First Look: Amazon Studios’ ‘Selah and the Spades’
Lovie Simone in Tayarisha Poe’s SELAH AND THE SPADES (courtesy Amazon Studios)
Amazon Studios will release SELAH AND THE SPADES on Prime Video April 17th, 2020
In her feature debut, writer/director Tayarisha Poe immerses us in a heightened depiction of teenage politics with Selah and the Spades. This searing character study encapsulates just how intoxicating power can be for a teenage girl who acutely feels the threat of being denied it. Exciting newcomer Lovie Simone’s performance beautifully embodies both Selah’s publicly impeccable command and the internal fears and uncertainty that drive it.
In the closed world of an elite Pennsylvania boarding school, Haldwell, the student body is run by five factions. Seventeen-year-old Selah Summers (Lovie Simone) runs the most dominant group, the Spades, with unshakable poise, as they cater to the most classic of vices and supply students with coveted, illegal alcohol and pills. Tensions between the factions escalate, and when Selah’s best friend/right hand Maxxie (Moonlight’s Jharrel Jerome) becomes distracted by a new love, Selah takes on a protégée, enamored sophomore Paloma (Celeste O’Connor), to whom she imparts her wisdom on ruling the school. But with graduation looming and Paloma proving an impressively quick study, Selah’s fears turn sinister as she grapples with losing the control by which she defines herself.
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.
- 2026 Oscar Nomination Reactions from Timothée Chalamet, Rose Byrne, Wagner Moura and More - January 22, 2026
- AwardsWatch Podcast Ep. 329 – 98th Oscar Nominations Reactions: For Good - January 22, 2026
- Oscar Nominations: ‘Sinners’ Breaks All Time Record with 16, Sets Several Places in Academy Awards History - January 22, 2026
Director Watch Podcast Ep. 136 – ‘Rules Don’t Apply’ (Warren Beatty, 2016) 
2026 Oscar Nomination Reactions from Timothée Chalamet, Rose Byrne, Wagner Moura and More 
AwardsWatch Podcast Ep. 329 – 98th Oscar Nominations Reactions: For Good 
Oscar Nominations: ‘Sinners’ Breaks All Time Record with 16, Sets Several Places in Academy Awards History