"Winter's Bone" and "The Kids Are All Right" led a very mainstream batch of Film Independent Spirit Award nominations with seven and five nods, respectively, while "127 Hours," "Black Swan" and "Greenberg" were also nominated for the top prize. The nominations were announced on Tuesday morning by actors Jeremy Renner and Eva Mendes, as well as Film Independent executive director Dawn Hudson.
Those five films are competing for Best Feature, while the Best Director category includes Darren Aronofsky ("Black Swan"), Danny Boyle ("127 Hours"), Lisa Cholodenko ("The Kids Are All Right"), Debra Granik ("Winter's Bone") and John Cameron Mitchell ("Rabbit Hole").
The seven nominations for "Winter's Bone" also include recognition for the screenplay and cinematography, as well as for actors Jennifer Lawrence, John Hawkes and Dale Dickey.
"The Kids Are All Right" won nominations for film, director and screenplay, and for actors Annette Bening and Mark Ruffalo.
Other films receiving multiple nominations include "Black Swan," "Rabbit Hole" and the surprisingly strong Ben Stiller comedy "Greenberg," with four each.
Like the Best Feature and Best Directort categories, the Best Male Lead and Best Female Lead categories contained several presumed Oscar contenders: James Franco ("127 Hours") among the actors, and Annette Bening ("The Kids Are All Right"), Nicole Kidman ("Rabbit Hole"), Jennifer Lawrence ("Winter's Bone"), Natalie Portman ("Black Swan") and Michelle Williams ("Blue Valentine") among an unprecedented group of six Best Female Lead nominees.
In fact, the entire lineup is long on higher-profile films that may also figure in the Oscar race; apart from Ronald Bronstein of "Daddy Longlegs" in the Best Male Lead category, most of the micro-budgeted films that often pepper Spirit Award nominations showed up in the John Cassavetes Award category, which goes to a film made for less than $500,000.
Among the films and performances that were overlooked: Bening's "Kids Are All Right" costar Annette Bening; Michelle Williams' "Blue Valentine" partner Ryan Gosling; "Get Low" stars Robert Duvall and Sissy Spacek; "Black Swan" supporting actresses Barbara Hershey and Mila Kunis; and the foreign films "Animal Kingdom," "Another Year," "I Am Love" and "Biutiful."
Oscar favorite "The King's Speech" did receive a Best Foreign Film nomination; at the Spirit Awards, any film not made in the United States by American filmmakers is considered foreign and is ineligible in other categories.
The documentary lineup includes two films shortlisted by the Academy, "Exit Through the Gift Shop" and "Restrepo," along with "Marwencol," "Sweetgrass" and "Thunder Soul." "The Oath," which won at the Gotham Awards on Monday night, was not nominated.
The nominees:
BEST FEATURE
"127 Hours"
"Black Swan"
"Greenberg
"
"The Kids Are All Right"
"Winter's Bone"
BEST DIRECTOR
Darren Aronofsky, "Black Swan"
Danny Boyle, "127 Hours"
Lisa Cholodenko, "The Kids Are All Right"
Debra Granik, "Winter's Bone"
John Cameron Mitchell, "Rabbit Hole"
BEST SCREENPLAY
Stuart Blumberg, Lisa Cholodenko, "The Kids Are All Right
"
Debra Granik, Anne Rosellini, "Winter's Bone"
Nicole Holofcener, "Please Give"
David Lindsay-Abaire, "Rabbit Hole
"
Todd Solondz, "Life During Wartime"
