"Everything Everywhere..." wins every Spirit Award it's up for
Sunday, March 5, 2023 at 4:00PM by Nathaniel R
"Everything Everywhere All At Once" was a sweeper
Everything Everywhere All At Once has turned into a steamroller late in awards season, winning guild prizes, recently snatching up all available Dorian Awards, taking all of the SAG awards it was eligible for, and now sweeping again at the Spirits. The Spirits are traditionally the final prize before Oscar (they used to even be held the day before Oscar!) though they don't always align with Hollywood's big night given their more indie-focused love. This time though there will surely be some overlap. The Daniels sci-fi-comedy-action-queer-family drama has won every single one of its seven categories at the annual Film Independent Spirit Awards and that's getting to be a habit, poor BAFTA showing as the exception. Given its dominance at the Spirits, no other film was able to win more than one prize. Despite an impressive showing in the nominations, for example, TÁR only took Best Cinematography since EEAAO wasn't nominated.
After the jump the winners and all the acceptance speeches...
Best Feature
- “Bones and All” (3 nominations, no wins)
- ★ “Everything Everywhere All at Once” (8 nominations converted to 7 wins since there was a double dip nod in supporting)
- “Our Father, the Devil” (1 nomination, no win)
- “TÁR” (7 nominations, 1 win)
- “Women Talking” (2 nominations + The Robert Alman Award)
Best Director
- Todd Field, “TÁR”
- Kogonada, “After Yang”
- ★ Daniel Kwan and Daniel Scheinert, “Everything Everywhere All at Once”
- Sarah Polley, “Women Talking”
- Halina Reijn, “Bodies Bodies Bodies”
There's still an off chance that Oscar feels sentimental and gives it to Spielberg but we'll see!
Best First Feature
Aftersun
- ★ “Aftersun”
- “Emily the Criminal”
- “The Inspection”
- “Murina”
- “Palm Trees and Power Lines”
Charlotte Wells continued her complete dominance of "First Feature" categories. Aftersun built enough momentum through all of its critical prizes to boost Paul Mescal into Best Actor at the Oscars, though the Spirits were its last hurrah as a winner.
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”
- Taylor Russell, “Bones and All”
- Andrea Riseborough, “To Leslie”
- ★ Michelle Yeoh, “Everything Everywhere All at Once”
Yeoh has been building considerable momentum as we march towards Oscar. Whether she'll unseat Cate Blanchett's previously presumed third win will be a nail-biter until the envelope is read. Unless Everything Everywhere wins something very unexpected early in the evening (like Score / Costumes) and then we'll know we have a sweeper on our hands and Yeoh will be our winner.
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”
Ke Huy Quan has collected more acting trophies than anyone this season. A dead certain lock for Oscar night as well.
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”
Given the love for Everything Everywhere All At Once, it was inevitable that Jobu Tupaki would crush her competition in this Spirit category. In another year it's easy to imagine Frankie Corio walking away with this one, though.
Best Screenplay
Best First Screenplay
- “Bodies Bodies Bodies”
- “Emergency”
- ★ “Emily the Criminal”
- “Fire Island”
- “Palm Trees and Power Lines”
We were rooting for Fire Island but Emily the Criminal is a quality picture. Have you streamed it yet?
Best Cinematography
TÁR takes its only prize at the Spirits with this award for Florian Hoffmeister's also Oscar-nominated work.
Best Editing
- “Aftersun”
- “The Cathedral”
- ★ “Everything Everywhere All at Once”
- “Marcel the Shell with Shoes On”
- “TÁR”
Paul Rogers kaleidoscope editing of multiversal chaos was probably an easy victory despite quality competition.
Robert Altman Award
Best Documentary
- “A House Made of Splinters”
- “All That Breathes”
- ★ “All the Beauty and the Bloodshed”
- “Midwives”
- “Riotsville USA”
Best International Film
- “Corsage” (Austria)
- ★ “Joyland” (Pakistan)
- “Leonor Will Never Die” (Phillipines)
- “Return to Seoul” (Cambodia)
- “Saint Omer” (France)
Shocked and quite thrilled that this great queer film from Pakistan took the prize. We grow impatient for its US release so that more of you will have a chance to see it.
Someone to Watch Award
- Adamma Ebo, “Honk for Jesus, Save Your Soul”
- ★ Nikyatu Jusu, “Nanny”
- Araceli Lemos, “Holy Emy”
Truer Than Fiction Award
- Isabel Castro, “Mija”
- ★ Reid Davenport, “I Didn’t See You There”
- Rebeca Huntt, “Beba (Bayba)”
John Cassavetes Award
- “The African Desperate”
- “A Love Song”
- ★ “The Cathedral”
- “Holy Emy”
- “Something in the Dirt”
This prize is for films that were made for under $1 million (it used to be a $500k cap)
Producers Award
- Liz Cardenas
- ★ Tory Lenosky
- David Grove Churchill Viste
AND THE TV SPEECHES TOO...
Reader Comments (16)
They ruined the Spirits with the gender-neutral nonsense and the inclusion of TV awards. Used to be a cool event.
For me, the sole reason for celebration at this year's Spirit Awards was the embrace of Joyland. The film reminds us why cinematic art is so important. The Pakistani government has banned this Pakistani transgender love story in Pakistan.
