Leading up to the Oscars, every new set of awards is some new metric — some new set of clues — that helps us make sense of the crowded field of potential nominees and narrow down what the Academy will find “Oscar worthy.” Since the mid 90s (not to be confused with Jonah Hills’ new movie, Mid90s), few awards bodies have been quite as predictive and revealing as the Independent Spirit Awards: the premiere awards body that seeks to honor the very best, independently-produced movies made in a given year.
Although historically studios have understandably dominated the Oscars — they were, after all, founded by them in order to rehabilitate Hollywood’s scandal-ridden public image — the last few decades have seen an insurgence of independent movies dominate Hollywood’s big night each year. Indie winners like The Artist (2011), 12 Years a Slave (2013), Birdman (2014), Spotlight (2015) and Moonlight (2016) have gone on to win Best Picture Oscars and most of the Oscar nominees (especially for the major categories) have come from the independent spheres. In an attempt to court Oscar voters’ tastes, major studios created their own independent branches and set their sights on buying up as many Oscar hopefuls as they possibly could. It got so rampant that one oft-repeated quote in defense of the widely lambasted Best Popular Movie Oscar was that the Academy “shouldn’t turn into the Independent Spirit Awards.”
But, like it or not, indie films have consistently ranked among the best movies produced each year, and industry-wide awards, like the Oscars, must necessarily reflect that in the films that they choose to honor. If the Independent Spirit Awards are any indication, 2018’s crop of films is going to be no different. And if Film Independent is as reflective of the actual Oscar nominees as it usually is, it’s going to be a wild time in Hollywood come February.
Whereas the Oscars have until recently honored old, straight, white men almost exclusively, the times they are a-changin’. Recent changes in the voting membership of the Academy have opened the awards body up to the world of possibilities presented by minority filmmakers. This is undoubtedly the reason why Moonlight (2016) beat out the predictable Oscar favorite La La Land (2016) and why last year’s race came down to Jordan Peele’s Get Out (2017) versus Guillermo del Toro’s The Shape of Water (2017). Judging by the Independent Spirit Awards’ overwhelming predilection toward women-made films this year, this year’s Oscars stand to lift up talented and underappreciated women across multiple categories.
Most notable in this regard is the Best Director race. Rather than the typical field of monochrome men, only a single nominee fits the historical mold of pale-faced auteurs (Paul Schrader, for First Reformed). His competition this year includes Moonlight director Barry Jenkins (for If Beale Street Could Talk) and no less than three women: Debra Granik (for Leave No Trace), Tamara Jenkins (for Private Life) and Lynne Ramsay (for You Were Never Really Here). Replacing Private Life in the Best Picture category is Eighth Grade, YouTube star Bo Burnham’s sensation summer hit about an awkward teen girl’s strained attempts at navigating the pitfalls of pubescent life.
Although honored for supporting actor Adam Driver, Spike Lee’s sensational BlacKkKlansmen seems to be stumbling to find traction amidst such powerful competition. It failed to secure both Best Picture and Best Director nominations, which seemed like sure things going into the nominating process. It also failed to garner a Best Actor nomination for leading man John David Washington, bringing up the frustrating Oscar ceremony that saw fit to nominate Sylvester Stallone for Supporting Actor above any of his more-deserving Black colleagues (including writer-director Ryan Coogler and leading man Michael B Jordan).
Similarly, Oscar hopeful Can You Ever Forgive Me? failed to deliver with this awards body, leading some to seriously reevaluate its chances to collecting statuettes in February’s Oscar ceremony. It garnered attention for both supporting actor Richard E. Grant and its screenplay, but failed to net the expected Best Actress nomination for Melissa McCarthy, who delivers a powerful dramatic performance in a vehicle seemingly designed from the ground up to make us rethink what, exactly, a Melissa McCarthy movie even is. Like BlacKkKlansmen, it’s entirely possible that the Academy will rectify this oversight, but it could just as easily be the writing on the wall that the larger film industry simply isn’t as interested in these movies as the rest of us are.
And, of course, there were some amazing films among the nominees that doubtless will be overlooked entirely by the Academy regardless of their quality. The Independent Spirit Awards’ pool of contenders, being produced on low budgets outside of the traditional Hollywood studio, are invariably freer to be bizarre, idiosyncratic and all-around interesting. This is how movies like Suspiria, Sorry to Bother You and even Hereditary netted themselves some big (and well-earned) accommodations, but will likely be overlooked by the larger Academy entirely.
