Australian Academy Award winners (AACTA): 'The Nightingale' wins Best Film; Jennifer Kent makes history

Jennifer Kent’s The Nightingale led the Australian Academy of Cinema and Television Arts (AACTA) nominations with 15 and came away with six awards including Best Film and Best Lead Actress for Aisling Franciosi, and historic wins for Kent as the only woman to win Best Direction twice (she previously won for The Babadook), the first woman to win film, directing and writing awards in the same year, and the first person to win both screenplay and directing awards for their first two films.

David Michôd’s The King, starring Timothée Chalamet was a 4-time winner with awards for Joel Edgerton in Supporting Actor (Edgerton now has three Supporting Actor AACTA awards in a single decade: Animal Kingdom, The Great Gatsby and The King) along with Cinematography, Production Design and Costume Design.

Damon Herriman, a double nominee, won Best Lead Actor for Judy & Punch. US audiences may recognize Herriman most for his television appearance on FX’s Justified and Netflix’s Mindhunter. On that show, and in Quentin Tarantino’s Once Upon a Time in Hollywood, Herriman plays the infamous killer Charles Manson.

The Longford Lyell Award went to Sam Neill. The award is named after Australian prolific producer, director, writer and actor Raymond Longford (1878–1959), the award recognises “a person who has shown an unwavering commitment over many years to excellence in the film and television industries and has, through their body of work to date, contributed substantially to the enrichment of Australian screen culture,” and is the highest honor the Academy bestows.

Here is the full list of nominees and winners (in bold).

Best Film

• Hotel Mumbai
• Judy & Punch
• The King
• The Nightingale – WINNER
• Ride Like a Girl
• Top End Wedding

Best Indie Film

• Acute Misfortune
• Book Week
• Buoyancy – WINNER
• Emu Runner
• Sequin in a Blue Room

Best Direction

• Anthony Maras, Hotel Mumbai
• Mirrah Foulkas, Judy & Punch
• David Michôd, The King
• Jennifer Kent, The Nightingale – WINNER

Best Lead Actor

• Timothée Chalamet, The King
• Baykali Ganambarr, The Nightingale
• Damon Herriman, Judy & Punch – WINNER
• Dev Patel, Hotel Mumbai
• Hugo Weaving, Hearts and Bones

Best Lead Actress

• Nazanin Boniadi, Hotel Mumbai
• Aisling Franciosi, The Nightingale – WINNER
• Teresa Palmer, Ride Like a Girl
• Miranda Tapsell, Top End Wedding
• Mia Wasikowska, Judy & Punch

Best Supporting Actor

• Joel Edgerton, The King – WINNER
• Damon Herriman, The Nightingale
• Andrew Luri, Hearts and Bones
• Ben Mendelsohn, The King
• Michael Sheasby, The Nightingale

Best Supporting Actress

• Tilda Cobham-Hervey, Hotel Mumbai
• Magnolia Maymuru, The Nightingale – WINNER
• Hilary Swank, I Am Mother
• Bolude Watson, Hearts and Bones
• Ursula Yovich, Top End Wedding

Best Screenplay

• Hotel Mumbai
• Judy & Punch
• The King
• The Nightingale – WINNER

Best Cinematography

• Danger Close: The Battle of Long Tan
• Hotel Mumbai
• The King – WINNER
• The Nightingale

Best Editing

• Hotel Mumbai – WINNER
• Judy & Punch
• The King
• The Nightingale

Best Sound

• Danger Close: The Battle of Long Tan – WINNER
• Hotel Mumbai
• The King
• The Nightingale

Best Original Score

• Danger Close: The Battle of Long Tan
• Hotel Mumbai
• Judy & Punch – WINNER
• Ride Like a Girl

Best Production Design

• Hotel Mumbai
• Judy & Punch
• The King – WINNER
• The Nightingale

Best Costume Design

• Hotel Mumbai
• Judy & Punch
• The King – WINNER
• The Nightingale

Best Visual Effects or Animation

• Aquaman
• Captain Marvel
• Dumbo
• I Am Mother
• Spider-Man: Far From Home – WINNER

Best Hair and Makeup

• The King
• Lambs of God – WINNER
• Nekrotronic
• The Nightingale

Best Casting

• Hotel Mumbai
• The King
• The Nightingale – WINNER
• Total Control

Best Asian Film

• Andhadhun
• Gully Boy
• Hello, Love, Goodbye
• Ne Zha
• Parasite – WINNER
• Shadow
• Super Deluxe
• The Wandering Earth
• We Are Little Zombies

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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), Hollywood Critics Association (HCA) 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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