Clint Bentley’s “Train Dreams” took home three awards – Best Feature, Best Director and Best Cinematography – at the 41st Film Independent Spirit Awards.
Comedian Ego Nwodim hosted the annual celebration of lower-budget movies and the moxie of non-studio filmmaking, which also honored Rose Byrne, who won Best Lead Performance for “If I Had Legs I’d Kick You” and Naomi Ackie, the winner of Best Supporting Performance for “Sorry, Baby.”
In a year with less crossover than usual between the Spirit and Oscar nominations, Indie Spirit Awards voters stuck to what they have been doing in recent years: Anytime there’s an Oscar nominee in a Spirit category, that nominee (or, in a category with more than one Oscar contender, one of those nominees) wins.
Only six of the Spirit Awards’ 14 competitive film categories contained nominees also up for Academy Awards, and in all six of those categories the winner was also up for the Oscar: “Train Dreams” for Best Film, Bentley for Best Director, Adolfo Veloso for Best Cinematography for “Train Dreams,” Byrne for Best Lead Performance, “The Perfect Neighbor” for Best Documentary and “The Secret Agent” for Best International Film.
(In those last two categories, “The Perfect Neighbor” and “The Secret Agent” were going up against fellow Oscar nominees “Come See Me in the Good Light” and “Sirat,” respectively.)
In stark contrast to last year, when six Spirit acting nominees also received Oscar noms, Byrne was the only one of the 25 nominated actors in the three gender-neutral acting categories to also be an Oscar nominee.
The show’s first two awards were presented by current Oscar nominees. Amy Madigan (“Weapons”) gave the Best Screenplay prize to Eva Victor for “Sorry, Baby,” while Byrne handed Best Documentary to “The Perfect Neighbor.”
The Best Cinematography award was presented to Oscar nominated Adolpho Veloso (“Train Dreams”) by his fellow Brazilian Wagner Moura of “The Secret Agent.”
Alex Russell’s “Lurker,” about the relationship between a famous pop singer and an obsessed fan, won both the Best First Feature and Best First Screenplay awards. In the Breakthrough Performance category, 15-year-old Kayo Martin triumphed for his role as a manipulative bully in the drama-thriller “The Plague.”
“The Secret Agent” scored the award for Best International Film. Kleber Mendonça Filho’s Brazilian drama is nominated for four Oscars, including Best Picture.
Among distribution companies, Netflix was the big winner with four film awards to three for A24 and two for IFC. The streaming giant was also the leader in the television categories, which are not restrained by any budget requirements. The Netflix limited series “Adolescence,” which has been an awards juggernaut since the Emmys, swept the scripted categories, winning Best New Scripted Series, Stephen Graham for Best Leading Performance, Erin Doherty for Best Supporting Performance and Owen Cooper for Best Breakthrough Performance. The only non-Netflix TV winners were HBO’s documentary series “Pee-wee as Himself” and Apple TV’s “Chief of War.”
Eligible films must have budgets lower than $28 million, disqualifying most of the Oscar frontrunners such as “Sinners,” “One Battle After Another,” “Marty Supreme,” “Frankenstein” and “Hamnet.”
Ira Sachs’ acclaimed “Peter Hujar’s Day,” starring Ben Whishaw and Rebecca Hall, led the field with five nominations. But the drama, set during one day in 1974 New York City, didn’t win any of its categories.
At last year’s ceremony, “Anora” won awards for Best Feature, Director and Leading Performance on its path to win the same prizes at the Oscars. Likewise, Kieran Culkin’s Spirit Award for “A Real Pain” was a precursor to his Oscar win.
For several decades, since the first Spirit Awards in 1985, the ceremony was held on the day before the Oscars. The date has been moved earlier in recent years, with this 2026 awards show being held exactly one month before the Academy Awards on March 15.
Indie Spirit voters are a mixture of film professionals and fans who pay to participate, and they didn’t always focus on the same films as the Motion Picture Academy. In the first two and a half decades after the awards were launched in 1985, the Film Independent Spirit Awards prided themselves on being an alternative to the Oscars: They were the show that would give the top award to movies like “After Hours,” “Sex, Lies and Videotape” and “Election,” movies that would never be nominated for Best Picture by the Academy. And later, they would go with “Brokeback Mountain” over “Crash,” “Little Miss Sunshine” instead of “The Departed,” “Black Swan” instead of “The King’s Speech.”
