Spirit Awards: ‘Past Lives’ Wins Best Feature And Best Director For Celine Song; Jeffrey Wright, Da’Vine Joy Randolph, ‘Beef’, ‘The Last Of Us’ Among Winners – Full List
The 2024 Film Independent Spirit Awards on Sunday awarded A24’s Past Lives its Best Feature and the film’s Celine Song the Best Director in a ceremony on the beach in Santa Monica, giving the indie romantic drama a boost as it heads toward the Oscars where it is up for Best Picture.
Past Lives topped a marquee Best Feature category that included Netflix’s May December, Amazon MGM Studios’ American Fiction, Searchlight’s All of Us Strangers, Sony Pictures Classics’ We Grown Now and Mubi’s Passages.
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“There is a concept in our film, an Eastern concept, and it’s called inyeon,” Song, making her feature directorial debut, said in her acceptance speech with her producers and cast. “It is about how just by being in the same space and time in this life, it means we actually knew each other for many, many lives that came before this one.
“I think that making this movie I have felt this way about everybody who is on stage here … It’s a feeling that I get where I feel so much less lonely because I know everyone here feels the same – so thank you so much for everything.”
Last year’s Spirit winner for Best Feature, Everything Everywhere All at Once, also from A24, went on to win the Best Picture Oscar.
Today’s other Oscar nominees fared well today with Jeffrey Wright winning Best Lead Performance for American Fiction, which also scored a Best Screenplay win for its writer-director Cord Jefferson; May December writers Samy Burch and Alex Mechanik won the Best First Screenplay prize.
Past Lives, American Fiction and May December came into today tied for the most overall nominations with five. It was Focus Features’ The Holdovers, an Oscar Best Picture nominee but not a Best Feature nominee here today, that took the most trophies with three: for frontrunner Da’Vine Joy Randolph as Best Supporting Performance, Dominic Sessa for Breakthrough Performance and Eigil Bryld for Cinematography.
Other Oscar nominees scoring wins today included Anatomy of a Fall which won for Best International Film and Four Daughters which won for Best Documentary.
RELATED: 2024 Awards Season Calendar – Dates For Oscars, Guilds, Tonys & More
The TV side was led by multiple wins for The Last of Us (acting performances from Nick Offerman and Keivonn Montreal Woodard), and Beef, which won for Best New Scripted Series and for Ali Wong, who topped even co-star Steven Yeun in the gender-neutral Best Lead Performance in a New Scripted Series category.
Today’s streaming-only ceremony, hosted ably by Saturday Night Live alum Aidy Bryant, was times interrupted by the sounds of a pro-Palestinian protester outside the event tent; his chants of “Long live Palenstine” and “Cease fire now” were audible during several speeches thanks to his use of a loudspeaker. Several speakers onstage noted the noise, which lasted most of the show.
RELATED: Aidy Bryant’s Spirit Awards Monologue Takes On AI, The Strike & Pains Of Hosting
Here’s today’s full list of Spirit Awards winners:
BEST FEATURE
(Given to the producer)
Past Lives
Producers: David Hinojosa, Pamela Koffler, Christine Vachon
BEST LEAD PERFORMANCE
Jeffrey Wright
American Fiction
BEST DIRECTOR
Celine Song
Past Lives
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
BEST BREAKTHROUGH PERFORMANCE
Dominic Sessa
The Holdovers
JOHN CASSAVETES AWARD
(Given to best feature made for under $1,000,000; award given to 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
BEST CINEMATOGRAPHY
Eigil Bryld
The Holdovers
BEST EDITING
Daniel Garber
How to Blow Up a Pipeline
BEST NEW SCRIPTED SERIES
(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 LEAD PERFORMANCE IN A NEW SCRIPTED SERIES
Ali Wong
Beef
BEST NEW NON-SCRIPTED OR DOCUMENTARY SERIES
(Award given to creator, executive producer, co-executive producer)
Dear Mama
Executive Producers: Lasse J?rvi, 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 SCREENPLAY
Cord Jefferson
American Fiction
BEST FIRST SCREENPLAY
Samy Burch; Story by Samy Burch, Alex Mechanik
May December
BEST INTERNATIONAL FILM
(Given to the director)
Anatomy of a Fall
France
Director: Justine Triet
BEST BREAKTRHOUGH PERFORMANCE IN A NEW SCRIPTED SERIES
Keivonn Montreal Woodard
The Last of Us
BEST DOCUMENTARY
(Given to the director and producer)
Four Daughters
Director: Kaouther Ben Hania
Producer: Nadim Cheikhrouha
BEST SUPPORTING PERFORMANCE IN A NEW SCRIPTED SERIES
Nick Offerman
The Last of Us
BEST SUPPORTING PERFORMANCE
Da’Vine Joy Randolph
The Holdovers
Previously Announced
TRUER THAN FICTION AWARD
(Presented to an emerging director of non-fiction features who has not yet received significant recognition)
Set Hernandez
Director: Unseen
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
PRODUCERS AWARD
(Honors emerging producers who, despite highly limited resources, demonstrate the creativity, tenacity and vision required to produce quality independent films)
Monique Walton
SOMEONE TO WATCH AWARD
(Recognizes a talented filmmaker of singular vision who has not yet received appropriate recognition)
Monica Sorelle
Director: Mountains
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
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