Spirit Award Nominations: ‘Call Me By Your Name’, ‘Lady Bird’, ‘Get Out’, ‘The Rider’, ‘Florida Project’ Best Pics

For a second year in a row, A24 led the Film Independent Spirit Award nominations, counting 17, followed by Sony Pictures Classics which had 13 propelled by Luca Guadagnino’s Call Me By Your Name and Chloe Zhao’s The Rider.

It was also a big day for Call Me By Your Name, which lead all film noms with a total of six including best picture, but Universal/Blumhouse’s Get Out continued to prove it’s a serious contender this season with five noms for the Jordan Peele movie including best picture, director, screenplay, editing and male lead Daniel Kaluuya. In addition, A24’s Safdie brothers Cannes Film Festival premiere Good Time came up huge with five noms.

A24 saw nominations from a slew of titles including Lady Bird (4), Good Time (5), The Florida Project (2), The Killing of a Sacred Deer (2), The Disaster Artist (1, for James Franco as best actor), The Lovers (best screenplay), Menashe (best first feature film) and A Ghost Story which slotted the John Cassavetes Award.

Frosh label Neon saw seven noms spurred by I, Tonya, Ingrid Goes West and Beach Rats. FilmRise counted six noms across Women Who Kill, Dayveon, Motherland, The Departure and Marjorie Prime. Fox Searchlight’s four noms belonged to Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri (3) and Sundance acquisition Patti Cake$ (1), while Amazon Studios counted three for The Big Sick (best screenplay and supporting female Holly Hunter) and Crown Heights. For all of Netflix’s efforts to break into the film awards-season game outside of their documentaries, the streaming service walked away with the Robert Altman cast ensemble award for its $12.5 million Sundance Film Festival pickup Mudbound.

Overlooked here by the Spirit Awards either because their budgets didn’t meet qualification or otherwise: Searchlight’s Battle of the Sexes and The Shape of Water (that Guillermo del Toro movie has a reported production cost north of $30M); Taylor Sheridan’s Wind River, which won best director at Un Certain Regard at Cannes; and Focus Features’ slate of Paul Thomas Anderson’s The Phantom Thread (which technically starts screening this weekend), Sofia Coppola’s The Beguiled which won her best director at Cannes, and Joe Wright’s Darkest Hour. 

Here’s this morning’s Facebook Live announcement with Tessa Thompson and Lily Collins presenting the noms:

Last year, Lionsgate’s awards darling La La Land was boxed out of the Spirit Awards nominations as its qualifying production cost exceeded $20M. Moonlight wound up coming up strong with five wins including best picture, but the next day at the Oscars, everyone was blown away by the movie’s surprise best picture win. Because of that feat, the Spirit Awards have been on a four-year hot streak, syncing with Oscar’s Best Picture winner on 2016’s Spotlight, 2015’s Birdman and 2014’s 12 Years A Slave.

Oscars mirroring the Spirit Awards is a continued testament to AMPAS’ embrace of indie and low-budget fare. In addition to best film last year, the Spirit Awards and Oscars lined up on best actor (Casey Affleck, Manchester by the Sea), screenplay (Barry Jenkins took adapted for Moonlight at the Oscars), and feature documentary (O.J. Made in America).

The ceremony will air live on IFC from the Santa Monica beach on March 3 hosted by Nick Kroll and John Mulaney for a second year in a row.

Here’s the full list of noms:

BEST FEATURE

Call Me By Your Name
Producers: Peter Spears, Luca Guadagnino, Emilie Georges, Rodrigo Teixeira, Marco Morabito, James Ivory, Howard Rosenman

Get Out
Producers: Jason Blum, Edward H. Hamm Jr., Sean McKittrick, Jordan Peele

Lady Bird
Producers: Eli Bush, Evelyn O’Neill, Scott Rudin

The Florida Project
Producers: Sean Baker, Chris Bergoch, Kevin Chinoy, Andrew Duncan, Alex Saks, Francesca Silvestri, Shih-Ching Tsou

The Rider
Producers: Mollye Asher, Bert Hamelinck, Sacha Ben Harroche, Chloé Zhao

BEST FIRST FEATURE
Columbus
Director: Kogonada
Producers: Danielle Renfrew Behrens, Aaron Boyd, Giulia Caruso, Ki Jin Kim, Andrew Miano, Chris Weitz 

Ingrid Goes West
Director: Matt Spicer
Producers: Jared Ian Goldman, Adam Mirels, Robert Mirels, Aubrey Plaza, Tim White, Trevor White

Menashe
Director/Producer: Joshua Z. Weinstein
Producers: Yoni Brook, Traci Carlson, Daniel Finkelman, Alex Lipschultz           

Oh Lucy!
Director/Producer: Atsuko Hirayanagi
Producers: Jessica Elbaum, Yukie Kito, Han West

Patti Cake$
Director: Geremy Jasper
Producers: Chris Columbus, Michael Gottwald, Dan Janvey, Daniela Taplin Lundberg, Noah Stahl, Rodrigo Teixeira