But about 12 years ago, the Oscars began to get more indie and the two organizations began to regularly match, beginning with “The Artist” in 2012, followed two years later by a four-year streak in which the Indie Spirits predicted the Oscar winner with “12 Years a Slave” in 2015, “Birdman” in 2016, “Spotlight” in 2017 and “Moonlight” in 2018.
Since then, Indie Spirit voters have tended to go for likely Oscar winners like “Nomadland,” “Everything Everywhere All at Once” and last year’s “Anora,” which won best picture, director and lead performance.
Because of construction in Santa Monica related to the 2028 Los Angeles Olympics, this year’s ceremony was moved from its usual location in a tent near the beach to the Hollywood Palladium, an 85-year-old Streamline Moderne/Art Deco theater near the corner of Sunset Blvd. and Vine St.
Here is the complete list of nominees. Winners are indicated by *WINNER.
BEST FEATURE (Award given to the producer)
“Peter Hujar’s Day”
“The Plague”
“Sorry, Baby”
“Train Dreams” *WINNER
“Twinless”
BEST FIRST FEATURE (Award given to director and producer)
“Blue Sun Palace”
“Dust Bunny”
“East of Wall”
“Lurker” *WINNER
“One of Them Days”
BEST DIRECTOR
Clint Bentley, “Train Dreams” *WINNER
Mary Bronstein, “If I Had Legs I’d Kick You”
Lloyd Lee Choi, “Lucky Lou”
Ira Sachs, “Peter Hujar’s Day”
Eva Victor, “Sorry Baby”
BEST SCREENPLAY
“A Little Prayer”
“Sorry, Baby” *WINNER
“Sovereign”
“Splitsville”
“Twinless”
BEST FIRST SCREENPLAY
“Blue Sun Palace”
“Friendship”
“Lurker” *WINNER
“One of Them Days”
“Outerlands”
BEST LEAD PERFORMANCE
Everett Blunck, “The Plague”
Rose Byrne, “If I Had Legs I’d Kick You” *WINNER
Kathleen Chalfant, “Familiar Touch”
Chang Chen, “Lucky Lu”
Joel Edgerton, “Train Dreams”
Dylan O’Brien, “Twinless”
Keke Palmer, “One of Them Days”
Théodore Pellerin, “Lurker”
Tessa Thompson, “Hedda”
Ben Whishaw, “Peter Hujar’s Day”
BEST SUPPORTING PERFORMANCE
Naomi Ackie, “Sorry, Baby” *WINNER
Zoey Deutch, “Nouvelle Vague”
Kirsten Dunst, “Roofman”
Rebecca Hall, “Peter Hujar’s Day”
Nina Hoss, “Hedda”
Jane Levy, “A Little Prayer”
Archie Madekwe, “Lurker”
Kali Reis, “Rebuilding”
Jacob Tremblay, “Sovereign”
Haipeng Xu, “Blue Sun Palace”
BEST BREAKTHROUGH PERFORMANCE
Liz Larson, “The Baltimorons”
Kayo Martin, “The Plague” *WINNER
Misha Osherovich, “She’s the He”
SZA, “One of Them Days”
Tabatha Zimiga, “East of Wall”
BEST CINEMATOGRAPHY
“Blue Sun Palace”
“Dust Bunny”
“Peter Hujar’s Day”
“Train Dreams” *WINNER
“Warfare”
BEST EDITING
“Eephus”
“Good Boy”
“Splitsville”
“The Testament of Ann Lee” *WINNER
“Warfare”
JOHN CASSAVETES AWARD
“The Baltimorons”
“Boys Go to Jupiter”
“Eephus”
“Esta Isla (This Island)” *WINNER
“Familiar Touch”
ROBERT ALTMAN AWARD (Given to one film’s director, casting director, and ensemble cast)
“The Long Walk” — director Francis Lawrence, casting director Rich Delia, ensemble cast Judy Greer, Mark Hamill, Cooper Hoffman, David Jonsson, Tut Nyuot, Joshua Odjick, Charlie Plummer, Ben Wang, Garrett Wareing
