2024 Gotham Awards: ‘A Different Man’ Takes Best Feature; Colman Domingo, Clarence Maclin, ‘Nickel Boys’ Win Big

Awards season has begun. The 2024 Gotham Awards were held tonight at Cipriani Wall Street in New York City, where a shocking winner was crowned the Best Feature film, A Different Man. A24’s dark comedy was nominated for three awards on the night but it’s only win was the last prize of the night, following in the footsteps of last year’s winner Past Lives.

Time will tell if this win will have significant value in the awards race going forward, but it is good to mention that the Gotham’s Best Feature winner has earned a Best Picture Oscar nomination eight out of the last 11 years. Three of those times – 2014’s Birdman, 2016’s Moonlight and 2020’s Nomadland – the Gotham winner won the Academy Award. And in a year as wide open as this one, this could be the start of a major push to get the film more attention as the season goes on.

The other two big winners on the night were Nickel Boys and Sing Sing, both winning two awards a piece. For Nickel Boys, RaMell Ross won the inaugural Best Director prize as well as Breakthrough Performance for one of the film’s leading actors, Brandon Wilson. Sing Sing took home the two major acting prizes on the night, with Outstanding Lead Performance and Outstanding Supporting Performance going to Colman Domingo and Clarence Maclin. Both gave passionate, moving speeches, with Maclin’s being a highlight of the night, receiving a standing ovation in the room. This is the first time in Gotham Award history that both acting winners came from the same film.

Notable films missing from the winner’s circle that received multiple nominations were Anora, Babygirl, The Brutalist, and I Saw the TV Glow. While some might start pressing the panic button given a film like Anora being the leader for nominations and going home empty handed, awards season is a marathon not a sprint. At this same ceremony last year, The Zone of Interest walked away with no wins on the night, only to get nominated for five Oscars, winning two. It’s a long journey to Oscar night folks, so buckle up and let’s have so fun.

Other winners on the night were Best Screenplay going to Azazel Jacobs for His Three Daughters and Breakthrough Director rewarded to Vera Drew for The People’s Joker, who thanked Nicole Kidman personally in her speech for her role in Joel Schumacher’s Batman Forever being a sign that she was trans; a touching, funny moment from otherwise standard, uneventful speeches. No Other Land won Best Documentary, while Best International Feature was handed out to All We Imagine is Light.

Tributes and honorees included the cast of Malcolm Washington’s The Piano Lesson, which received the 2024 Gotham Awards Ensemble Tribute, the Gotham Social Justice Tribute went to the cast of Sing Sing, James Mangold and Timothée Chalamet received the Gotham Visionary Tribute for A Complete Unknown, Angelina Jolie received the Gotham Performer Tribute for Maria, Zendaya received the Gotham Spotlight Tribute for Challengers, Denis Villeneuve received The Gotham Director Tribute for Warner Bros. Pictures and Legendary Pictures’ Dune: Part Two and Franklin Leonard and his company, the Black List, the platform dedicated to nurturing written storytelling and empowering writers to maximize their professional potential, received The Gotham Anniversary Tribute.

Last year’s Gotham Awards winners included Celine Song’s Past Lives for Best Feature, Justine Triet’s Anatomy of a Fall for Best International Feature and Best Screenplay, Lily Gladstone in The Unknown Country for Outstanding Lead Performance, and Charles Melton in May December for Outstanding Supporting Performance. Past Lives earned Oscar nominations for Best Picture and Best Original Screenplay, Lily Gladstone was nominated for Best Actress (but for Killers of the Flower Moon) and Anatomy of a Fall won Best Original Screenplay among its five nominations that also included Best Picture, Best Director for Triet and Best Actress for Sandra Hüller.

Here is the complete list of winners of the 2024 Gotham Awards.

Best Feature 

Anora

Sean Baker, director; Sean Baker, Alex Coco, Samantha Quan, producers (NEON)

Babygirl

Halina Reijn, director; David Hinojosa, Julia Oh, Halina Reijn, producers (A24)

Challengers

Luca Guadagnino, director; Luca Guadagnino, Rachel O’Connor, Amy Pascal, Zendaya, producers (Amazon MGM Studios)

A Different Man

Aaron Schimberg, director; Gabriel Mayers, Vanessa McDonnell, Christine Vachon, producers (A24) – WINNER

Nickel Boys

RaMell Ross, director; Joslyn Barnes, Dede Gardner, Jeremy Kleiner, David Levine, producers (Orion Pictures/Amazon MGM Studios)

