‘Everything Everywhere All At Once’ leads 2023 Film Independent Spirit Awards nominations with 8

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The nominations for the 38th Film Independent Spirit Awards were announced on Tuesday morning and A24’s Everything Everywhere All At Once, the studio’s biggest box office hit ever, was the best in field with eight nods including Best Feature, Best Director and Best Screenplay (The Daniels) and three acting nominations: Michelle Yeah in Lead plus Ke Huy Quan and Jamie Lee Curtis in Supporting.

TÁR was right behind with seven nominations, including Feature, Director, Lead Performance (Cate Blanchett) and Supporting Performance (Nina Hoss). Women Talking, the Robert Altman ensemble winner, earned four including Best Feature, a category rounded out by Luca Guadagnino’s Bones and All and Our Father, the Devil. Charlotte Wells’ debut feature Aftersun earned five nods.

New to the nominations this year is the Best Breakthrough Performance category, honoring actors making themselves known to wider audiences through noteworthy character portrayals. The nominees include, in addition to Stephanie Hsu, Frankie Corio of Aftersun, Gracija Filipović of Murina, Lily McInerny of Palm Trees and Power Lines and Daniel Zolghadri of Funny Pages.   

“We couldn’t be more honored to celebrate this year’s exciting film nominees,” said Josh Welsh, president of Film Independent. “As the Film Independent Spirit Awards evolve with our changing industry, including embracing non-gendered categories, we look to these artists to lead us into the future. And as we celebrate the 30^th anniversary of our Artist Development programs, we are incredibly proud to have Film Independent Fellows Siân Heder and Chloé Zhao return as our honorary co-chairs.”

As there are always snubs, the biggest one by far was another A24 film, The Whale, which found itself completely missing out, even for lead Brendan Fraser, an Oscar frontrunner. Snubs here aren’t always an awards death knell when it comes to Oscars; Jake Gyllenhaal missed here for 2005’s Brokeback Mountain and was Oscar-nominated and 2017’s The Shape of Water missed out entirely and ended up winning Oscars for Best Picture and Best Director. Word is that A24 simply didn’t screen the film for FI members. It’s had a healthy festival run but visibility to the film, both from images and the teaser trailer, reveal that the studio is keeping it very close to its vest, maybe too close for its own good.

The nominations were announced by last year’s best actress winner Taylour Paige (Zola) and former nominee Raúl Castillo (We the Animals).

For the first time in Spirit Awards history, Film Independent moved to gender neutral acting categories, with the former separate lead and supporting actor and actress categories being replaced by the ten-nominee Best Lead and Best Supporting Performance awards.

409 films were submitted, a record number for the organization. This year the Spirit Awards Film Nominating Committees selected nominees from over 25 different countries, applying the following guidelines in determining nominees: uniqueness of vision, original and provocative subject matter, economy of means. The Spirit Awards Nominating Committees are comprised of writers, directors, producers, cinematographers, editors, actors, critics, casting directors, film festival programmers and other working film professionals. Of all nominated writers and directors, 61% are women and 34% are BIPOC. Of all nominated actors, 70% are women and 27% are BIPOC. And of all 2023 nominees, 51% are women and 33% are BIPOC. This year, the Spirit Awards nominating committees are 50% female, 6% Nonbinary, 3% Transgender, and 61% BIPOC; 32% identify as LGBTQ+ and 8% identify as people with disabilities (PWD).

The budget cap for eligible films is increased to $30 million and the cap for the John Cassavetes Award has also doubled to $1 million.

The Spirit Awards will also be recognizing outstanding achievement in uniqueness of vision, innovation and boldness in TV and streaming. Television category nominees will be announced separately by Orange Is the New Black alum, Asia Kate Dillon, on Tuesday, December 13.

The 38th annual awards ceremony is set to return in-person to the beach at Santa Monica Pier on Saturday, March 4, 2023 where winners are chosen by members of Film Independent. Here is the full list of nominations.

Best Feature

Bones and All
Producers: Timothée Chalamet, Francesco Melzi d’Eril, Luca Guadagnino, David Kajganich, Lorenzo Mieli, Marco Morabito, Gabriele Moratti, Theresa Park, Peter Spears

Everything Everywhere All at Once
Producers: Daniel Kwan, Mike Larocca, Anthony Russo, Joe Russo, Daniel Scheinert, Jonathan Wang

Our Father, the Devil
Producers: Ellie Foumbi, Joseph Mastantuono

TÁR
Producers: Todd Field, Scott Lambert, Alexandra Milchan

Women Talking
Producers: Dede Gardner, Jeremy Kleiner, Frances McDormand

Best First Feature

Aftersun
Director: Charlotte Wells
Producers: Mark Ceryak, Amy Jackson, Barry Jenkins, Adele Romanski

Emily the Criminal
Director: John Patton Ford
Producers: Tyler Davidson, Aubrey Plaza, Drew Sykes

The Inspection
Director: Elegance Bratton
Producers: Effie T. Brown, Chester Algernal Gordon

Murina
Director: Antoneta Alamat Kusijanović
Producers: Danijel Pek, Rodrigo Teixeira

Palm Trees and Power Lines
Director/Producer: Jamie Dack
Producer: Leah Chen Baker

Best Director

Todd Field, TÁR
Kogonada, After Yang
Daniel Kwan and Daniel Scheinert, Everything Everywhere All At Once
Sarah Polley, Women Talking
Halina Reijn, Bodies Bodies Bodies