Producer Malala Yousafzai wrote in response, “Joyland is a love letter to Pakistan, to its culture, food, fashion and, most of all, its people. How tragic that a film created by and for Pakistanis is now banned from our screens because of claims that it does not 'represent our way of life' or 'portrays a negative image of our country.' The opposite is true — the film reflects reality for millions of ordinary Pakistanis, people who yearn for freedom and fulfilment, people who create moments of joy every day for those they love."
I generally don’t like sweeps no matter how much I love the movie.
I am just glad that Oscar voting closed in two days so whatever potential backlash for EEAAO has no time to materialize since I love EEAAO so much.
Gotta admit though, the makers and cast are so easy to root for so it’s hard not to be happy for them when they sweep these awards the last week or so.
Stephanie Hsu's speech is one of my favorites of all awards season. Yes, there was a list of names, but she had so much other stuff to say especially that wonderful anecdote. I love that she was able to get a big moment like that for herself this season.
I love EEAO to the point that I saw it thrice, but come on, it doesn’t deserve all these awards. IMO it deserves a win for Hsu and Quan. Other than that, no.
Stunned and disappointed with the EEAAO sweep. Tar should have most of those awards easily. And instead of having two female winners and two male winners, we only have one of each now? Ok…it would be better to celebrate more women not less, call me crazy I guess. Big head scratcher on that one. All the Beauty and Joyland winning are excellent choices. But another terrible choice was The Cathedral winning the Cassavetes award. It’s not even that A Love Song is so good but that The Cathedral is so terrible. I think I’m losing touch with this awards show; look how awful many of last year’s winners were too. This is just turning into a popularity contest voted on by Twitter.
So happy for Joyland! That is a category that I assume was tight and where I feel my vote really counted!
If EEAAO sweeps the Oscars it will be so booooooooring. I wish the voting periods for every single awards show were at the VERY SAME TIME so people would vote on their own and not be swayed by previous televised award shows. That would definitely make for an exciting and interesting award season in my opinion.
Cannot stand the gender-neutral categories. It eliminates two winners and the chance to honor more performances! I hope it reverts someday
I loved Emily the Criminal! Happy to see it pick up an award.
"There's still an off chance that Oscar feels sentimental and gives it to Spielberg but we'll see!"
I don't think the Academy is interested in giving Spielberg a third Oscar for Best Director.
Right now the Daniels look invincible. Even the Baftas that did not award them preferred to give the Bafta to a director who is not nominated for an Oscar.
Eliminating Best Actor and Best Actress is terrible. If those awards existed I imagine Paul Mescal and Jamie Lee Curtis would have won. Curiously, many think that this will make women earn less when I think it would be the opposite. Look at the Berlin Film Festival, three years in a row of only women winning acting awards.
I'm of the mind that if we must do genderless categories (and nominate 10 people), then they should give out TWO awards per category.
If they did it here I think Cate Blanchett and Jamie Lee Curtis would've picked up awards. On the TV side, my guess would have been Melanie Lynskey and Sheryl Lee Ralph. So yes Ke Huy Quan would still remain the only male acting winner.
I'm an Indie Spirit voter, and I did better than expected as far as my choices winning. I don't care for EEAAO much, and saw it sweeping even without my vote for it in any category. But I went 4 for 5 in the other categories (pathetic as that is, it beats last year when I got a grand total of 2). Got all of those except 1st film, where I voted for Emily the Criminal, which along with Joyland and Palm Trees and Power Lines made plowing through all those screeners worth it.
A friend asked me tonight, "When with the EEAAO fever break?" I told him, "the day after the Oscars." There are great films that just happen to have won best picture: MIDNIGHT COWBOY, THE GODFATHER, ANNIE HALL, UNFORGIVEN, TITANIC, NO COUNTRY FOR OLD MEN, MOONLIGHT. Then there are ones that end up being known as nothing but a film that won Best Picture: CHARIOTS OF FIRE, SHAKESPEARE IN LOVE, SLUMDOG MILLIONAIRE, THE KING'S SPEACH, THE ARTIST, SPOTLIGHT, films that in the future will only be watched by young people coming along wanting to be Best Picture winner completists. Call me a cranky old man, but I predict the latter for this year's awards-season hula hoop. Ugh. There are three great films and three very, very good ones right there on the ballot this year.
Oh well, it's not as bad as GREEN BOOK or CRASH. It has it's heart in the right place and it's not outright embarrassing.
They tried gender neutral awards at the Brits here in the UK and only men we're nominated for Best Artist,they made up some nonsense about women not having albums out,in other words no big female stars released anything but some smaller female acts did so why not include them.
I think they should add non binary performer to award shows and let individual acting categories have their moment and non binary performers would then be able to be ina category they hopefully felt more comfortable with.
@Drew: Your point is definitely worth emphasizing, because it seems like not long ago at all when the internet was all “the Academy would never go for something as interesting as EEAAO,” and now it’s already to the “ugh I’m so sick of EEAAO winning everything” stage of things. Just goes to show how a long awards season can really change the narrative for certain movies. I’m still convinced Power of the Dog would have won Best Picture had the voting closed maybe 3 weeks earlier last year. Fortunately for EEAAO, it seems to have peaked at just the right time. Another few weeks and I’d start to wonder.