BEST DOCUMENTARY (Award given to the director and producer)
“Come See Me in the Good Light”
“Endless Cookie”
“My Undesirable Friends: Part 1 – Last Air in Moscow”
“The Perfect Neighbor” *WINNER
“The Tale of Silyan”
BEST INTERNATIONAL FILM (Award given to the director)
“All That’s Left of You”
“On Becoming a Guinea Fowl”
“A Poet”
“The Secret Agent” *WINNER
“Sirat”
PRODUCERS AWARD (Honors emerging producers who, despite highly limited resources, demonstrate the creativity, tenacity, and vision required to produce quality independent films)
Emma Hannaway
Luca Intili
Tony Yang *WINNER
SOMEONE TO WATCH AWARD (Recognizes a talented filmmaker of singular vision who has not yet received appropriate recognition)
Tatti Ribeiro, director of “Valentina” *WINNER
Neo Sora, director of “Happyend”
Annapurna Sriram, director of “Fucktoys”
TRUER THAN FICTION AWARD (Presented to an emerging director of non-fiction features who has not yet received significant recognition)
Tony Benna, director of “Andre Is an Idiot”
Rajee Samarasinghe, Director of “Your Touch Makes Others Invisible” *WINNER
Brittany Shyne, Director of “Seeds”
BEST NEW NON-SCRIPTED OR DOCUMENTARY SERIES (Award given to the Creator, Executive Producer, Co-Executive Producer)
“Citizen Nation”
“Hurricane Katrina: Race Against Time”
“Pee-Wee as Himself” *WINNER
“Seen & Heard: The History of Black Television”
“Vow of Silence: The Assassination of Annie Mae”
BEST NEW SCRIPTED SERIES (Award given to the Creator, Executive Producer, Co-Executive Producer)
“Adolescence” *WINNER
“Common Side Effect”
“Forever”
“Mr. Loverman”
“North of North”
BEST LEAD PERFORMANCE IN A NEW SCRIPTED SERIES
Sydney Chandler, “Alien: Earth”
Stephen Graham, “Adolescence” *WINNER
Ethan Hawke, “The Lowdown”
Lennie James, “Mr. Loverman”
Anna Lambe, “North of North”
Lola Petticrew, “Say Nothing”
Seth Rogen, “The Studio”
Lovie Simone, “Forever”
Michelle Williams, “Dying for Sex”
Noah Wyle, “The Pitt”
BEST SUPPORTING PERFORMANCE IN A NEW SCRIPTED SERIES
Ariyon Bakare, “Mr Loverman”
Babou Ceesay, “Alien: Earth”
Sharon D. Clarke, “Mr Loverman”
Taylor Dearden, “The Pitt”
Erin Doherty, “Adolescence” *WINNER
Stephen McKinley Henderson, “A Man on the Inside”
Poorna Jagannathan, “Deli Boys”
Xosha Roquemore, “Forever”
Jenny Slate, “Dying for Sex”
Ben Whishaw, “Black Doves”
BEST BREAKTRHOUGH PERFORMANCE IN A NEW SCRIPTED SERIES
Asif Ali, “Deli Boys”
Wally Baram, “Overcompensating”
Owen Cooper, “Adolescence” *WINNER
Michael Cooper Jr., “Forever”
Ernest Kingsley Junior, “Washington Black”
BEST ENSEMBLE CAST IN A NEW SCRIPTED SERIES
“Chief of War” *WINNER
Charlie Brumbly, Luciane Buchanan, Cliff Curtis, Brandon Finn, Moses Goods, Te Ao o Hinepehinga, Benjamin Hoetjes, Siua Ikale’o, Keala Kahuanui-Paleka, Mainei Kinimaka, Kaina Makua, Jason Momoa, Temuera Morrison, Te Kohe Tuhaka, James Udom
Steve Pond contributed to this report