“Anora,” Sean Baker’s odyssey of a New York stripper, and Jane Schoenbrun’s psychological horror “I Saw the TV Glow” dominated nominations for the Film Independent Spirit Awards with six nods each, including best film and best director. The nonprofit organization announced nominations Wednesday on a YouTube livestream.
Three actors in “Anora,” which won top honors at the Cannes Film Festival, were also singled out for their performances including Mikey Madison’s leading turn and Yura Borisov and Karren Karagulian’s supporting turns. Acting categories for the Spirit Awards are gender neutral and include 10 actors each. “I Saw the TV Glow’s” Justice Smith was nominated in lead and Brigette Lundy-Paine in supporting.
Also nominated for best feature film were RaMell Ross’s Colson Whitehead adaptation “Nickel Boys,” Greg Kwedar’s incarceration drama “Sing Sing” and Coralie Fargeat’s body horror “The Substance.”
In the best director category, in addition to Baker and Schoenbrun, nominees included Brady Corbet for “The Brutalist,” its sole nomination despite its big showing with the New York Film Critics Circle this week, Ali Abbasi for “The Apprentice” and Alonso Ruizpalacios for “La Cocina.” Sebastian Stan was also recognized for his turn as a young Donald Trump in “The Apprentice” in the lead performing category, but not for “A Different Man.”
Other lead performers who got nods include Amy Adams for “Nightbitch,” Colman Domingo for “Sing Sing,” Demi Moore for “The Substance,”June Squibb for “Thelma,” “Hunter Schafer for “Cuckoo,” Keith Kupferer for “Ghostlight” and Ryan Destiny for “The Fire Inside.”
The supporting category also included both newcomers and veterans: Kieran Culkin (“A Real Pain”), Carol Kane (“Between the Temples”), Clarence Maclin (“Sing Sing”), Adam Pearson (“A Different Man,” which triumphed this week at the Gotham Awards ), Joan Chen (“Dìdi”), Danielle Deadwyler (“The Piano Lesson”) and Kani Kusruti (“Girls Will Be Girls”).
Sometimes the Spirit Awards overlap significantly with major Oscar contenders and winners, as in the “Everything Everywhere All At Once” year, and sometimes not. Last year’s big winners included Celine Song’s “Past Lives” and Cord Jefferson’s “American Fiction.” The awards limit eligibility to productions with budgets of $30 million or less, meaning more expensive productions like “Wicked” and “Dune: Part Two” were not in the running.
International film nominees were: Payal Kapadia’s “All We Imagine as Light,” which India did not select to represent the country at the Oscars, “Black Dog,” from China, the animated adventure “Flow,” Agnieszka Holland’s “Green Border,” and Mike Leigh’s “Hard Truths.” Netflix movies “Emilia Pérez” and “Maria” were eligible only for international feature, but neither made the cut.
The Robert Altman Award, recognizing an ensemble cast, went to “His Three Daughters,” Azazel Jacobs’ moving portrait of three women, played by Carrie Coon, Natasha Lyonne and Elizabeth Olsen, whose father is in hospice.
The Spirit Awards also recognize new fiction and non-fiction television series, where nominees include the Netflix phenomenon “Baby Reindeer,” “Shōgun” and “Ren Fair.”
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The organization, which switched to gender neutral acting categories in 2022, said that of all the nominees, 46% are women and 30% are people of color. Like last year, the independent film studio A24 dominated with 19 nominations for releases like “I Saw the TV Glow,” “Sing Sing” and “The Brutalist.”
The Spirit Awards will be held on Saturday, Feb. 22 in Santa Monica, California, and streamed live on IMDb and Film Independent’s YouTube channels. Comedian Aidy Bryant will return to host.
