Refresh for latest… It’s the Indies’ Biggest Day. The 40th anniversary Film Independent Spirit Awards are being handed out this afternoon at the Santa Monica Pier, celebrating the year’s best in indie film and TV as the movie awards season near its peak. Deadline is posting the winners live as they are announced. Check out the list below and watch the livestream here:
Jesse Eisenberg won Best Screenplay for Searchlight’s A Real Pain, and Sean Wang took Best First Screenplay for Didi, which earlier had won Best First Feature.
Oscar nominee No Other Land — about the destruction of a village in the occupied West Bank — won Best Documentary.
Jomo Fray for Best Cinematography for Nickel Boys, and Hansjörg Weissbrich took Best Editing for September 5.
Girls Will Be Girls won the John Cassavetes Award for best feature made for under $1 million.
The first award of the day went to Maisy Stella, who won Best Breakthrough Performance for My Old Ass.
Shōgun, which came onto the ceremony co-leading TV nominations with five, won Best New Scripted Series. Baby Reindeer already has won twice: Jessica Gunning took Breakthrough Performance in a New Scripted Series, right after Nava Mau later won for Supporting Performance.
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Neon’s Anora and A24’s I Saw the TV Glow come into the ceremony hosted by SNL alum Aidy Bryant with a leading six nominations apiece including the marquee Best Feature, where they’ll vie against Amazon MGM Studios’ Nickel Boys, A24’s Sing Sing and Mubi’s The Substance.
Past Lives won Best Feature and Best Director for Celine Song at last year’s Spirit Awards but lost the Best Picture Oscar to Oppenheimer. Today’s Spirit winners won’t influence the Academy Award race because Oscar voting ended on February 18.
A movie’s threshold for qualification at the Spirits is that its production cost can’t exceed $30M. Hence, such major awards-season titles as Netflix’s Emilia Perez, Searchlight’s A Complete Unknown and Focus Features’ Conclave are not eligible.
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Since 2022, the Spirit Awards have presented gender-neutral acting prizes, and the Best Lead Performance film nominees include Oscar hopefuls Demi Moore (The Substance), Adrien Brody (The Brutalist), Mikey Madison (Anora), Colman Domingo (Sing Sing) and Sebastian Stan (The Apprentice),
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Here are the winners so far at the 2025 Spirit Awards — two of which were announced in December — followed by the remaining nominees:
Winners
BEST EDITING
Hansjörg Weissbrich
September 5
BEST CINEMATOGRAPHY
Jomo Fray
Nickel Boys
BEST FIRST SCREENPLAY
Sean Wang
Dìdi
BEST NEW NON-SCRIPTED OR DOCUMENTARY SERIES (Award given to the creator, executive producer and co-executive producer)
Hollywood Black
Executive Producers: Shayla Harris, Dave Sirulnick, Stacey Reiss, Jon Kamen, Justin Simien, Kyle Laursen, Forest Whitaker, Nina Yang Bongiovi, Jeffrey Schwarz, Amy Goodman Kass, Michael Wright, Jill Burkhart
Co-Executive Producers: David C. Brown, Laurens Grant
BEST NEW SCRIPTED SERIES (Award given to the creator, executive producer and co-executive producer)
Shōgun
Creators/Executive Producers: Rachel Kondo, Justin Marks
Executive Producers: Edward L. McDonnell, Michael De Luca, Michaela Clavell
Co-Executive Producers: Shannon Goss, Andrew Macdonald, Allon Reich
BEST SCREENPLAY
Jesse Eisenberg
A Real Pain
JOHN CASSAVETES AWARD (Best feature made for under $1 million; award given to the writer, director and producer)
Girls Will Be Girls
Writer/Director/Producer: Shuchi Talati
Producers: Richa Chadha, Claire Chassagne
BEST FIRST FEATURE (Award given to director and producer)
Dìdi
Director/Producer: Sean Wang
