Zou Zou. She also survived the race riots in East St. Louis, Illinois as a child, and later expatriated to France to escape US racism. After participating heroically in the underground French Resistance during WWII, Baker returned to the US where she was a crusader for racial equality. Her activism led to attacks against her by reporter Walter Winchell who denounced her as a communist, leading her to wage a battle against him. Baker was instrumental in ending segregation in many theaters and clubs, where she refused to perform unless integration was implemented.)
“Till”
Directed by Chinonye Chukwu
Produced by Keith Beauchamp, Barbara Broccoli, Whoopi Goldberg, Thomas Levine, Michael Reilly, and Frederick Zollo
United Artists Releasing
RUNNER-UP: “Nanny”
NOMINEES:
“Alice”
“Master”
KAREN MORLEY AWARD
(for best exemplifying a woman’s place in history or society, and a courageous search for identity)
(Karen Morley was a promising Hollywood star in the 1930s, in such films as Mata Hari and Our Daily Bread. She was driven out of Hollywood for her leftist political convictions by the Blacklist and for refusing to testify against other actors, while Robert Taylor and Sterling Hayden were informants against her. And also for daring to have a child and become a mother, unacceptable for female stars in those days. Morley maintained her militant political activism for the rest of her life, running for Lieutenant Governor on the American Labor Party ticket in 1954. She passed away in 2003, unrepentant to the end, at the age of 93.)
“Passing”
Directed by Sarah Polley
Produced by Dede Gardner, Jeremy Kleiner, and Frances McDormand
MGM / United Artists Releasing
RUNNER-UP: “The Woman King”
NOMINEES:
“Alice”
“The Drover’s Wife: The Legend of Molly Johnson”
ACTING AND ACTIVISM AWARD
Geena Davis
NOMINEES:
Frances McDormand
Nichelle Nichols
LIFETIME ACHIEVEMENT AWARD
Rita Moreno
RUNNER-UP: Angela Lansbury
WOMEN FILM CRITICS CIRCLE SPECIAL PAULINE KAEL JURY AWARDS 2022
BEST FEMALE ACTION HERO
Keke Palmer — “Alice”
COURAGE IN FILMMAKING
Olivia Wilde — “Don’t Worry Darling”
COURAGE IN ACTING
[Taking on unconventional roles that radically redefine the images of women on screen]
Danielle Deadwyler — “Till”
Anamaria Vartolomei — “Happening”
WOMEN’S WORK: BEST ENSEMBLE CAST
“The Woman King”
THE INVISIBLE WOMAN AWARD
[Supporting performance by a woman whose exceptional impact on the film dramatically, socially or historically, has been ignored]
Charmaine Bingwa — “Emancipation”
WOMEN SAVING THEMSELVES AWARD
“The Janes”
BEST KEPT SECRET
Overlooked Challenging Gems
Amitabh Reza Chowdhury — “Rickshaw Girl”
Nana Mensah — “Queen Of Glory”
MOMMIE DEAREST
WORST SCREEN MOM OF THE YEAR
“Blonde” — Julianne Nicholson as Gladys
HALL OF SHAME
‘Unique, provocative and stylishly opinionated’…Fasten your seat belts!
*The Gotham Awards. For removing the category Best Actress, in the further erasing of women.
*Anatomy Citation. “It doesn’t matter how much I do, I’m still not going to get paid as much as that guy, because of my vagina.” – Jennifer Lawrence speaks out against the continuing literal shortchanging of actresses – regarding Lawrence paid five million dollars less than Leonardo DiCaprio for “Don’t Look Up,” and less than the male cast Bradley Cooper, Christian Bale and Jeremy Renner for “American Hustle.”
*Cringe Citation. Harvey Weinstein’s shameful audiotape recordings. And being reminded of them/him in “She Said.”
*Too Much Information Citation: Emma Thompson, for “Good Luck To You, Leo Grande.”
*Blonde. For depicting only the worst fantasies about Marilyn Monroe, and none of her beauty, grace and intelligence.
*More Blonde. A film that re-exploited Marilyn Monroe and made me feel bad for her. She never had a chance in a man’s world, and this film exploited her again through the unnecessary explicit scenes.
*And More Blonde. An overrated actress romping through the film exposing herself. And why the constant showing of embryos, is it to champion pro-lifers.
*Even More Blonde. Completely inaccurate. The portrayal of the actress is shallow and cliched, and the part of the speaking embryo comes across as a disquieting anti-abortionist statement. My review…
*She Said. A drama about the NY Times investigation into the sex charges against Harvey Weinstein, “She Said” comes off more as a self-congratulatory promo for the NY Times, than emphasis on its victims and intimating a kind of damage control there for its own numerous scandals – the weapons of mass destruction hoax, and most recently calling for the release of Julian Assange – without an apology for the paper’s media participation in orchestrating his incarceration.
*The Cannes Film Festival. For disrespecting credentialed Deadline critic and distinguished WFCC member Valerie Complex, treating her with racist implications as an intruder there. On Being Black At Cannes: How Microaggressions Marred My Festival Experience
*Shame On DOC NYC. For announcing then scrubbing the name off their public list, secretly inviting as guest of honor a cinematographer from the Ukraine Neo-Nazi Azov Battalion, Dmytro Kozatsky, who sports Nazi tattoos, and is fond of creating photographs of swastika carved pizzas, while dragging out from the premises a young woman protesting the event.
WOMEN FILM CRITICS CIRCLE
Best Movie About Women:
Best Movie By A Woman:
Best Woman Storyteller:
Best Actress:
Best Actor:
Best Foreign Film By Or About Women:
Best Documentary By Or About Women:
Best Equality of the Sexes:
Best Animated Female:
Best Screen Couple:
Adrienne Shelly Award:
Josephine Baker Award:
Karen Morley Award:
Acting and Activism Award:
Lifetime Achievement Award:
“She Said”
“Women Talking” — Sarah Polley
Sarah Polley – “Women Talking”
Michelle Yeoh — “Everything Everywhere All at Once”
Brendan Fraser — “The Whale”
“Happening”
“The Janes”
“Good Luck To You, Leo Grande”
Meilin – “Turning Red”
Michelle Yeoh & Ke Huy Quan — “Everything Everywhere All at Once”
“Women Talking”
“Till”
“Women Talking”
Geena Davis
Rita Moreno
WOMEN FILM CRITICS CIRCLE
The Women Film Critics Circle is an association of 75 women film critics and scholars from around the country and internationally, who are involved in print, newswire, radio, online and TV broadcast media. We came together in 2004 to form the first women critics organization in the United States, in the belief that women’s perspectives and voices in film criticism need to be recognized fully.
