2023 Film Independent Spirit Awards Film Nominations Announced

On November 22nd, Film Independent revealed their nominees across their film categories for their 2023 Film Independent Spirit Awards.

Announcing the nominees were Taylour Paige (who won at last year’s ceremony for Zola) and Raúl Castillo (2019 Spirit Award nominee for We The Animals) in a live stream on Film Independent's YouTube channel.

"We couldn't be more honored to celebrate this year's exciting film nominees," said Josh Welsh, President of Film Independent. "As the Film Independent Spirit Awards evolve with our changing industry, including embracing non-gendered categories, we look to these artists to lead us into the future. And as we celebrate the 30th anniversary of our Artist Development programs, we are incredibly proud to have Film Independent Fellows Siân Heder and Chloé Zhao return as our honorary co-chairs."

As was previously announced, the changes implemented starting this year are gender-neutral performance categories, replacing Best Male Lead, Best Female Lead, Best Supporting Male & Best Supporting Female with Best Lead Performance and Best Supporting Performance. This change-ups both categories from five nominations to ten in each performance category.

There’s also the new Best Breakthrough Performance category, honoring actors making themselves known to wider audiences through noteworthy character portrayals. This is the only performance category that is restricted to five nominees.

Another change for this year is the increase of the budget cap for eligible films from $22.5M last year to $30M.

The 2023 Film Independent Spirit Awards ceremony is set to take place on March 4, 2023, at the beach by the Santa Monica Pier. Nominations for the Spirit Awards’ TV categories, which will also contain gender-neutral acting honors, will be revealed on Dec. 13. There is no broadcast partner this year for the Spirits, and there will be more info on the various ways to stream the show globally as the show gets closer.

This year, the Spirit Awards Film Nominating Committees selected nominees from over 25 different countries, applying the following guidelines in determining nominees: uniqueness of vision, original and provocative subject matter, and economy of means. The Spirit Awards Nominating Committees are comprised of writers, directors, producers, cinematographers, editors, actors, critics, casting directors, film festival programmers, and other working film professionals. Of all nominated writers and directors, 61% are women, and 34% are BIPOC. Of all nominated actors, 70% are women, and 27% are BIPOC. And of all 2023 nominees, 51% are women, and 33% are BIPOC. This year, the Spirit Awards nominating committees are 50% female, 6% nonbinary, 3% transgender, and 61% BIPOC; 32% identify as LGBTQ+, and 8% identify as people with disabilities (PWD).

Leading the nominees is A24 as always, with 24 nominations, with eight attributed to crowd-favorite Everything Everywhere All At Once, directed by Dan Kwan and Daniel Scheinert, AKA The Daniels. After its world premiere during SXSW in March of this year, the film became A24’s biggest box office earner with $70M domestically, $103M worldwide, and will start its awards season campaign with the Spirit Awards on March 4, eight days before the Oscars on March 12, 2023.

Some notable omissions include the absence of Netflix from this list. According to Deadline, Bardo, Glass Onion: A Knives Out Mystery, Hustle, White Noise, The Good Nurse, and Guillermo Del Toro’s Pinocchio weren’t up for consideration for some undetermined reason. The Netflix films that were eligible for consideration - The Wonder, All Quiet on the Western Front, and Athena didn’t make the cut.

This is notable because, for the term of my membership (almost three years), Netflix has been in the top three (A24 and Neon being the other two - the latter of which I’ll discuss soon) for the most nominations. Netflix will even send out a little info card in the mail reminding Spirit Awards voters to vote for their films. So, to be entirely shut out is a huge shocker.

Another shocker is that Neon’s films Moonage Daydream and Fire of Love are not nominated here. Both are regarded as some of the year's best documentaries, so seeing them miss nominations here is a touch odd.

Some other films that missed nominations that I thought would show up here include (in no particular order): On the Divide (POV), Don’t Make Me Go (Amazon Studios), Long Line of Ladies (Junk Drawer), Descendant (Netflix), the rest of Searchlight Pictures’ slate of 2022 films, Breaking (Bleecker Street), and Halftime (Netflix). These films represent Film Independent’s mission to “embody diversity, innovation, curiosity and uniqueness of vision,” so what gives? I’d be interested to see why these films weren’t nominated since they all came out in 2022 and are under the budget cap, as far as I’m aware.

The final oddity comes from how Film Independent counts the number of film nominations per distributor. According to the announcement, Focus Features is the second most nominated, with nine nominations, seven of which are attributed to Todd Field’s latest film, Tár. However, given that Amazon now owns MGM as of March 17th, nominations for Orion, United Artists, and MGM should be attributed to Amazon Studios. This fix would mean that Amazon has ten nominations.

