2024 Film Independent Spirit Awards: The Winners

The 2024 Film Independent Spirit Awards are being presented at the Santa Monica Beach and streaming around the world.

The in-person show, held at the beach in Santa Monica, is being streamed live on the IMDb and Film Independent YouTube channels, and across other social platforms.

Aidy Bryant is hosting the Film Independent Spirit Awards. The roasting of celebrities during her monologue featured a bit too much swearing and name-calling.

As always, winners are selected by Members of Film Independent. Members needed to be current by December 18, 2023 to receive full voting benefits, including access to nominee screeners. To join Film Independent and vote on the Spirit Awards, please visit filmindependent.org/join to Join. Watch. Vote.

Nick Offerman: “It’s not a gay story, it’s a love story–you asshole. So more of that.”

There are protests by a single protester during the awards show and you could hear them chanting while Jim Gaffifan was presenting. Time, manner, place, people. An awards show honoring the best in dependent film is not the time, manner, or place. Not just that but it will not have any impact. Social media seems to imply that security is not doing anything about it–Aidy Bryant acknowledged that people are practicing their freedom of speech.

Jimmy O. Yang calls out the heckler(s). “What he doesn’t understand is we’re a bunch of people making indie films here. We’re used to getting yelled at. It’s actually comforting for me. This feels like my childhood. You know what I mean? There’s some guy in the back of my ear yelling at me.”

One of the winners is “so inspired” by the protests, which have been confirmed to be anti-Israel. This received an applause line in the audience.

BEST SUPPORTING PERFORMANCE: Da’Vine Joy Randolph, The Holdovers

BEST SUPPORTING PERFORMANCE IN A NEW SCRIPTED SERIES: Nick Offerman, The Last of Us

BEST DOCUMENTARY: Four Daughters
Director: Kaouther Ben Hania
Producer: Nadim Cheikhrouha

BEST BREAKTHROUGH PERFORMANCE IN A NEW SCRIPTED SERIES: Keivonn Montreal Woodard, The Last of Us

BEST INTERNATIONAL FILM (Award given to the director): Anatomy of a Fall (France)
Director: Justine Triet

BEST FIRST SCREENPLAY: Samy Burch; Story by Samy Burch, Alex Mechanik; May December

BEST SCREENPLAY: Cord Jefferson, American Fiction

BEST ENSEMBLE CAST IN A NEW SCRIPTED SERIES: Jury Duty
Ensemble Cast: Alan Barinholtz, Susan Berger, Cassandra Blair, David Brown, Kirk Fox, Ross Kimball, Pramode Kumar, Trisha LaFache, Mekki Leeper, James Marsden, Edy Modica, Kerry O’Neill, Rashida Olayiwola, Whitney Rice, Maria Russell, Ishmel Sahid, Ben Seaward, Ron Song, Evan Williams

BEST NEW NON-SCRIPTED OR DOCUMENTARY SERIES (Award given to the Creator, Executive Producer, Co-Executive Producer): Dear Mama
Executive Producers: Lasse Järvi, Quincy ‘QD3’ Jones III, Staci Robinson, Nelson George, Charles D. King, Peter Nelson, Adel ‘Future’ Nur, Jamal Joseph, Ted Skillman, Allen Hughes, Steve Berman, Marc Cimino, Jody Gerson, John Janick, Nicholas Ferrall, Nigel Sinclair

BEST LEAD PERFORMANCE IN A NEW SCRIPTED SERIES: Ali Wong, Beef

BEST NEW SCRIPTED SERIES (Award given to the Creator, Executive Producer, Co-Executive Producer): Beef
Creator/Executive Producer: Lee Sung Jin
Executive Producers: Steven Yeun, Ali Wong, Jake Schreier, Ravi Nandan, Alli Reich
Co-Executive Producers: Alice Ju, Carrie Kemper

BEST EDITING: Daniel Garber, How to Blow Up a Pipeline

BEST CINEMATOGRAPHY: Eigil Bryld, The Holdovers

JOHN CASSAVETES AWARD – Given to the best feature made for under $1,000,000 (Award given to the writer, director and producer): Fremont
Director/Writer: Babak Jalali
Writer: Carolina Cavalli
Producers: Rachael Fung, Chris Martin, Marjaneh Moghimi, George Rush, Sudnya Shroff, Laura Wagner

SOMEONE TO WATCH AWARD – The Someone to Watch Award, now in its 30th year, recognizes a talented filmmaker of singular vision who has not yet received appropriate recognition: Monica Sorelle, Mountains

BEST BREAKTHROUGH PERFORMANCE: Dominic Sessa, The Holdovers

PRODUCERS AWARD presented by Bulleit Frontier Whiskey – The Producers Award, now in its 27th year, honors emerging producers who, despite highly limited resources, demonstrate the creativity, tenacity and vision required to produce quality independent films: Monique Walton

ROBERT ALTMAN AWARD – Given to one film’s director, casting director and ensemble cast: Showing Up
Director: Kelly Reichardt
Casting Director: Gayle Keller
Ensemble Cast: André Benjamin, Hong Chau, Judd Hirsch, Heather Lawless, James Le Gros, John Magaro, Matt Malloy, Amanda Plummer, Maryann Plunkett, Denzel Rodriguez, Michelle Williams

BEST FIRST FEATURE (Award given to director and producer): A Thousand and One
Director: A.V. Rockwell
Producers: Julia Lebedev, Rishi Rajani, Eddie Vaisman, Lena Waithe, Brad Weston

TRUER THAN FICTION AWARD – The Truer Than Fiction Award, now in its 29th year, is presented to an emerging director of non-fiction features who has not yet received significant recognition: Set Hernandez, unseen

BEST DIRECTOR: Celine Song, Past Lives

BEST LEAD PERFORMANCE: Jeffrey Wright, American Fiction

BEST FEATURE (Award given to the producer.): Past Lives
Producers: David Hinojosa, Pamela Koffler, Christine Vachon