Happy Thanksgiving! We give thanks to never ending coverage of the lead up to the Oscars. Our awards cornucopia adds the nominations for the Film Independent Spirit Awards, which came out this week on November 21, 2017. Huzzah.
This is the second award domino to fall (after the Gotham Award nominations), but is similarly unconnected to the actual industry. The Spirit Awards are given by Film Independent, a nonprofit arts organization supporting independent films and filmmakers, for “independent” movies made for under $20 million. Prestige arms of big studios still get in here, like Fox Searchlight, Paramount Vintage, and Sony Pictures Classics. But also, big prestige films that win Oscars get celebrated here too – four out of the last five Best Picture winners were also winners here: The Artist (2011), 12 Years a Slave (2013), Birdman (2014), Spotlight (2015) and Moonlight (2016). And they sort of steal Oscar thunder too – the Independent Spirit Awards are usually held the night before the Oscars. This year, they’ll have Nick Kroll and John Mulaney (of Oh Hello fame) hosting. Fun.
Statistics
Before the nominations, the statistics – the Spirits improve from the Gothams (35% prediction to Best Picture) with a 44% overall prediction for a Best Picture nomination (taken from 2009 onward, since that was the year that the BP field expanded from five). There have been 18 Academy Award nominated films out of 41 Spirit nominations. Taken year to year, the full BP slate averages about 2.25 Spirit films a year, including two last year with Moonlight (the Spirit winner) and Manchester by the Sea. Some other categories have less success – Best Director is only about 29%, but every Spirit winner has been a nominated Director since ’09. Best Actor is 29%, Best Actress increases to 44%, Supporting Actor is 28%, and Best Supporting Actress is 20%.
So there is some correlation – it averages out to at least one Spirit nominee in all of these categories, and there are Oscar winners in the bunch with Casey Affleck (Manchester by the Sea, 2016), Brie Larson (Room, 2015), J.K. Simmons (Whiplash, 2014), Lupita Nyong’o (12 Years a Slave, 2013) and director Michel Hazanavicius (The Artist, 2011) among many others.
Nominations
Best Picture
Call Me by Your Name
Get Out
Lady Bird
The Florida Project
The Rider
Best Director
Sean Baker – The Florida Project
Jonas Carpignano – A Ciambra
Luca Guadagnino – Call Me by Your Name
Jordan Peele – Get Out
Benny & Josh Safdie – Good Time
Chloe Zhao – The Rider
Best Actress
Salma Hayek – Beatriz at Dinner
Frances McDormand – Three Billboards outside Ebbing, Missouri
Margot Robbie – I, Tonya
Saoirse Ronan – Lady Bird
Shinobu Terajima – Oh Lucy!
Regina Williams – Life and nothing more
Best Actor
Timothee Chalamet – Call Me by Your Name
Harris Dickinson – Beach Rats
James Franco – The Disaster Artist
Daniel Kaluuya – Get Out
Robert Pattinson – Good Time
Best Supporting Actress
Holly Hunter – The Big Sick
Allison Janney – I, Tonya
Laurie Metcalf – Lady Bird
Lois Smith – Marjorie Prime
Taliah Lennice Webster – Good Time
Best Supporting Actor
Nnamdi Asomugha – Crown Heights
Armie Hammer – Call Me by Your Name
Barry Keoghan – The Killing of a Sacred Deer
Sam Rockwell – Three Billboards outside Ebbing, Missouri
Benny Safdie – Good Time
Other Categories
Robert Altman Award
Mudbound
John Cassavetes Awards
Dayveon
A Ghost Story
Life and nothing more
Most Beautiful Island
The Transfiguration
Best First Feature
Columbus
Ingrid Goes West
Menashe
Oh Lucy!
