By LINDSEY BAHR
Sean Baker’s “Anora” received finest movie, finest director and finest actor for Mikey Madison on the Unbiased Spirit Awards on Saturday in what could possibly be a preview of subsequent Sunday’s Oscars.
The movie a few Brooklyn intercourse employee and her whirlwind affair with a Russian oligarch’s son has emerged in current weeks as an awards season front-runner.
The Spirit Awards, held in a beachside tent in Santa Monica, is the shaggier, extra irreverent sister to the Academy Awards, celebrating the most effective in impartial movie and tv.
Host Aidy Bryant referred to as it “Hollywood’s third or fourth biggest night.”
In accepting the directing prize, Baker spoke passionately concerning the issue of creating impartial movies in an business that’s now not in a position to fund riskier movies. He stated indies are at risk of changing into calling card movies — motion pictures made solely as a method to get employed for greater tasks.
“The system has to change because this is simply unsustainable,” Baker stated to enthusiastic applause. “We shouldn’t be barely getting by.”
The very best movie competitors included Jane Schoenbrun’s psychological horror “I Saw the TV Glow,” RaMell Ross’ adaptation of Colson Whitehead’s “Nickel Boys,” Greg Kwedar’s incarceration drama “Sing Sing” and Coralie Fargeat’s physique horror “The Substance.”
This yr had a number of different doable Oscar winners celebrating. Kieran Culkin, thought-about an Oscar favourite, received the supporting efficiency award for “A Real Pain.” His director, co-star and author Jesse Eisenberg received finest screenplay for the movie about two cousins embarking on a Holocaust tour in Poland.
Performing classes for the Spirit Awards are gender impartial and embody 10 spots every, that means Madison was up in opposition to Oscar nominees like Colman Domingo (“Sing Sing”) and Sebastian Stan (“The Apprentice”).
“Flow,” the wordless animated Latvian cat movie, received finest worldwide movie. On the Oscars, it’s competing within the worldwide movie class and animation.
Whereas the Spirit Award winners don’t at all times sync up with the academy, they will usually replicate a rising consensus as within the “Everything Everywhere All At Once” yr. The awards restrict eligibility to productions with budgets of $30 million or much less, that means costlier Oscar nominees like “Wicked” and “Dune: Part Two” weren’t within the operating.
The winners in main classes:
Greatest characteristic: Anora
Greatest first characteristic: Didi
Greatest director: Sean Baker, Anora
Greatest screenplay: Jesse Eisenberg, A Actual Ache
Greatest first screenplay: Sean Wang, Didi
Greatest lead efficiency in a movie: Mikey Madison, Anora
Greatest supporting efficiency in a movie: Kieran Culkin, A Actual Ache
Greatest breakthrough efficiency in a movie: Maisy Stella, My Outdated Ass
Greatest documentary: No Different Land
Greatest worldwide movie: Move
The Robert Altman Award (for finest ensemble): His Three Daughters
Greatest new scripted sequence: Shōgun
Greatest lead efficiency in a brand new scripted sequence: Richard Gadd, Child Reindeer
Greatest supporting efficiency in a brand new scripted sequence: Nava Mau, Child Reindeer
Greatest breakthrough efficiency in a brand new scripted sequence: Jessica Gunning, Child Reindeer
Greatest ensemble forged in a brand new scripted sequence: How To Die Alone
Initially Revealed: February 23, 2025 at 4:16 PM PST
