Skandies: #1 (Patreon)

Picture: TÁR (291/19)

I'm always a little disappointed when our choice for the year's best film matches everyone else's (TÁR swept NYFCC, LAFCA and NSFC), but it's hard to deny that Field swung for the fence to a degree that few others have in recent years, and solidly connected. Briefly thought that Banshees might make it a tighter race, but in the end it wasn't even close. Particularly impressive given that we didn't adore Field's previous films—In the Bedroom was respected, to be sure, but failed to place in Picture (though admittedly 2001 was a very strong year). 

Director: Park Chan-wook, Decision to Leave (276/17)
Skandie history: #13, Oldboy (2005); #18, Stoker (2013); #6, The Handmaiden (2016).

This year's closest finish (most categories were blowouts), with Park beating Field by a mere 12 points. I gave the former 26 and the latter 11, so I can take credit for this victory all by myself, though of course so can several others. Joe won last year for Memoria, so that's two Asian directors in a row (and five overall, the others being Lee Chang-dong for Burning, Wong Kar-wai for In the Mood for Love and Ang Lee for Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon). 

Actress: Cate Blanchett, TÁR (411/25)
Skandie history: #16, Oscar and Lucinda (1997); #2, Elizabeth (1998); #11, Heaven (2002); #1s, The Aviator (2004); #5s, Coffee and Cigarettes (2004); #17s, Notes on a Scandal (2006); #2s, I'm Not There (2007); #4, Blue Jasmine (2013); #5, Carol (2015). 

Blanchett joins the small company of two-time Skandie winners, which among actors also includes Daniel Day-Lewis, Scarlett Johansson, Heath Ledger, Julianne Moore, Kevin Spacey (though one of his victories, in the survey's inaugural year, involved different rules and was shared between two performances, so bit of an asterisk there, and Billy Bob Thornton. She's also the first actor (or director, or screenwriter, or film, or scene) to amass 400+ points since Lily Gladstone in 2016. I was one of only three voters who didn't include her on his ballot—not that I was unimpressed, but it's such a quintessentially Blanchett-y performance that it just didn't especially excite me. (I tend to favor new faces and actors doing something that I've never seen them do before.) Still, it's not a Katharine Hepburn impression, and for that I am thankful. 

Actor: Colin Farrell, The Banshees of Inisherin (365/25)
Skandie history: #13, In Bruges (2008); #5, The Lobster (2016); #19, The Killing of a Sacred Deer (2017).

Evidently, Farrell should work exclusively with Martin McDonagh and Yorgos Lanthimos. Didn't expect this category to see a 235-point gap between its winner and its runner-up (Tom Cruise received 130), but maybe that speaks as much to the weakness of the field as it does to Farrell's excellent work. 

S. Actor: Barry Keoghan, The Banshees of Inisherin (205/17)
Skandie history: #2s, The Killing of a Sacred Deer (2017). (That performance also placed 17th in our poll of the previous decade's best.) 

Evidently, Keoghan, too, should work exclusively with Martin McDonagh and Yorgos Lanthimos (and Colin Farrell). 

S. Actress: Kerry Condon, The Banshees of Inisherin (338/22)
Skandie history: None. 

And so The Banshees of Inisherin becomes the first film to have three of its actors win the Skandies (with a fourth actor placing second to one of the winners; had Gleeson's character been female, it could have been a clean sweep). Plenty of films have had two winners (though it had been a decade since the last such instance): The People vs. Larry Flynt (Edward Norton + Courtney Love), The Sweet Hereafter (Ian Holm + Sarah Polley), You Can Count on Me (Laura Linney + Mark Ruffalo), Ghost World (Steve Buscemi + Scarlett Johansson), Half Nelson (Ryan Gosling + Shareeka Epps), Inglourious Basterds (Christoph Waltz + Mélanie Laurent), Winter's Bone (Jennifer Lawrence + John Hawkes), Margaret (Anna Paquin + J. Smith-Cameron), and most recently The Master (Philip Seymour Hoffman + Amy Adams). But this is unprecedented. 

Screenplay: Martin McDonagh, The Banshees of Inisherin (308/18)
Skandie history: #5, In Bruges (2008); #20, Seven Psychopaths (2012); #7, Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri (2017).

Is this the first film to win four categories without one of those being Picture? Looks like the previous record was three, held by The Wolf of Wall Street (which won Director, Actor and Scene but came in second to Inside Llewyn Davis), The Social Network (which won Director, Actor and Screenplay but came in second to Dogtooth), and You Can Count on Me (which won Actor, Actress and Screenplay but finished 3rd in Picture). Inglourious Basterds holds the overall record, winning six out of eight in 2009—everything except Actor and Actress. 

Scene: "Naatu Naatu," RRR (174/15)

Musical numbers have a massive advantage in this category—last year's winner was "So May We Start," from Annette; the year before that it was the "Silly Games" dance from Lovers Rock; the year before that it was the opening dance routine from Climax. Overall, 8 of the past 13 winners have been musical in nature, though it was less common prior to 2010 (when the Dogtooth dance really kicked the trend into gear). So it was perhaps inevitable that of RRR's several beloved setpieces, this would be the collective favorite. 

And that's it! Complete results available here. Thanks to all voters, and especially to Mark Pittillo for programming the automated ballot and maintaining the website. The big post-mortem will be up in the next day or two. (I'll post it on my blog rather than here, just because it's ginormous, but will alert y'all.)