Spirit Award Nominations 2017
Tuesday, November 21, 2017 at 1:10PM by Nathaniel R
The Film Independent Spirit Award nominees hit today. Tessa Thompson and Lily Collins were on hand to announce the awards with the longest stretch of time between nominations and awards. The ceremony, as ever, will be held the day before the Oscars. So that's Saturday, March 3rd 2018 this time.
It was a huge day for Sony Pictures Classics (the company received 13 nominations in total) and for A24, too. Almost every single movie A24 released this year was nominated for at least a little something. As far as underseen pictures the happiest nominee this morning has to be Sony Pictures Classics' The Rider (reviewed here) which was a busy film on the festival circuit but has yet to be released.
The Nominees Are...
FEATURE FILM
Call Me By Your Name (6 nominations)
The Florida Project (2 nominations)
Get Out (5 nominations)
Lady Bird (4 nominations)
The Rider (4 nominations)
Strangely The Florida Project received only two nominations. It'll be interesting to see which film takes the lead here because it seems like Call Me, Lady Bird, and Get Out are the three major threats for the win.
DIRECTOR
Sean Baker, The Florida Project
Jonas Carpignano, A Ciambra
Luca Guadagnino, Call Me By Your Name
Jordan Peele, Get Out
The Safdie Brothers, Good Time
Chloé Zhao, The Rider
You may recall that Jonas Carpignano won a prize at Cannes for a movie called A Ciambra some time ago. But that was a short film of the same name. He's since made the story of a young boy in a small Romani community into a feature. Greta Gerwig is the only major snub here since her film was nominated in Best Feature.
ALTMAN AWARD - BEST ENSEMBLE
Mudbound
BEST FEMALE LEAD
Salma Hayek, Beatriz at Dinner
Frances McDormand, Three Billboards
Margot Robbie, I Tonya
Saoirse Ronan, Lady Bird
Regina Williams, Life and Nothing More
I'd heard Nick Davis rave about Williams in Life and Nothing more before but have yet to have an opportunity to see the feature.
I thought I heard Shinobu Terajima from Oh Lucy a Japanese film that played at festivals this year mentioned among the nominees and I saw her on at least one published list (on IndieWire I think) but she's not listed on the official site so I'm not sure if this is an oversite or an error in initial announcement or what.
BEST MALE LEAD
Timothée Chalamet, Call Me By Your Name
Harris Dickinson, Beach Rats
James Franco, The Disaster Artist
Daniel Kaaluya, Get Out
Robert Pattinson, Good Time
Just a guess that Oscar isn't going to come up with a list quite this good.
SUPPORTING FEMALE
Holly Hunter, The Big Sick
Allison Janney, I Tonya
Laurie Metcalf, Lady Bird
Lois Smith, Marjorie Prime
Taliah Lennice Webster, Good Time
How closely do we think this film lineup will land with Oscar. Current thinking is 3 of these 5 are shoo-ins but the race is competitive. Is Lois Smith really building up enough steam in supporting despite being the only lead of Marjorie Prime.
SUPPORTING MALE
Nnamdi Asomugha, Crown Heights
Armie Hammer, Call Me By Your Name
Barry Keoghan, The Killing of a Sacred Deer
Sam Rockwell, Three Billboards
Bennie Safdie, Good Time
The big surprise here is no nomination for Willem Dafoe for The Florida Project. In other wonders: Does Hammer's publicity machine for his co-lead role spell trouble for Call Me By Your Name's actual supporting actor Michael Stuhlbarg in the Oscar race? We shall see.
SCREENPLAY
Lady Bird
The Lovers
Three Billboards
Get Out
Beatriz at Dinner
Good list, right?! Happy to see The Lovers listed and its something of a surprise given the low profile since its release.
FIRST SCREENPLAY
Donald Cried
The Big Sick
Women Who Kill
Columbus
Ingrid Goes West
This is a big get for the very low profile films Donald Cried and Women Who Kill but we're unsure as to why they're eligible. The Spirit Awards include festival releases under their eligibility rules but both films debuted at 2016 festivals so we're not sure why they are considered 2017 films for the Spirits. Donald Cries is available to stream on Amazon
CINEMATOGRAPHY
The Killing of a Sacred Deer
Columbus
Beach Rats
Call Me By Your Name
The Rider
Beach Rats' scuzzy beauty is a wonderful option here. Glad it got the nomination.
EDITING
Good Time
Call Me By Your Name
The Rider
Get Out
I Tonya
Oscar's editing branch would be insane to pass Get Out up on this category but I don't think they will. Disappointing that Lady Bird isn't here because it actually flows so beautifully and organically and the editing seems particularly skillful / inspired in that way. I don't get the I Tonya nomination at all... was it the mockumentary style crosscutting to and from direct camera addresses?
INTERNATIONAL FILM
BPM (Beats Per Minute) (France)
A Fantastic Woman (Chile)
I Am Not a Witch (UK/France)
Lady Macbeth (UK)
Loveless (Russia)
I Am Not a Witch and Lady MacBeth are not factors in the impending Foreign Language Film Oscar race but the other three are major players unless they're dropped when AMPAS takes the list from 92 titles to 9 in a month or so.
DOCUMENTARY
Faces Places
The Departure
Last Man in Aleppo
Motherland
Quest
Of these titles only The Departure is missing from Oscar's long eligibility list.
JOHN CASSAVETTES AWARD
A Ghost Story
Dayveon
Life and Nothing More
Most Beautiful Island
The Transfiguration
FIRST FEATURE
Columbus
Ingrid Goes West
Menashe
Oh Lucy
Patti Cake$
PIAGET PRODUCERS AWARD
Giulia Caruso & Ki Jin Kim
Ben LeClair
Summer Shelton
KIEHL'S SOMEONE TO WATCH AWARD
Amman Abassi, Dayveon
Justin Chon, Gook
TRUER THAN FICTION AWARD
Shevaun Mizrahi, Distant Constellation
Jonathan Olshefshi, The Quest
Jeff Unay, Cage Fighter
ANNUAL BONNIE AWARD
So Young Kim
Chloe Zhao
Lynn Shelton
Reader Comments (52)
I'm cru$hed not to $ee Patticake$ get more attention, mo$tly for Danielle MacDonald.
YASS HARRIS DICKINSON! My current lead actor win!