Patti Cake$
Best Screenplay
Greta Gerwig – Lady Bird
Azazel Jacobs – The Lovers
Martin McDonagh – Three Billboards outside Ebbing, Missouri
Jordan Peele – Get Out
Mike White – Beatriz at Dinner
Best First Screenplay
Kris Avedisian – Donald Cried
Emily V. Gordon & Kumail Nanjiani – The Big Sick
Ingrid Jungermann – Women Who Kill
Kogonada – Columbus
David Branson Smith & Matt Spicer – Ingrid Goes West
Best Cinematography
The Killing of a Sacred Deer
Columbus
Beach Rats
Call Me by Your Name
The Rider
Best Editing
Good Time
Call Me by Your Name
The Rider
Get Out
I, Tonya
Best International Film
BPM (Beats Per Minute) – France
A Fantastic Woman – Chile
I Am Not a Witch – Zambia
Lady Macbeth – United Kingdom
Loveless – Russia
Best Documentary
The Departure
Faces Places
Last Men in Aleppo
Motherland
Quest
Multiple Nominations:
6 – Call Me by Your Name
5 – Get Out, Good Time
4 – Lady Bird, The Rider
3 – I Tonya, Columbus
2 – The Florida Project, The Big Sick, Beatriz at Dinner, The Killing of a Sacred Deer, Ingrid Goes West, Beach Rats, Oh Lucy!, Life and nothing more
Of Note
Call Me by Your Name is getting the nominations it should – a favorite coming out of the film festivals, it was expected to dominate these independent award nominations. So it’s good for its chances at Oscar that it is doing as well as it is here.
After momentum at the Gothams, both Jordan Peele (Director/Screenplay) and most excitedly Daniel Kaluuya (Actor) continue to pick up nominations. Get Out is a genre movie, so it had a steep hill to climb to Oscar plaudits. The movie already can’t be denied from a financial perspective, as it made bank from a modest budget – now it seems like it also can’t be denied from a critical perspective. Rotten Tomatoes and Metacritic is one thing, but showing up on these nomination lists keeps this February movie in the spotlight, which is a good thing.
Get used to what I’m dubbing the “Triumvirate of Moms” in Best Supporting Actress – Holly Hunter, Allison Janney, and Laurie Metcalf are all playing mothers that keep hitting the same award shows. I expect them to keep showing up until Oscar night… when three moms enter… and one mom leaves…
The Rider looks interesting and got nominations across the board, but this is a case of Spirit nominations only – the movie doesn’t screen until 2018 and won’t be eligible. Similarly, Good Time, a critical favorite, is being lauded here and would be eligible for Oscar, but seems just like an indie hit, and not an Academy movie.
Hopeful Oscar Nominations (in my opinion):
Best Picture – Call Me by Your Name, Get Out, Lady Bird, maybe The Florida Project
Best Director – Luca Guadagnino, Jordan Peele, maybe Sean Baker
Best Actress – Frances McDormand, Saoirse Ronan, maybe Margot Robbie
Best Actor – Timothee Chalamet, maybe Daniel Kaluuya and James Franco
Best Supporting Actress – Holly Hunter, Allison Janney, Laurie Metcalf
Best Supporting Actor – Sam Rockwell, Armie Hammer
Interesting Omissions:
Three Billboards outside Ebbing, Missouri for Best Picture – really interesting. Both here and at the Gothams, Three Billboards was snubbed for Best Picture after being the audience award winner at the Toronto International Film Festival (TIFF). But Frances, Rockwell and McDonagh got kudos here. Hmm.
An unfortunate one here that The Big Sick didn’t get in for Best Picture. Emily and Kumail were nominated for writing, which is great, and Hunter is holding it down in acting. I just really like that movie.
Greta Gerwig for Best Director – another case of a lot of love all over (Picture, Actress, Supporting Actress, Screenplay) but GG, a former Spirit nominee for Greenberg and indie queen, missed out on this one.
Willem Dafoe (The Florida Project) and Michael Stuhlbarg (Call Me) for Best Supporting Actor – some Oscar front runners missed out here, with Armie replacing Stuhlbarg for the same movie. I don’t think Dafoe is in trouble as a lot of the Spirit nominees here are long shots for Oscar.
Mudbound gets the backhanded compliment of a special award, but nothing competitive – exactly like the special jury prize for the cast from the Gotham Awards. Interesting how Netflix’s big play keeps getting left of the normal categories.