Best Director

Payal Kapadia, All We Imagine as Light (Sideshow and Janus Films)

Sean Baker, Anora (NEON)

Guan Hu, Black Dog (The Forge)

Jane Schoenbrun, I Saw the TV Glow (A24)

RaMell Ross, Nickel Boys (Orion Pictures/Amazon MGM Studios) – WINNER

Best Screenplay

Between the Temples, Nathan Silver, C. Mason Wells (Sony Pictures Classics)

Evil Does Not Exist, Ryûsuke Hamaguchi (Sideshow and Janus Films)

Femme, Sam H. Freeman, Ng Choon Ping (Utopia)

His Three Daughters, Azazel Jacobs (Netflix) – WINNER

Janet Planet, Annie Baker (A24)

Breakthrough Director

Shuchi Talati, Girls Will Be Girls (Juno Films, Inc)

India Donaldson, Good One (Metrograph Pictures)

Alessandra Lacorazza, In the Summers (Music Box Films)

Vera Drew, The People’s Joker (Altered Innocence) – WINNER

Mahdi Fleifel, To a Land Unknown (Watermelon Pictures)

Outstanding Lead Performance 

Pamela Anderson, The Last Showgirl (Roadside Attractions)

Adrien Brody, The Brutalist (A24)

Colman Domingo, Sing Sing (A24) – WINNER

Marianne Jean-Baptiste, Hard Truths (Bleecker Street)

Nicole Kidman, Babygirl (A24)

Keith Kupferer, Ghostlight (IFC Films)

Mikey Madison, Anora (NEON)

Demi Moore, The Substance (MUBI)

Saoirse Ronan, The Outrun (Sony Pictures Classics)

Justice Smith, I Saw the TV Glow (A24)

Outstanding Supporting Performance

Yura Borisov, Anora (NEON)

Kieran Culkin, A Real Pain (Searchlight Pictures)

Danielle Deadwyler, The Piano Lesson (Netflix)

Brigette Lundy-Paine, I Saw the TV Glow (A24)

Natasha Lyonne, His Three Daughters (Netflix)

Clarence Maclin, Sing Sing (A24) – WINNER

Katy O’Brian, Love Lies Bleeding (A24)

Guy Pearce, The Brutalist (A24)

Adam Pearson, A Different Man (A24)

Brian Tyree Henry, The Fire Inside (Amazon MGM Studios)

Breakthrough Performer

Lily Collias, Good One (Metrograph Pictures)

Ryan Destiny, The Fire Inside (Amazon MGM Studios)

Maisy Stella, My Old Ass (Amazon MGM Studios)

Izaac Wang, Dìdi (Focus Features) 

Brandon Wilson, Nickel Boys (Orion Pictures/Amazon MGM Studios) – WINNER

Best International Feature

All We Imagine as Light – WINNER

Payal Kapadia, director; Julien Graff, Thomas Hakim, producers (Sideshow and Janus Films)

Green Border

Agnieszka Holland, director; Fred Bernstein, Agnieszka Holland, Marcin Wierzchoslawski, producers (Kino Lorber) 

Hard Truths

Mike Leigh, director; Georgina Lowe, producer (Bleecker Street)

Inside the Yellow Cocoon Shell

Thien An Pham, director; Jeremy Chua, Tran Van Thi, producers (Kino Lorber)

Vermiglio

Maura Delpero, director; Francesca Andreoli, Maura Delpero, Santiago Fondevila Sance, Leonardo Guerra Seràgnoli, producers (Sideshow and Janus Films)

Best Documentary Feature 

Dahomey

Mati Diop, director; Mati Diop, Judith Lou Lévy, Eve Robin, producers (MUBI) 

Intercepted

Oksana Karpovych, director; Darya Bassel, Olha Beskhmelnytsina, Rocío B. Fuentes, Giacomo Nudi, Lucie Rego Pauline Tran Van Lieu, producers (Grasshopper Film)

No Other Land – WINNER

Yuval Abraham, Basel Adra, Hamdan Ballal, Rachel Szor, directors; Fabien Greenberg, Bård Kjøge Rønning, producers (Antipode Films)

Soundtrack to a Coup d’Etat

Johan Grimonprez, director; Rémi Grellety, Daan Milius, producers (Kino Lorber)

Sugarcane

Julian Brave NoiseCat, Emily Kassie, directors; Emily Kassie, Kellen Quinn, producers (National Geographic Documentary Films)

Union

Stephen Maing, Brett Story, directors; Samantha Curley, Mars Verrone, producers (Self-Distributed)