Spielberg, 'Top Gun' feted by National Board of Review

The prize for best film of the year at the National Board of Review (NBR) Awards went to "Top Gun: Maverick." Martin McDonagh's "The Banshees of Inisherin" took home the most trophies. But the night belonged to its best-director honoree, Steven Spielberg, and the parade of tributes paid to the 76-year-old filmmaker.

So effusive was the praise for Spielberg that Colin Farrell, there to accept the award for best actor for his performance in "The Banshees of Inisherin," said the experience of first watching "E.T." was the most euphoric of his life, ranking it even above the births of his two children.

"I'm glad this isn't televised," said Farrell.

The National Board of Review Awards have long been a regular and starry stop in Hollywood's awards season. This year's ceremony, hosted on Jan. 8 for the seventh time by Willie Geist, came right in the thick of a battery of big dates on the Oscar calendar.

Spielberg, who won best director for his movie-memoir "The Fabelmans," was introduced by "West Side Story" star Ariana DeBose.

Gabriel LaBelle, who plays a fictionalized version of young Spielberg in "The Fabelmans" and was honored for breakthrough performance along with Danielle Deadwyler of "Till."

When Spielberg took the stage, the crowd rose in a standing ovation.

"My whole career in all the films I've directed — my job, as I have seen it — is as the accompanist and the conductor to whoever or whatever should be the center of your attention," he said. "But when it came time for me to sit down with Tony Kushner to explore the possibilities of a story that became 'The Fabelmans,' I realized for the first time that I couldn't take cover behind a mothership or a T-Rex or a big mechanical shark that never worked."