Everything Everywhere All At Once starring Michelle Yeoh leads Spirit Award nominations

The multiverse-hopping adventure film Everything Everywhere All At Once led the nominations for the Film Independent Spirit Awards with nods for best feature, best director, best lead actor for Michelle Yeoh, supporting actors Ke Huy Quan and Jamie Lee Curtis and breakthrough for Stephanie Hsu.

The organisation announced nominees for its 38th edition on Tuesday (Nov 22), where other top contenders include Todd Field’s classical music thriller Tár, nominated for feature, director, actor for Cate Blanchett and supporting actor for Nina Hoss, Charlotte Wells’ Aftersun, Sarah Polley’s Women Talking and Luca Guadagnino’s Bones And All.

The awards celebrate the best in independent filmmaking and recently raised the budget cap from US$22.5 million to US$30 million for the main prizes and US$1 million for the John Cassavetes Award. The organisation also shifted to gender neutral acting awards. The main acting categories now have 10 nominees each.

Zola’s Taylour Paige and The Inspection’s Raúl Castillo read the nominations, which are chosen by committees made up of film critics, producers, festival programmers, filmmakers, past winners and Film Independent’s Board of Directors. Film independent president Josh Welsh said they considered 409 films.

The budget cap means that films like White Noise and Bardo, False Chronicle Of A Handful Of Truths were not eligible.

At the 37th edition earlier this year, Maggie Gyllenhaal’s Elena Ferrente adaptation The Lost Daughter won best feature, best director and best screenplay.

The Spirit Awards also hand out awards to television shows, but those nominees won’t be announced until Dec 13. The beachside ceremony will be held in Santa Monica on Mar 4, 2023, the weekend before the Oscars.