JOHN CASSAVETES AWARD

Dayveon
Writer/Director/Producer: Amman Abbasi
Writer: Steven Reneau
Producers: Lachion Buckingham, Alexander Uhlmann

A Ghost Story
Writer/Director: David Lowery
Producers: Adam Donaghey, Toby Halbrooks, James M. Johnston

Life and nothing more
Writer/Director: Antonio Méndez Esparza
Producers: Amadeo Hernández Bueno, Alvaro Portanet Hernández, Pedro Hernández Santos

Most Beautiful Island
Writer/Director/Producer: Ana Asensio
Producers: Larry Fessenden, Noah Greenberg, Chadd Harbold, Jenn Wexler

The Transfiguration
Writer/Director: Michael O’Shea
Producer: Susan Leber

BEST DIRECTOR

Sean Baker, The Florida Project

Jonas Carpignano, A Ciambra

Luca Guadagnino, Call Me by Your Name

Jordan Peele, Get Out

Benny Safdie, Josh Safdie, Good Time

Chloé Zhao, The Rider

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

Donald Cried
Kris Avedisian
Story By: Kyle Espeleta, Jesse Wakeman

The Big Sick
Emily V. Gordon, Kumail Nanjiani 

Women Who Kill
Ingrid Jungermann 

Columbus
Kogonada

Ingrid Goes West
David Branson Smith, Matt Spicer

BEST CINEMATOGRAPHY

Thimios Bakatakis
The Killing of a Sacred Deer 

Elisha Christian
Columbus       

Hélène Louvart
Beach Rats    

Sayombhu Mukdeeprom
Call Me by Your Name          

 Joshua James Richards
The Rider

BEST EDITING

Ronald Bronstein, Benny Safdie
Good Time

Walter Fasano
Call Me by Your Name          

Alex O’Flinn
The Rider

Gregory Plotkin
Get Out          

Tatiana S. Riegel
I, Tonya   

BEST FEMALE LEAD

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 MALE LEAD
Timothée 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 FEMALE

Holly Hunter, The Big Sick

Allison Janney, I, Tonya

Laurie Metcalf, Lady Bird

Lois Smith, Marjorie Prime

Taliah Lennice Webster, Good Time

BEST 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 Outside Ebbing, Missouri

Bennie Safdie, Good Time

ROBERT ALTMAN AWARD

Mudbound
Director: Dee Rees
Casting Directors: Billy Hopkins, Ashley Ingram
Ensemble Cast: Jonathan Banks, Mary J. Blige, Jason Clarke, Garrett Hedlund, Jason Mitchell, Rob Morgan, Carey Mulligan

BEST INTERNATIONAL FILM

BPM (Beats Per Minute)
France
Director: Robin Campillo

 A Fantastic Woman
Chile
Director: Sebastián Lelio

 I Am Not a Witch
Zambia
Director: Rungano Nyoni

Lady Macbeth
U.K.
Director: William Oldroyd

Loveless
Russia
Director: Andrey Zvyagintsev

BEST DOCUMENTARY

The Departure
Director/Producer: Lana Wilson 

Faces Places
Directors: Agnés Varda, JR
Producer: Rosalie Varda

Last Men in Aleppo
Director: Feras Fayyad
Producers: Kareem Abeed, Søeren Steen Jespersen, Stefan Kloos 

Motherland
Director/Producer: Ramona S. Diaz
Producer: Rey Cuerdo 

Quest
Director: Jonathan Olshefski
Producer: Sabrina Schmidt Gordon

BONNIE AWARD – Bonnie Tiburzi Caputo joined American Airlines in 1973 at age 24, becoming the first female pilot to fly for a major U.S. airline. In her honor, the inaugural Bonnie Award will recognize a mid-career female director with a $50,000 unrestricted grant, sponsored by American Airlines.

So Yong Kim
Lynn Shelton
Chloé Zhao

JEEP TRUER THAN FICTION AWARD – The 23rd annual Truer Than Fiction Award, funded by the Jeep brand, is presented to an emerging director of non-fiction features who has not yet received significant recognition. The award includes a $25,000 unrestricted grant funded by the Jeep brand.

Shevaun Mizrahi
Director of Distant Constellation

Jonathan Olshefski
Director of Quest

Jeff Unay
Director of The Cage Fighter

KIEHL’S SOMEONE TO WATCH AWARD – The 24th annual Someone to Watch Award, funded by Kiehl’s Since 1851, recognizes a talented filmmaker of singular vision who has not yet received appropriate recognition. The award includes a $25,000 unrestricted grant funded by Kiehl’s Since 1851.

Amman Abbasi
Director of Dayveon

Justin Chon
Director of Gook

Kevin Phillips
Director of Super Dark Times

PIAGET PRODUCERS AWARD – The 21st annual Producers Award, funded by Piaget, honors emerging producers who, despite highly limited resources, demonstrate the creativity, tenacity and vision required to produce quality, independent films. The award includes a $25,000 unrestricted grant funded by Piaget.

Giulia Caruso & Ki Jin Kim
Ben LeClair
Summer Shelton