Gotham Awards Kicks off Awards Season in NYC with Surprises and Indie Love

I literally said on last week’s episode of Black Tomatoes at Black Hollywood Live, this awards season would be all over the place. Needless to say, last night the 28th annual IFP Gotham Awards offered a few surprises, honoring dark horse The Rider as Best Feature, its only win of the night. First Reformed and Eighth Grade each took a pair of competitive awards.

The Favourite took home a previously announced ensemble acting award and one of its stars Rachel Weisz was honored with a career acting tribute. But it did not win in three other competitive categories, Best Feature, Best Screenplay and the Audience Award.

In yet another twist, Best Actress went to Toni Collette for horror hit Hereditary. A24, which released the film along with Eighth Grade and First Reformed, dominated the distributor standings with five total awards.

In addition to Weisz, other honorary tribute recipients included Willem Dafoe(Actor Tribute), Paul Greengrass (Directors Tribute) and producer Jon Kamen (Industry Tribute). Sandra Lee, who made a short film for HBO and has won two Emmys as a TV host, received the “Made in NY” Award from the New York City Mayor’s Office of Media and Entertainment to start the show.

The Gotham’s, in recent years has become more predictive of Oscar buzz and award gold, with Get Out, Call Me By Your Name and Lady Bird each bringing home Gothams and then earning Oscar love.

Shout outs to Barry Jenkins and leading lady Kiki Layne for If Beale Street Could Talk, Boots Riley and Lakeith Stanfield for Sorry to Bother You, the cast of POSE and Regina Hall for their nominations.

Here is the complete list of winners:

BEST FEATURE

The Rider

Chloé Zhao, director; Bert Hamelinck, Sacha Ben Harroche, Mollye Asher, Chloé Zhao, producers (Sony Pictures Classics)

AUDIENCE AWARD

Won’t You Be My Neighbor?

Morgan Neville, director; Morgan Neville, Caryn Capotosto, Nicholas Ma, producers (Focus Features)

BEST DOCUMENTARY

Hale County This Morning, This Evening

RaMell Ross, director; RaMell Ross, Joslyn Barnes, Su Kim, producers (The Cinema Guild)

BINGHAM RAY BREAKTHROUGH DIRECTOR AWARD

Bo Burnham for Eighth Grade (A24)