Producers: Valerie Bush, Carlos López Estrada, Josh Peters
BEST BREAKTHROUGH PERFORMANCE IN A NEW SCRIPTED SERIES
Jessica Gunning
Baby Reindeer
BEST SUPPORTING PERFORMANCE IN A NEW SCRIPTED SERIES
Nava Mau
Baby Reindeer
BEST DOCUMENTARY
No Other Land
Directors/Producers: Yuval Abraham, Basel Adra, Hamdan Ballal, Rachel Szor
Producers: Fabien Greenberg, Bård Kjøge Rønning
BEST BREAKTHROUGH PERFORMANCE
Maisy Stella
My Old Ass
BEST ENSEMBLE CAST IN A NEW SCRIPTED SERIES (Previously announced)
How to Die Alone
Ensemble Cast: Melissa DuPrey, Jaylee Hamidi, KeiLyn Durrel Jones, Arkie Kandola, Elle Lorraine, Michelle McLeod, Chris “CP” Powell, Conrad Ricamora, Natasha Rothwell, Jocko Sims
ROBERT ALTMAN AWARD (Given to one film’s director, casting director, and ensemble cast; previously announced)
His Three Daughters
Director: Azazel Jacobs
Casting Director: Nicole Arbusto
Ensemble Cast: Jovan Adepo, Jasmine Bracey, Carrie Coon, Jose Febus, Rudy Galvan, Natasha Lyonne, Elizabeth Olsen, Randy Ramos Jr., Jay O. Sanders
Nominees
BEST SUPPORTING PERFORMANCE
Yura Borisov
Anora
Joan Chen
Dìdi
Kieran Culkin
A Real Pain
Danielle Deadwyler
The Piano Lesson
Carol Kane
Between the Temples
Karren Karagulian
Anora
Kani Kusruti
Girls Will Be Girls
Brigette Lundy-Paine
I Saw the TV Glow
Clarence “Divine Eye” Maclin
Sing Sing
Adam Pearson
A Different Man
SOMEONE TO WATCH AWARD (Recognizes a talented filmmaker of singular vision who has not yet received appropriate recognition)
Nicholas Colia
Director of Griffin in Summer
Sarah Friedland
Director of Familiar Touch
Pham Thien An
Director of Inside the Yellow Cocoon Shell
TRUER THAN FICTION AWARD (Presented to an emerging director of non-fiction features who has not yet received significant recognition)
Julian Brave NoiseCat, Emily Kassie
Directors of Sugarcane
Carla Gutiérrez
Director of Frida
Rachel Elizabeth Seed
Director of A Photographic Memory
BEST INTERNATIONAL FILM (Award given to the director)
All We Imagine as Light
France, India, Netherlands, Luxembourg
Director: Payal Kapadia
Black Dog
China
Director: Guan Hu
Flow
Latvia, France, Belgium
Director: Gints Zilbalodis
Green Border
Poland, France, Czech Republic, Belgium
Director: Agnieszka Holland
Hard Truths
United Kingdom
Director: Mike Leigh
PRODUCERS AWARD (Honors emerging producers who, despite highly limited resources, demonstrate the creativity, tenacity and vision required to produce quality independent films)
Alex Coco
Sarah Winshall
Zoë Worth
BEST DIRECTOR
Ali Abbasi
The Apprentice
Sean Baker
Anora
Brady Corbet
The Brutalist
Alonso Ruizpalacios
La Cocina
Jane Schoenbrun
I Saw the TV Glow
BEST LEAD PERFORMANCE IN A NEW SCRIPTED SERIES
Brian Jordan Alvarez
English Teacher
Richard Gadd
Baby Reindeer
Lily Gladstone
Under the Bridge
Kathryn Hahn
Agatha All Along
Cristin Milioti
The Penguin
Julianne Moore
Mary & George
Hiroyuki Sanada
Shōgun
Anna Sawai
Shōgun
Andrew Scott
Ripley
Julio Torres
Fantasmas
BEST LEAD PERFORMANCE
Amy Adams
Nightbitch
Ryan Destiny
The Fire Inside
Colman Domingo
Sing Sing
Keith Kupferer
Ghostlight
Mikey Madison
Anora
Demi Moore
The Substance
Hunter Schafer
Cuckoo
Justice Smith
I Saw the TV Glow
June Squibb
Thelma
Sebastian Stan
The Apprentice
BEST FEATURE (Award given to the producer)
Anora
Producers: Sean Baker, Alex Coco, Samantha Quan
I Saw the TV Glow
Producers: Ali Herting, Sam Intili, Dave McCary, Emma Stone, Sarah Winshall
Nickel Boys
Producers: Joslyn Barnes, Dede Gardner, Jeremy Kleiner, David Levine
Sing Sing
Producers: Clint Bentley, Greg Kwedar, Monique Walton
The Substance
Producers: Tim Bevan, Coralie Fargeat, Eric Fellner
This article was published by Erik Pedersen on 2025-02-22 18:00:00
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