2015 - Awards Season: Independent Spirit Awards - Nominations

November 25, 2015

Carol

Awards Season begins with the Independent Spirit Awards nominations. There were definitely some surprise nominees this year, but that also meant there were some unfortunate snubs as well. The overall leader was Carol, which just opened this past weekend. This is great timing and should help its box office numbers, as well as its chances throughout Awards Season. Its six nominations were one ahead of Beasts of No Nation and Spotlight. (One of Spotlight's was the Robert Altman Award, which has no nominations, just one winner.)

The categories and nominees are...

BEST FEATURE

BEST DIRECTOR

BEST SCREENPLAY

BEST FIRST FEATURE

BEST FIRST SCREENPLAY

BEST FEMALE LEAD

BEST MALE LEAD

BEST SUPPORTING MALE

BEST SUPPORTING FEMALE

BEST DOCUMENTARY

BEST INTERNATIONAL FILM

BEST CINEMATOGRAPHY

BEST EDITING

JOHN CASSAVETES AWARD
(Given to the best feature made for under $500,000)

ROBERT ALTMAN AWARD (Given to one film's director, casting director and ensemble cast)

Also announced were the nominees for the three Filmmaker Grant Awards.

Piaget Producers Award

Kiehl's Someone to Watch Award

Lenscrafter Truer Than Fiction Award is presented to an emerging director of non-fiction features who has not yet received significant attention.

Notes and Reactions...

  • Carol is the big winner with six nominations, includng two for Best Lead Actress. This irritates me for reasons I will get into shortly.
  • There are a few other surprises. The animated Anomalisa picked up four nominations, while two horror films, It Follows and Bone Tomahawk, earned three and two nominations respectively. It is rare for these films to be recognized by Awards Season Voters.
  • Another positive surprise was Tangerine, which also picked up four nominations. This includes nominations for both the two main actresses. It is rare for transgender people to be featured in movies or TV shows, even rarer for them to be played by transgender actors.
  • As for the snubs, Room underperformed with just three nominations, but at least Brie Larson was among them.
  • Grandma got shut out. I really thought Lily Tomlin was a sure bet for at least a nomination. This is the biggest disappointment of the night and likely wouldn't have happened if Rooney Mara was in the Supporting Actress category and not the Lead Actress category.

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Filed under: Awards Season, It Follows, The Look of Silence, En duva satt på en gren och funderade på tillvaron, Meadowland, Spotlight, Love & Mercy, 99 Homes, Bone Tomahawk, The End of the Tour, Room, The Diary of a Teenage Girl, Me and Earl and the Dying Girl, Mississippi Grind, Grandma, Bande de filles, Results, Tangerine, Anomalisa, Beasts of No Nation, Best of Enemies, James White, Carol, Heaven Knows What, Saul fia, Meru, Heart of a Dog, Mustang, The Mend, Mediterranea, The Russian Woodpecker, Out of My Hand, Cate Blanchett, Jennifer Jason Leigh, Robin Bartlett, Kevin Corrigan, Paul Dano, Idris Elba, Todd Haynes, Richard Jenkins, Brie Larson, Rooney Mara, , Ben Mendelsohn, Cynthia Nixon, Jason Segel, Michael Shannon, Lily Tomlin, Darren Dean, Sean Baker, , David Robert Mitchell, Marin Ireland, Christopher Abbott, Mel Eslyn, Reed Morano, Tom McArdle, Michael Gioulakis, Josh Singer, Kristan Sprague, Ed Lachman, Julio C. Perez IV, Charlie Kaufman, Elizabeth Giamatti, Nathan Nugent, Rebecca Green, Laura D. Smith, S. Craig Zahler, Donald Margulies, Emma Donoghue, Bel Powley, Jesse Andrews, Mya Taylor, Kitana Kiki Rodriguez, Chloé Zhao, Duke Johnson, Alex Sichel, Felix Thompson, Phyllis Nagy, , Ronald Bronstein, Elizabeth Chai Vasarhelyi, John Magary, Jonas Carpignano, Abraham Attah, Koudous Seihon, Joshua James Richards, Robert Machoian, Rodrigo Ojeda-Beck, Mohammed Naqvi, Hemal Trivedi