San Francisco Film Critics Circle: Moonlight Wins Best Pic, Washington/Huppert/Ali/Davis Take Acting

Erik Anderson December 11, 2016

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San Francisco Film Critics saw magic in the Moonlight as the group gave its top award to the film. Moonlight also earned top wins in Director for Barry Jenkins, Supporting Actor for Mahershala Ali (continuing his surprising run this season), Screenplay (where it tied with Manchester by the Sea), Film Editing (where it tied with Arrival) and Cinematography for SF-native James Laxton.

The duo of Denzel Washington and Viola Davis won the Best Actor and Best Supporting Actress awards for Fences and the South Korean film The Handmaiden also continued its very strong showing with the critics with two wins here: Production Design and Foreign Language Film. The film was not South Korea’s pick for the Oscar so it can’t compete there but is eligible in all other categories.

Arrival picked up two wins, the aforementioned Film Editing tie with Moonlight and Adapted Screenplay for Eric Heisserer.

As a reminder, here are their nominees with today’s winners in bold:

BEST PICTURE

ARRIVAL
HELL OR HIGH WATER
LA LA LAND
MANCHESTER BY THE SEA
MOONLIGHT (Winner)

BEST DIRECTOR

Damien Chazelle – LA LA LAND
Barry Jenkins – MOONLIGHT (Winner)
Kenneth Lonergan – MANCHESTER BY THE SEA
Jeff Nichols – LOVING
Denis Villeneuve – ARRIVAL

BEST ACTOR

Casey Affleck – MANCHESTER BY THE SEA
Joel Edgerton – LOVING
Ryan Gosling – LA LA LAND
Tom Hanks – SULLY
Denzel Washington – FENCES (Winner)

BEST ACTRESS

Amy Adams – ARRIVAL
Annette Bening – 20th CENTURY WOMEN
Isabelle Huppert – ELLE (Winner)
Ruth Negga – LOVING
Natalie Portman – JACKIE

BEST SUPPORTING ACTOR

Mahershala Ali – MOONLIGHT (Winner)
Jeff Bridges – HELL OR HIGH WATER
Ralph Fiennes – A BIGGER SPLASH
Ben Foster – HELL OR HIGH WATER
Michael Shannon – NOCTURNAL ANIMALS

BEST SUPPORTING ACTRESS

Viola Davis – FENCES (Winner)
Greta Gerwig – 20th CENTURY WOMEN
Lily Gladstone – CERTAIN WOMEN
Naomie Harris – MOONLIGHT
Michelle Williams – MANCHESTER BY THE SEA

BEST SCREENPLAY, ORIGINAL (tie)

HELL OR HIGH WATER – Taylor Sheridan
LA LA LAND – Damien Chazelle
THE LOBSTER – Yorgos Lanthimos and Efthymis Filippou
MANCHESTER BY THE SEA – Kenneth Lonergan (Winner)
MOONLIGHT – Barry Jenkins (Winner)

BEST SCREENPLAY, ADAPTED

ARRIVAL – Eric Heisserer (Winner)
ELLE – David Birke
THE HANDMAIDEN – Park Chan-wook and Jeong Seo-Gyeong
FENCES – August Wilson
NOCTURNAL ANIMALS – Tom Ford

BEST CINEMATOGRAPHY

ARRIVAL – Bradford Young
JACKIE – Stephane Fontaine
LA LA LAND – Linus Sandgren
MOONLIGHT – James Laxton (Winner)
SILENCE – Rodrigo Pietro

PRODUCTION DESIGN

ARRIVAL – Patrice Vermette
THE HANDMAIDEN – Ryu Seong-hee (Winner)
JACKIE – Jean Rabasse
LA LA LAND – David Wasco
THE WITCH – Craig Lathrop

ORIGINAL SCORE

ARRIVAL – Johann Johannsson
HELL OR HIGH WATER – Nick Cave and Warren Ellis
JACKIE – Mica Levi (Winner)
LA LA LAND – Justin Hurwitz
MOONLIGHT – Nicholas Britell

FILM EDITING (tie)

ARRIVAL – Joe Walker (Winner)
HELL OR HIGH WATER – Jake Roberts
LA LA LAND – Tom Cross
MANCHESTER BY THE SEA – Jennifer Lame
MOONLIGHT – Nat Sanders and Joi McMillon (Winner)

BEST ANIMATED FEATURE

FINDING DORY
KUBO AND THE TWO STRINGS
MOANA
THE RED TURTLE (Winner)
ZOOTOPIA

BEST FOREIGN LANGUAGE PICTURE

ELLE
THE HANDMAIDEN (Winner)
NERUDA
THE SALESMAN
TONI ERDMANN

BEST DOCUMENTARY

13TH
CAMERAPERSON
FIRE AT SEA
I AM NOT YOUR NEGRO (Winner)
OJ: MADE IN AMERICA

SPECIAL CITATION

THE FITS (Winner)
KRISHA
PUSHING DEAD

Marlon Riggs Award: Joshua Grannell aka Peaches Christ

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Erik Anderson

Erik Anderson is the founder/owner and Editor-in-Chief of AwardsWatch and has always loved all things Oscar, having watched the Academy Awards since he was in single digits; making lists, rankings and predictions throughout the show. This led him down the path to obsessing about awards. Much later, he found himself in film school and the film forums of GoldDerby, and then migrated over to the former Oscarwatch (now AwardsDaily), before breaking off to create AwardsWatch in 2013.

He is a Rotten Tomatoes-approved critic, accredited by the Cannes Film Festival, Telluride Film Festival, Toronto International Film Festival and more, is a member of the International Cinephile Society (ICS), The Society of LGBTQ Entertainment Critics (GALECA), Hollywood Critics Association (HCA) and the International Press Academy. Among his many achieved goals with AwardsWatch, he has given a platform to underrepresented writers and critics and supplied them with access to film festivals and the industry and calls the Bay Area his home where he lives with his husband and son.