Brokeback Mountain is a favorite of San Francisco Film Critics

Ang Lee's Brokeback Mountain is a favorite of San Francisco Film Critics

The love story "Brokeback Mountain" won three major awards, including Best Picture and Best Director, from the San Francisco Film Critics Circle.

Based on the short story by Annie Proulx, "Brokeback Mountain" chronicles a lifelong romance between two cowboys who first meet as young men herding sheep in 1960s Wyoming. The film, which is playing in limited release, was directed by Ang Lee and stars Heath Ledger and Jake Gyllenhaal. Australian actor Ledger, previously best known for lighter films like "A Knight's Tale," showed heartbreaking range in the part of Ennis Del Mar, which won him the SFFCC's Best Actor award.

The group honored Reese Witherspoon with its Best Actress award for her sharp and sure portrayal of June Carter Cash in the Johnny Cash biopic "Walk the Line."

Supporting Actor and Supporting Actress awards went to Kevin Costner, for his wry and tender supporting work in the comic drama "The Upside of Anger," and to Amy Adams, who stole the show in "Junebug" as a naive expectant young mother in rural North Carolina.

Best Documentary was awarded to Werner Herzog's "Grizzly Man," which examined the life and death of Timothy Treadwell, an animal rights advocate whose passion for grizzly bears ultimately cost him and his girlfriend their lives.

The complex French thriller "Cache" ("Hidden"), directed by Michael Haneke, took the top prize for Best Foreign Film. "Good Night, And Good Luck," a drama about the feud between Edward R. Murrow and Senator Joseph McCarthy during the 1950s Red Scare, won Best Screenplay for writers George Clooney and Grant Heslov.

The SFFCC gave its Marlon Riggs Award, awarded annually to a member of the Bay Area film community for courage and innovation, to Jenni Olson for her experimental feature "The Joy of Life," which expands the parameters of narrative, documentary and personal cinema while capturing the unique rhythms of life in San Francisco.

*****

Founded in 2002, the San Francisco Film Critics Circle (http://www.sffcc.org) is comprised of critics from publications in the greater Bay Area. Its members include film writers from the Bay Guardian, celluloiddreams.net, the Contra Costa Times, culturevulture.net, the East Bay Express, j. magazine, KGO Radio, KRON-TV, the Marin Independent Journal, Oakland Tribune, the Palo Alto Weekly, the Sacramento Bee, the San Francisco Chronicle, the San Francisco Examiner, SF Weekly, the San Jose Mercury News, the San Jose Metro, the Sonoma Index-Tribune and SPLICEDwire.