The National Board Of Review Has Chosen The Best Movie Of The Year
The century-old National Board of Review of Motion Pictures (NBR) has announced its awards for 2022, including its members’ choice for the movie of the year. It turns out the Board’s tastes aligned with the box office’s in 2022, because it’s named Joseph Kosinski’s Top Gun: Maverick the year’s best film. The long-awaited sequel’s competition in the category included Everything Everywhere All at Once, The Banshees of Inisherin, Glass Onion: A Knives Out Mystery, The Fabelmans, and Avatar: The Way of Water.
The Hollywood Reporter and other outlets announced the Board’s choice for movie of the year, as well as a second honor afforded Maverick; cinematographer Claudia Miranda was named the winner of Outstanding Achievement in Cinematography. When you consider the comparatively short list of awards named by the NBR, the fact that the Top Gun sequel was honored with two of them is that much more impressive.
Beside the movie of the year, only two other films won more than one NBR award: The Banshees of Inisherin and The Fabelmans. Colin Farrell was named Best Actor for his performance in The Banshees of Inisherin, his co-star Brendan Gleeson won Best Supporting Actor, and Martin McDonagh won for Best Original Screenplay. Steven Spielberg was honored with Best Director for The Fabelmans and Gabriel LaBelle was named for a Best Breakthrough Performance in the film.
Other noteworthy winners include Michelle Yeoh as Best Actress for Everything Everywhere All at Once, Janelle Monáe as Best Supporting Actress for Glass Onion, and Aftersun‘s Charlotte Wells for Best Directorial Debut. NBC News’ Willie Geist will host an awards ceremony for the NBR on January 8 in New York City.
As THR warns, you may not want to base your Oscars bets on NBR’s choices. NBR’s movie of the year in 2021 was the controversial Licorice Pizza, which was also nominated by the Academy for Best Picture though the win went to CODA. In 2020 NBR chose Da 5 Bloods which wound up not even being nominated for a Best Picture Oscar (though it did get a nomination for Best Original Score), and in 2019 they chose The Irishman which was showered with Oscar noms but no wins.
Whether Top Gun: Maverick is also chosen as the top movie of the year by the Academy Awards, or is even nominated, the film has certainly received its fair share of critical and commercial success. Along with proving to be a critical darling, the months after the movie’s release revealed one box office record broken after another.
Conspicuously absent from NBR’s list of honored films are a number of favorites. Neither the Will Smith led Emancipation nor Brendan Fraser’s critically hailed drama The Whale appear anywhere on NBR’s selections. While neither have wide releases until this week, the NBR named Avatar: The Way of Water one of the top movies of the year even though it won’t be given a wide release until next week.