Best Lead Performance

Cate Blanchett, TÁR
Dale Dickey, A Love Song
Mia Goth, Pearl
Regina Hall, Honk for Jesus. Save Your Soul.
Paul Mescal, Aftersun
Aubrey Plaza, Emily the Criminal
Jeremy Pope, The Inspection
Andrea Riseborough, To Leslie
Taylor Russell, Bones and All
Michelle Yeoh, Everything Everywhere All at Once

Best Supporting Performance

Jamie Lee Curtis, Everything Everywhere All at Once
Brian Tyree Henry, Causeway
Nina Hoss, TÁR
Brian d’Arcy James, The Cathedral
Ke Huy Quan, Everything Everywhere All at Once
Trevante Rhodes, Bruiser
Theo Rossi, Emily the Criminal
Mark Rylance, Bones and All
Jonathan Tucker, Palm Trees and Power Lines
Gabrielle Union, The Inspection

Best Breakthrough Performance

Frankie Corio, Aftersun
Gracija Filipović, Murina
Stephanie Hsu, Everything Everywhere All at Once
Lily McInerny, Palm Trees and Power Lines
Daniel Zolghadri, Funny Pages

Best Screenplay

Lena Dunham, Catherine Called Birdy
Todd Field, TÁR
Kogonada, After Yang
Daniel Kwan and Daniel Scheinert, Everything Everywhere All at Once
Sarah Polley, Women Talking

Best First Screenplay

Joel Kim Booster, Fire Island
Jamie Dack, Audrey Findlay, Story by Jamie Dack, Palm Trees and Power Lines
K.D. Dávila, Emergency
Sarah DeLappe, Story by Kristen Roupenian, Bodies Bodies Bodies
John Patton Ford, Emily the Criminal

Best Cinematography

Florian Hoffmeister, TÁR
Hélène Louvart, Murina
Gregory Oke, Aftersun
Eliot Rockett, Pearl
Anisia Uzeyman, Neptune Frost

Best Editing

Ricky D’Ambrose, The Cathedral
Dean Fleischer Camp and Nick Paley, Marcel the Shell with Shoes On
Blair McClendon, Aftersun
Paul Rogers, Everything Everywhere All At Once
Monika Willi, TÁR

Robert Altman Award: Women Talking (Given to one film’s director, casting director, and ensemble cast)

Director: Sarah Polley
Casting directors: John Buchan, Jason Knight
Ensemble cast: Shayla Brown, Jessie Buckley, Claire Foy, Kira Guloien, Kate Hallett, Judith Ivey, Rooney Mara, Sheila McCarthy, Frances McDormand, Michelle McLeod, Liv McNeil, Ben Whishaw, August Winter

 Best Documentary (Award given to the director and producer)

All That Breathes
Producers: Teddy Leifer, Aman Mann

All the Beauty and the Bloodshed
Producers: Howard Gertler, Nan Goldin, Yoni Golijov, John Lyons

A House Made of Splinters
Producers: Monica Hellström

Midwives
Producers: Mila Aung-Thwin, Ulla Lehmann, Bob Moore

Riotsville, U.S.A. 
Producers: Sara Archambault, Jamila Wignot

Best International Film (Award given to the director)

Corsage
Austria/Luxembourg/France/Belgium/Italy/England
Director: Marie Kreutzer

Joyland
Pakistan/USA
Director: Saim Sadiq

Leonor Will Never Die
Philippines
Director: Martika Ramirez Escobar

Return to Seoul
South Korea/France/Belgium/Romania
Director: Davy Chou

Saint Omer
France
Director: Alice Diop

John Cassavetes Award (Given to the best feature made for under $1,000,000; Award given to the writer, director, and producer)

The African Desperate
Writer/Director/Producer: Martine Syms
Writer/Producer: Rocket Caleshu
Producer: Vic Brooks

A Love Song
Writer/Director/Producer: Max Walker-Silverman
Producers: Jesse Hope, Dan Janvey

The Cathedral
Writer/Director: Ricky D’Ambrose
Producer: Graham Swon

Holy Emy
Writer/Director: Araceli Lemos
Writer/Producer: Giulia Caruso
Producers: Mathieu Bompoint, Ki Jin Kim, Konstantinos Vassilaros

Something in the Dirt
Writer/Director/Producer: Justin Benson
Director/Producer: Aaron Moorhead
Producer: David Lawson Jr.

Producers Award presented by Bulleit Frontier Whiskey – The Producers Award, now in its 26th year, honors emerging producers who, despite highly limited resources, demonstrate the creativity, tenacity and vision required to produce quality independent films.

Liz Cardenas
Tory Lenosky
David Grove Churchill Viste

 Someone to Watch Award – The Someone to Watch Award, now in its 29th year, recognizes a talented filmmaker of singular vision who has not yet received appropriate recognition.

Adamma Ebo, Honk for Jesus. Save Your Soul.
Nikyatu Jusu, Nanny
Araceli Lemos, Holy Emy

 Truer Than Fiction Award – The Truer Than Fiction Award, now in its 28th year, is presented to an emerging director of non-fiction features who has not yet received significant recognition.

Isabel Castro, Mija
Reid Davenport, I Didn’t See You There
Rebeca Huntt, Beba