MGM earned three for Luca Guadagnino’s Bones and All for Best Feature, Best Lead Performance for Taylor Russell, and Best Supporting Performance for Mark Rylance. MGM’s sister label Orion earned 4 for Women Talking for Best Picture, Best Director Sarah Polley, Best Screenplay by Polley, and the Robert Altman Award. Amazon counted three noms for Lena Dunham’s screenplay of Catherine Called Birdy, K.D. Dávila’s First Screenplay of Emergency, and Nikyatu Jusu receiving the Someone to Watch Award for Nanny.

The runner-ups include new face MUBI with six nominations for the films The African Desperate, The Cathedral, and Holy Emy. Just behind MUBI is Momentum Pictures with five nominations - Palm Trees and Power Lines in Best First Feature, Best First Screenplay, Best Supporting Performance, Best Breakthrough Performance, and To Leslie with one nomination for Best Lead Performance.

A complete list of this year’s Spirit Awards film nominees follows.

2023 Film Independent Spirit Awards Film Nominations

Best Feature (Award given to the producer.)

Bones and All

Producers: Timothée Chalamet, Francesco Melzi d’Eril, Luca Guadagnino, David Kajganich, Lorenzo Mieli, Marco Morabito, Gabriele Moratti, Theresa Park, Peter Spears

Everything Everywhere All At Once

Producers: Daniel Kwan, Mike Larocca, Anthony Russo, Joe Russo, Daniel Scheinert, Jonathan Wang

Our Father, the Devil

Producers: Ellie Foumbi, Joseph Mastantuono

Tár

Producers: Todd Field, Scott Lambert, Alexandra Milchan

Women Talking

Producers: Dede Gardner, Jeremy Kleiner, Frances McDormand

Best First Feature (Award given to director and producer)

Aftersun

Director: Charlotte Wells

Producers: Mark Ceryak, Amy Jackson, Barry Jenkins, Adele Romanski

Emily the Criminal

Director: John Patton Ford

Producers: Tyler Davidson, Aubrey Plaza, Drew Sykes

The Inspection

Director: Elegance Bratton

Producers: Effie T. Brown, Chester Algernal Gordon

Murina

Director: Antoneta Alamat Kusijanović

Producers: Danijel Pek, Rodrigo Teixeira

Palm Trees and Power Lines

Director/Producer: Jamie Dack

Producer: Leah Chen Baker

John Cassavettes Award – Given to the best feature made for under $1,000,000 (Award given to the writer, director, and producer.)

The African Desperate

Writer/Director/Producer: Martine Syms

Writer/Producer: Rocket Caleshu

Producer: Vic Brooks

The Cathedral

Writer/Director: Ricky D’Ambrose

Producer: Graham Swon

Holy Emy

Writer/Director: Araceli Lemos

Writer/Producer: Giulia Caruso

Producers: Mathieu Bompoint, Ki Jin Kim, Konstantinos Vassilaros

A Love Song

Writer/Director/Producer: Max Walker-Silverman

Producers: Jesse Hope, Dan Janvey

Something in the Dirt

Writer/Director/Producer: Justin Benson

Director/Producer: Aaron Moorhead

Producer: David Lawson Jr.

Best Director

Todd Field - Tár

Kogonada - After Yang

Daniel Kwan & Daniel Scheinert - Everything Everywhere All At Once

Sarah Polley - Women Talking

Halina Reijn - Bodies Bodies Bodies

Best Screenplay

Lena Dunham - Catherine Called Birdy

Todd Field - Tár

Kogonada - After Yang

Daniel Kwan & Daniel Scheinert - Everything Everywhere All At Once

Sarah Polley - Women Talking

Best First Screenplay

Joel Kim Booster - Fire Island

Jamie Dack, Audrey Findlay; Story by Jamie Dack - Palm Trees and Power Lines

K.D. Dávila - Emergency

Sarah DeLappe, Story by Kristen Roupenian - Bodies Bodies Bodies

John Patton Ford - Emily the Criminal

Best Lead Performance

Cate Blanchett - Tár

Dale Dickey - A Love Song

Mia Goth - Pearl

Regina Hall - Honk for Jesus. Save Your Soul.

