The 2022 MoFo Film Awards

Best Film of The Year
The Banshees of Inisherin

This doesn't feel like a boring pick for me - I nominated it for Biggest Surprise because I thought McDonagh was washed as a filmmaker but he proved me very wrong with this one.

Worst Film of the Year
Thor: Love and Thunder


I went through the MCU again last year and most of them really don't hold up, not even this film's much more celebrated predecessor. I did see Morbius and, as much as it barely counts as a movie and has Jared Leto literally vamping it up, this one gets the edge just for being the MCU at its most obnoxious.


Best Director of the Year
Daniel Kwan and Daniel Scheinert, Everything Everywhere All At Once
Martin McDonagh, The Banshees of Inisherin


I went with Spielberg on this one, especially since he had the unenviable task of trying to make 150 minutes about his childhood look interesting compared to the more outwardly dynamic films these dudes made.

Best Actor of the Year
Colin Farrell, The Banshees of Inisherin


Maybe I should've let the Best Ensemble pick speak for itself but I figure it's hard to make a "simple" character seem so complex.

Best Actress of the Year
Cate Blanchett, Tár


Not going to argue too strongly with this as this may well be one of Blanchett's all-time best performances, but I still felt inclined to go for Yeoh.

Best Supporting Actor of the Year
Brendan Gleeson, The Banshees of Inisherin


I figured I could cover Banshees by picking it for Best Ensemble while allowing myself to mix up my singular acting picks. Chose Yeun for this even if he has comparatively little to do next to Gleeson basically being a co-lead.

Best Supporting Actress of the Year
Kerry Condon, The Banshees of Inisherin


Very nearly picked her before choosing Hsu instead. Happy with this anyway.

Best Screenplay of the Year
The Banshees of Inisherin


Had stopped thinking of McDonagh as a good director or even a good screenwriter but between this and seeing a performance of his play The Pillowman sometime last year, I realised he does still have the juice.

Best Animated Film of the Year
Apollo 10½: A Space Age Childhood


What can I say, I'm always in the bag for Linklater.

Best Documentary Film of the Year
Fire of Love


I watched Herzog's The Fire Within about the same couple and figured that would suffice so I never got around to this. Voted for All the Beauty and the Bloodshed, which might actually be a top 10 of the year for me.

Best Foreign Language Film of the Year
All Quiet on the Western Front

Boooooring. Decision to Leave was right there, people.

Biggest Surprise of the Year
The Menu

My view on picking the "biggest surprise" of the year is that it has to be the complete opposite of "biggest disappointment" - you have to go in with low (not zero, low) expectations and have them completely blown away. The Menu came out of nowhere and had positive buzz from the jump so I would never count it as a surprise (or even a good movie, for that matter). I went with Top Gun: Maverick because I thought that the original was a dud and didn't hold out hope for a sequel that was coming out a full 36 years later, but it did a good job of proving me wrong.

Biggest Disappointment of the Year
Babylon
Everything Everywhere All At Once
Halloween Ends


Pretty impressive to somehow not pick one title in a three-way tie, but I thought The Batman was ultimately rather meh (even Halloween Ends, which had too low expectations to be a candidate for disappointment, was something I might have had more fun with)

Most Overrated Film of the Year
Everything Everywhere All At Once

I suppose this was inevitable. It was a toss-up between The Batman and Women Talking for me - I chose the latter because it was possible to make a dynamic, engaging, and thematically substantial film out of nothing but dialogue and it somehow didn't do that.

Most Underrated Film of the Year
Aftersun

This was underrated? Seems like I couldn't escape people calling this one of the best movies of the year and I've barely seen any negativity towards it. Say what you will about Babylon, but at least it makes sense for someone to call it underrated.

Most Memorable Scene of the Year
Nope – Gordy's Home

One of the best films of the year and I did nominate the "Star Lasso" scene, but I opted to vote for "Naatu Naatu".

Funniest Scene of the Year
Barbarian – Justin Long measures the basement


What do you mean there weren't any nominations for Jackass Forever? Anyway, this is more clever than funny in a movie I thought was merely okay (and I nominated/voted for "Apartment For Sale" but I can understand that not being a popular choice)

“Mixed-Bag” Award of the Year
Glass Onion: A Knives Out Mystery


Went for Multiverse of Madness myself because of how Sam Raimi's signature chaos was constrained by the demands of a Marvel sequel. I guess this is an adequate alternative.

Best Ensemble Cast of the Year
The Banshees of Inisherin

Covers all my acting picks, at least.

Best Cinematography of the Year
The Banshees of Inisherin

It's a picturesque Irish isle, anything you shoot on there is going to look good by default. I thought Decision to Leave was doing more fundamentally interesting stuff.

Breakout Performance of the Year
Paul Mescal, Aftersun


I voted for Gabriel LaBelle myself but Mescal is good enough.

Best Score
The Banshees of Inisherin


Still dug the brassiness of Babylon but it's hard to argue with Burwell.

Best Sound Design
Top Gun: Maverick


Nope and Nope.

Best Visual Effects
Avatar: The Way of Water

Because of course it was.