“The Florida Project,” “Lady Bird,” “Get Out,” “Call Me by Your Name” and “The Rider” have been nominated as the best independent films of 2017 at the Film Independent Spirit Awards, Film Independent announced on Tuesday.
Luca Guadagnino’s “Call Me by Your Name” received the most nominations, six, followed by “Get Out” and “Good Time” with five and “Lady Bird” and “The Rider” with four.
Acting nominees included Salma Hayek for “Beatriz at Dinner,” Frances McDormand and Sam Rockwell for “Three Billboards Outside Ebbing Missouri,” Holly Hunter for “The Big Sick,” Saoirse Ronan and Laurie Metcalf for “Lady Bird” and Armie Hammer and Timothee Chalamet for “Call Me by Your Name.”
In true Spirit Awards fashion, the acting nominations also went to several performers whose films were largely under the radar of other awards voters: Regina Williams for”Life and nothing more,” Harris Dickinson for “Beach Rats,” Nnamdi Asomugha for “Crown Heights” and Shinobu Terajima for “Oh Lucy!”
“Mudbound” received the Robert Altman Award, which goes to a film’ director, casting director and ensemble cast.
Best director nominations went to Guadagnino, Sean Baker for “The Florida Project,” the Safdie brothers for “Good Time,” Jonas Carpignano for “A Ciambra” and Chloe Zhao for “The Rider,” an indie western that was probably the biggest surprise among the nominations.
Nominees in the Best First Feature category were “Columbus,” “Ingrid Goes West,” “Menashe,” “Oh Lucy!” and “Patti Cake$.”
To qualify for the Spirit Awards, a film must meet a variety of criteria, including a budget of less than $20 million and “significant American content,” or U.S. citizens or permanent residents in two of the three creative positions of director, writer and producer. (While “Three Billboards” was written and directed by the Irish-British Martin McDonagh, the fact that it was set and filmed in the U.S. was enough to qualify it.)
Nominations are chosen by a variety of nominating committees, a process that lends itself to surprises and offbeat choices more than most other awards shows.
Final voting is now in the hands of the members of Film Independent, an organization made up both of film professionals and movie fans who pay the annual membership fee.
The Spirit Awards have gotten closer to the Academy Awards in recent years, with the last four Best Feature winners, and five of the last six, going on to win the Oscar for Best Picture. (In the previous 26 years, that had only happened once.)
Since the Oscars expanded to more than five Best Picture nominees in 2009, there has never been a year in which at least one of the Spirit nominees did not also receive an Oscar nomination in the top category, with a high of four matches in 2010 and again in 2014. In an average year, two of the Spirit nominees will become Oscar Best Picture nominees.
In the acting categories, less than a third of the Spirit nominees are typically recognized by Oscar voters.
The nominations were announced at a press conference by Lily Collins and Tessa Thompson.
The 2018 Spirit Awards will be held on Saturday, March 3, 2018 and broadcast live on IFC. Nick Kroll and John Mulaney will host for the second year in a row.
The nominees:
BEST FEATURE
“Call Me by Your Name”
“The Florida Project”
“Get Out”
“Lady Bird”
“The Rider”
BEST FIRST FEATURE
“Columbus”
“Ingrid Goes West”
“Menashe”
“Oh Lucy!”
“Patti Cake$”
JOHN CASSAVETES AWARD – Given to the best feature made for under $500,000. (Award given to the writer, director and producer. Executive Producers are not awarded.)
“Dayveon”
“A Ghost Story”
“Life and nothing more”
“Most Beautiful Island”
“The Transfiguration”
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
Kris Avedisian, Kyle Espeleta, Jesse Wakeman, “Donald Cried”
Emily V. Gordon, Kumail Nanjiani, “The Big Sick”
Ingrid Jungermann, “Women Who Kill”
Kogonada, “Columbus”
David Branson Smith, Matt Spicer, “Ingrid Goes West”
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”
Benny Safdie, “Good Time”
ROBERT ALTMAN AWARD – Given to one film’s director, casting director and ensemble cast
“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 DOCUMENTARY
“The Departure”
“Faces Places”
“Last Men in Aleppo”
“Motherland”
“Quest”
BEST INTERNATIONAL FILM
“BPM (Beats Per Minute)”
“A Fantastic Woman”
“I Am Not a Witch”
“Lady Macbeth”
“Loveless”
BONNIE AWARD
So Yong Kim
Lynn Shelton
Chloé Zhao
JEEP TRUER THAN FICTION AWARD
Shevaun Mizrahi, “Distant Constellation”
Jonathan Olshefski, “Quest”
Jeff Unay, “The Cage Fighter”
KIEHL’S SOMEONE TO WATCH AWARD
Amman Abbasi, “Dayveon”
Justin Chon, “Gook”
Kevin Phillips, “Super Dark Times”
PIAGET PRODUCERS AWARD
Giulia Caruso & Ki Jin Kim
Ben LeClair
Summer Shelton