Paul Mescal - Aftersun

Aubrey Plaza - Emily the Criminal

Jeremy Pope - The Inspection

Andrea Riseborough - To Leslie

Taylor Russell - Bones and All

Michelle Yeoh - Everything Everywhere All At Once

Best Supporting Performance

Jamie Lee Curtis - Everything Everywhere All At Once

Brian Tyree Henry - Causeway

Nina Hoss - Tár

Brian d’Arcy James - The Cathedral

Ke Huy Quan - Everything Everywhere All At Once

Trevante Rhodes - Bruiser

Theo Rossi - Emily the Criminal

Mark Rylance - Bones and All

Jonathan Tucker - Palm Trees and Power Lines

Gabrielle Union - The Inspection

Best Breakthrough Performance

Frankie Corio - Aftersun

Gracija Filipović - Murina

Stephanie Hsu - Everything Everywhere All At Once

Lily McInerny - Palm Trees and Power Lines

Daniel Zolghadri - Funny Pages

Best Cinematography

Florian Hoffmeister - Tár

Hélène Louvart - Murina

Gregory Oke - Aftersun

Eliot Rockett - Pearl

Anisia Uzeyman - Neptune Frost

Best Editing

Ricky D’Ambrose - The Cathedral

Dean Fleischer Camp, Nick Paley - Marcel the Shell with Shoes On

Blair McClendon - Aftersun

Paul Rogers - Everything Everywhere All At Once

Monika Willi - Tár

Robert Altman Award – Given to one film’s director, casting director, and ensemble cast

Women Talking

Director: Sarah Polley

Casting Directors: John Buchan, Jason Knight

Ensemble Cast: Shayla Brown, Jessie Buckley, Claire Foy, Kira Guloien, Kate Hallett, Judith Ivey, Rooney Mara, Sheila McCarthy, Frances McDormand, Michelle McLeod, Liv McNeil, Ben Whishaw, August Winter

Best Documentary (Award given to the director and producer)

All That Breathes

Director/Producer: Shaunak Sen

Producers: Teddy Leifer, Aman Mann

All the Beauty and the Bloodshed

Director/Producer: Laura Poitras

Producers: Howard Gertler, Nan Goldin, Yoni Golijov, John Lyons

A House Made of Splinters

Director: Simon Lereng Wilmont

Producers: Monica Hellström

Midwives

Director/Producer: Snow Hnin Ei Hlaing

Producers: Mila Aung-Thwin, Ulla Lehmann, Bob Moore

Riotsville, U.S.A.

Director: Sierra Pettengill

Producers: Sara Archambault, Jamila Wignot

Best International Film (Award given to the director)

Corsage

Austria/Luxembourg/France/Belgium/Italy/England

Director: Marie Kreutzer

Joyland

Pakistan/USA

Director: Saim Sadiq

Leonor Will Never Die

Philippines

Director: Martika Ramirez Escobar

Return to Seoul

South Korea/France/Belgium/Romania

Director: Davy Chou

Saint Omer

France

Director: Alice Diop

Producers Award presented by Bulleit Frontier Whiskey – The Producers Award, now in its 26th year, honors emerging producers who, despite highly limited resources, demonstrate the creativity, tenacity, and vision required to produce quality independent films.

Liz Cardenas - recent films produced include Acidman, last year’s Spirit Awards nominee for Best First Feature 7 Days, the short film Burros, and many more.

Tory Lenosky - recent films produced include The Hater, Resurrection, and many more.

David Grove Churchill Viste - recent films produced include The Visitor, How to Blow Up a Pipeline, Diary of a Spy, and many more.

Someone to Watch Award – The Someone to Watch Award, now in its 29th year, recognizes a talented filmmaker of singular vision who has not yet received appropriate recognition.

Adamma Ebo - Honk for Jesus. Save Your Soul.

Nikyatu Jusu - Nanny

Araceli Lemos - Holy Emy

Truer Than Fiction Award – The Truer Than Fiction Award, now in its 28th year, is presented to an emerging director of non-fiction features who has not yet received significant recognition.

Isabel Castro - Mija

Reid Davenport - I Didn’t See You There

Rebeca Huntt - Beba

If you want to join Film Independent to vote on the Spirit Awards, go to filmindependent.org/join by December 21st.

What do you think of the nominees? What have you seen? What haven't you seen? What do you think got snubbed? Let me know in the comments or on social media!

Until next time!

Thanks to Thomas Stoneham-Judge from Movies For Reel, Shane Conto, Joseph Davis, David Walters, Ambula Bula, Matthew Simpson, Thom Blackburn, and Beatrice AKA Shakesqueer, for supporting Austin B Media on Patreon!

Austin Belzer

My name is Austin Belzer. I’m a cynic, a perfectionist, high-strung (I’m told), and an overly anxious human being. I love to write. Whether it’s on GameSkinny, The BladedTech Show, Proven Gamer, The Vertical Slice, Movie Health Community, or SiftPop, I have always felt the need to write or create

https://www.austinb.media
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