2022 Spirit Awards nominations predictions: Feature Film

Coming just a day after the HFPA and Critics Choice duke it out with their nominations on Monday, the Film Independent Spirit Awards will announce theirs on Tuesday and with them bring a crucial piece to the early puzzle of the Oscar race.

The 2010’s, which was the beginning of Oscar’s preferential ballot, found the Spirit Awards Best Feature winner matching up with the Academy Award for Best Picture five times: 2011’s The Artist, 2013’s 12 Years a Slave, 2014’s Birdman, 2015’s Spotlight, 2016’s Moonlight and 2020’s Nomadland. The gap between Moonlight and Nomadland isn’t as notable as you’d think as the eventual Best Picture Oscar winner was either not nominated at the Spirit Awards or not eligible. But what will this year look like with indies going up against heavy hitting studio films at the Oscars? Will we see a return to the early and mid-2010’s here marking the frontrunner? The short answer is, probably not. If you, as I do, consider that Belfast, The Power of the Dog, King Richard, Dune and West Side Story are the likely Oscar frontrunners and none of them are eligible at the Spirit Awards (save Belfast for International Film) then it’s probably safe to say we aren’t.

The Spirit Awards calendar can be a tricky one. For example, last year Nine Days and The Killing of Kenneth Chamberlain both received nominations but officially both are 2021 releases for other awards bodies. In fact, Frankie Faison just won a Gotham Award for his lead performance in the latter. Same goes for NEON’s The Killing of Two Lovers, a John Cassavetes Award nominee last year. Kogonada’s After Yang, starring Colin Farrell, premiered at the 2021 Cannes Film Festival but will have a 2022 debut at Sundance. There might be some wiggle room there that Spirit Awards voters could navigate for the A24 release.

2022 Spirit Awards nominations predictions: Television – Is it all just a ‘Squid’ game?

One of the biggest questions, and riskiest predictions to make for the Spirit Awards, is the Robert Altman Award for a cast. There are no nominations, just a win for the cast of a single film. A win here also means no one in that cast can receive an individual nomination so it’s putting all of your predictions eggs into one basket. There are a few movies that I think could end up with this but two that stand out: The Humans and Mass. Picking one means the other will take up some of the acting spots but which one? Both films’ casts are true ensembles with no real leads or supporting actors (they’re both), which makes them the perfect candidates. Granted, Marriage Story, which had clear leads, won this two years ago. I’m going to go with Mass, which feels like the higher profile film – which could also be my downfall.

I expect to see some big numbers for C’mon C’mon, CODA, The Green Knight, The Lost Daughter, Red Rocket, Passing and more in this fantastic year of independent film but the Spirit Awards voters also love their super under the radar films which always add great and welcome surprises to their nominations.

Here are my feature film predictions for the 2022 Film Independent Spirit Awards. You can see our television predictions here and the nominations will be announced by Beanie Feldstein, Regina Hall and Naomi Watts on Tuesday, December 14.

BEST FEATURE

• C’mon C’mon
• CODA
• The Green Knight
• The Lost Daughter
• Red Rocket

Spoilers: Bergman Island, The Card Counter

BEST FIRST FEATURE

• The Humans
• Mass
• Passing
• Shiva Baby
• Test Pattern

Spoilers: The Lost Daughter (if not in Best Feature) or Pig

BEST DIRECTOR

• Sian Heder, CODA
• David Lowery, The Green Knight
• Maggie Gyllenhaal, The Lost Daughter
• Emma Seligman, Shiva Baby
• Shatara Michelle Ford, Test Pattern

Spoilers: Sean Baker, Red Rocket; Mike Mills, C’mon C’mon

BEST SCREENPLAY

• Bergman Island
• The Card Counter
• C’mon C’mon
• Passing
• Red Rocket

Spoiler: Pig

BEST FIRST SCREENPLAY

• Maggie Gyllenhaal – The Lost Daughter
• Fran Kranz – Mass
• Amalia Ulman – El Planeta
• Shatara Michelle Ford – Test Pattern
• Emma Seligman – Shiva Baby

Spoiler: Lauren Hadaway – The Novice

BEST MALE LEAD

• Nicolas Cage – Pig
• Clifton Collins, Jr. – Jockey
• Oscar Isaac – The Card Counter
• Joaquin Phoenix – C’mon C’mon
• Simon Rex – Red Rocket

Spoiler: Adam Driver – Annette

BEST FEMALE LEAD

• Olivia Colman – The Lost Daughter
• Brittany S. Hall – Test Pattern
• Emilia Jones – CODA
• Taylour Paige – Zola
• Kristen Stewart – Spencer
• Tessa Thompson – Passing

Spoilers: Siobhan Fallon Hogan – Rushed, Rachel Sennott – Shiva Baby, Lili Taylor – Paper Spiders

BEST SUPPORTING MALE

• Christopher Abbott – On the Count of Three
• Colman Domingo – Zola
• Simon Helberg – Annette
• Richard Jenkins – The Humans
• Woody Norman – C’mon C’mon

Spoiler: Alex Wolff – Pig

BEST SUPPORTING FEMALE

• Jessie Buckley – The Lost Daughter
• Polly Draper – Shiva Baby
• Jayne Houdyshell – The Humans
• Marlee Matlin – CODA
• Ruth Negga – Passing

Spoilers: Beanie Feldstein – The Humans; Gaby Hoffman – C’mon C’mon

BEST INTERNATIONAL FILM

• Belfast
• Drive My Car
• Spencer
• Titane
• The Worst Person in the World

Spoiler: Flee

BEST DOCUMENTARY

• Ascension
• Flee
• The Rescue
• Summer of Soul
• Val

Spoiler: The Sparks Brothers, The Velvet Underground

ROBERT ALTMAN AWARD

Mass

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Erik Anderson

Erik Anderson is the founder/owner and Editor-in-Chief of AwardsWatch and has always loved all things Oscar, having watched the Academy Awards since he was in single digits; making lists, rankings and predictions throughout the show. This led him down the path to obsessing about awards. Much later, he found himself in film school and the film forums of GoldDerby, and then migrated over to the former Oscarwatch (now AwardsDaily), before breaking off to create AwardsWatch in 2013.

He is a Rotten Tomatoes-approved critic, accredited by the Cannes Film Festival, Telluride Film Festival, Toronto International Film Festival and more, is a member of the International Cinephile Society (ICS), The Society of LGBTQ Entertainment Critics (GALECA), Critics Choice Association (CCA), San Francisco Bay Area Film Critics Circle (SFBAFCC) and the International Press Academy. Among his many achieved goals with AwardsWatch, he has given a platform to underrepresented writers and critics and supplied them with access to film festivals and the industry and calls the Bay Area his home where he lives with his husband and son.

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