Independent Spirit Award Nominations Predictions: Good Time, Call Me By Your Name, Get Out, Florida Project Could Be Top Contenders

Erik Anderson November 20, 2017

The nominations for the 33rd Film Independent Spirit Awards are tomorrow and here’s your 11th hour predictions. Lily Collins and Tessa Thompson will announce the nominees.

The Independent Spirit Awards began as the alternative Oscars (they still have their show the day before the Academy Awards) but in the last decade have really become the place for Oscar’s Best Picture winners. Since 2010, the winner of Best Feature here has gone on to win Best Picture: Moonlight, Spotlight, Birdman, 12 Years a Slave and The Artist. It makes these awards one of the better precursors of late and you can glean a lot from the Gotham Awards nominations as to how these might shake out. Get Out is likely to be a top nominee here, along with Lady Bird, Call Me By Your Name, The Florida Project, The Shape of Water, Three Billboards Outside Ebbing Missouri, Mudbound and I, Tonya but Columbus, Good Time and Marjorie Prime are probably going to find themselves here as well. There are always films and performances that do very well here and are total non-players at the Oscars (like American Honey and Chronic last year). The tech categories are often full of tiny, little seen films that have a chance of a higher profile and future visibility because of these awards.

There are always rules that can make predicting these a crap shoot. There’s the budget constraints (limit is $20M) which are not always known. There’s production origin; films must have a majority of its production be American (otherwise it’s relegated to Best International Feature). Although, the rules were bent heavily to get Isabelle Huppert in and win last season for Elle. But it’s the specific category designations where you can run into trouble. The Robert Altman award, which is juried and celebrates a single film’s ensemble, makes individual acting nominations for that film ineligible. Cast in point: Moonlight won this last year but Oscar nominee Naomie Harris and Oscar winner Mashershala Ali couldn’t be nominated. This year, there are a handful of films that could win this but miss out on lead male/female and supporting male/female awards. I think Mudbound seems prime for the Robert Altman award. The First Feature award can be odd because a film can end up here instead of Best Feature, but not both. Get Out and Lady Bird could end up there but it seems unlikely as their profiles are simply too big. Also, Gerwig co-directed 2008’s Nights & Weekends with Joe Swanberg and the film was nominated for the Producers Award by the Indie Spirits. But, they’ve dismissed actual first directorial efforts before – The Perks of Being a Wallflower won First Feature despite Stephen Chbosky having directed the 1995 film The Four Corners of Nowhere.

So, here goes nothing.

BEST FEATURE
Call Me By Your Name
The Florida Project
Good Time
The Shape of Water
Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri
ALT: The Disaster Artist, Get Out (if not in First Feature), I, Tonya, Lady Bird (if not in First Feature), Mudbound (if not the Robert Altman Award winner)

BEST DIRECTOR
Luca Guadagnino, Call Me By Your Name
Sean Baker, The Florida Project
Dee Rees, Mudbound
Guillermo del Toro, The Shape of Water
Martin McDonagh, Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri
ALT: Greta Gerwig, Lady Bird; The Safdie Brothers, Good Time

FEMALE LEAD
Sally Hawkins, The Shape of Water
Frances McDormand, Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri
Brooklynn Prince, The Florida Project
Margot Robbie, I, Tonya
Saoirse Ronan, Lady Bird
ALT: Salma Hayek, Beatriz at Dinner; Haley Lu Richardson, Columbus; Melanie Lynskey, i don’t feel at home in this world anymore; Lily Collins, To the Bone

MALE LEAD
Timothée Chalamet, Call Me By Your Name
James Franco, The Disaster Artist
Kumail Nanjiani, The Big Sick
Robert Pattinson, Good Time
Harry Dean Stanton, Lucky
ALT: John Cho, Columbus; Jeremy Renner, Wind River

SUPPORTING MALE
Willem Dafoe, The Florida Project
Richard Jenkins, The Shape of Water
Sam Rockwell, Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri
Benny Safdie, Good Time
Michael Stuhlbarg, Call Me By Your Name
ALT: Armie Hammer, Call Me By Your Name, Lakeith Stanfield, Get Out; Kelvin Harrison Jr, It Comes At Night; Jason Mitchell, Mudbound; Michael Shannon, The Shape of Water

SUPPORTING FEMALE
Allison Janney, I, Tonya
Holly Hunter, The Big Sick
Melissa Leo, Novitiate
Laurie Metcalf, Lady Bird
Lois Smith, Marjorie Prime
ALT: Bria Vinaite, The Florida Project, Catherine Keener, Get Out

Robert Altman Award
Mudbound

BEST SCREENPLAY
Call Me By Your Name
Get Out
I, Tonya
Lady Bird
Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri
ALT: The Disaster Artist, The Florida Project, Mudbound

BEST FIRST FEATURE
Columbus
God’s Own Country
Ingrid Goes West
Menashe
Novitiate
ALT: To the Bone; i don’t feel at home in this world anymore

BEST FIRST SCREENPLAY
The Big Sick
Brigsby Bear
Ingrid Goes West
Menashe
Novitiate
ALT: Patti Cakes

BEST EDITING
Call Me By Your Name
Get Out
Good Time
The Shape of Water
Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri
ALT: The Florida Project, I, Tonya, Lady Bird

BEST CINEMATOGRAPHY
Call Me By Your Name
Florida Project
Good Time
The Shape of Water
Wonderstruck
ALT: A Ghost Story, Columbus, It Comes At Night

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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.