Doubtless, though, the Oscar nominations will look incredibly different from these. For one, many of this year’s best movies are studio-produced for a change. A Star Is Born, First Man and Black Panther were all no-shows here precisely because of who made them. Green Book, another expected player at the Oscars this year, didn’t qualify on the basis of how much it cost to make ($23 million, relative to the Independent Spirit Awards’ $20 million cutoff); same goes for the $60 million Dick Cheney biopic Vice. And due to a quirk of the awards body’s bylaws, Oscar frontrunners Roma and The Favourite only qualified for the Best International Film category.
Here is the full list of nominees:
Best Feature
EIGHTH GRADE
FIRST REFORMED
IF BEALE STREET COULD TALK
LEAVE NO TRACE
YOU WERE NEVER REALLY HERE
Best Director
Debra Granik, LEAVE NO TRACE
Barry Jenkins, IF BEALE STREET COULD TALK
Tamara Jenkins, PRIVATE LIFE
Lynne Ramsay, YOU WERE NEVER REALLY HERE
Paul Schrader, FIRST REFORMED
Best First Feature
HEREDITARY
SORRY TO BOTHER YOU
THE TALE
WE THE ANIMALS
WILDLIFE
Best Female Lead
Glenn Close, THE WIFE
Toni Collette, HEREDITARY
Elsie Fisher, EIGHTH GRADE
Regina Hall, SUPPORT THE GIRLS
Helena Howard, MADELINE’S MADELINE
Carey Mulligan, WILDLIFE
Best Male Lead
John Cho, SEARCHING
Daveed Diggs, BLINDSPOTTING
Ethan Hawke, FIRST REFORMED
Christian Malheiros, SÓCRATES
Joaquin Phoenix, YOU WERE NEVER REALLY HERE
Best Supporting Female
Kayli Carter, PRIVATE LIFE
Tyne Daly, A BREAD FACTORY
Regina King, IF BEALE STREET COULD TALK
Thomasin Harcourt McKenzie, LEAVE NO TRACE
J. Smith-Cameron, NANCY
Best Supporting Male
Raúl Castillo, WE THE ANIMALS
Adam Driver, BLACKKKLANSMAN
Richard E. Grant, CAN YOU EVER FORGIVE ME?
Josh Hamilton, EIGHTH GRADE
Best Screenplay
Richard Glatzer (Writer/Story By), Rebecca Lenkiewicz & Wash Westmoreland, COLETTE
Nicole Holofcener & Jeff Whitty, CAN YOU EVER FORGIVE ME?
Tamara Jenkins, PRIVATE LIFE
Boots Riley, SORRY TO BOTHER YOU
Paul Schrader FIRST REFORMED
Best First Screenplay
Bo Burnham, EIGHTH GRADE
Christina Choe, NANCY
Cory Finley, THOROUGHBREDS
Jennifer Fox, THE TALE
Quinn Shephard (Writer/Story By) and Laurie Shephard (Story By), BLAME
Best Cinematography
Ashley Connor, MADELINE’S MADELINE
Diego Garcia, WILDLIFE
Benjamin Loeb, MANDY
Sayombhu Mukdeeprom, SUSPIRIA
Zak Mulligan, WE THE ANIMALS
Best Editing
Joe Bini, YOU WERE NEVER REALLY HERE
Keiko Deguchi, Brian A. Kates & Jeremiah Zagar, WE THE ANIMALS
Luke Dunkley, Nick Fenton, Chris Gill & Julian Hart, AMERICAN ANIMALS
Anne Fabini, Alex Hall and Gary Levy, THE TALE
Nick Houy, MID90S
John Cassavetes Award
A BREAD FACTORY
EN EL SÉPTIMO DÃA
NEVER GOIN’ BACK
SÓCRATES
THUNDER ROAD
Robert Altman Award
SUSPIRIA
Best Documentary
HALE COUNTY THIS MORNING, THIS EVENING
MINDING THE GAP
OF FATHERS AND SONS
ON HER SHOULDERS
SHIRKERS
WON’T YOU BE MY NEIGHBOR?
Best International Film
BURNING (South Korea)
THE FAVOURITE (United Kingdom)
HAPPY AS LAZZARO (Italy)
ROMA (Mexico)
SHOPLIFTERS (Japan)
Piaget Producers Award
Jonathan Duffy and Kelly Williams
Gabrielle Nadig
Shrihari Sathe
Someone to Watch Award
Alex Moratto, SÓCRATES
Ioana Uricaru, LEMONADE
Jeremiah Zagar, WE THE ANIMALS
Truer Than Fiction Award
Alexandria Bombach, ON HER SHOULDERS
Bing Liu, MINDING THE GAP
RaMell Ross, HALE COUNTY THIS MORNING, THIS EVENING
Annual Bonnie Award
Debra Granik
Tamara Jenkins
Karyn Kusama