Awards season is among us! Things have kicked off with the announcement of the 2020 Independent Film Project (IFP) Gotham Award nominees.

“We congratulate the 2020 IFP Gotham Award nominees. In this unprecedented year we look forward to bringing the industry together and shining a light on some incredible films and television shows. We are proud to be celebrating our 30th anniversary in our resilient city, and continuing the core mission of IFP, independent storytelling.” said Jeffrey Sharp, Executive Director of IFP.

Nominees are selected by committees of film critics, journalists, festival programmers, and film curators. Separate juries of writers, directors, actors, producers, editors and others directly involved in making films will determine the final IFP Gotham Award recipients.

Eligibility for the Gothams is a bit tricky (films with budgets over $35 million are not included) so don’t be surprised if you don’t see some of your faves on here. Still, the Gothams are the earliest look we have at what the rest of the awards season and Oscars could look like. While the Oscar nominees could (and will likely) look different than this, the Gothmas mostly serve as a way to elevate certain projects to be greater contenders.

The IFP Gotham Awards ceremony will be held on Monday, January 11th. The awards show will be presented live from Cipriani Wall Street New York in a hybrid format featuring virtual interactive tables in order to follow health and safety protocols brought on by the COVID-19 pandemic.

As for Black talent, Garrett Bradley’s Time is nominated for Best Documentary. Maïmouna Doucouré’s Cuties (Mignonnes) is nominated for Best International Feature. Radha Blank and Channing Godfrey Peoples are nominated for the Bingham Ray Breakthrough Director Award for their films The Forty-Year-Old Version and Miss Juneteenth. Blank is also nominated for Best Screenplay.

Chadwick Boseman nets his first posthumous nomination of the season for Netflix’s Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom in the Best Actor category. Nicole Beharie si nominated in the Best Actress category for Miss Juneteenth. Jasmine Batchelor (The Surrogate) and Kingsley Ben-Adir (One Night in Miami…) are nominated for Breakthrough Actor

And for the television nominees, Starz’s P-Valley and HBO’s Watchmen are nominated for Breakthrough Series – Long Format, while HBO’s Betty, FX’s Dave and HBO’s I May Destroy You are nominated for Breakthrough Series – Short Format.

Check out the full list of nominees below:

 

Best Feature
The Assistant
First Cow
Never Rarely Sometimes Always
Nomadland
Relic

Best Documentary
76 Days
City Hall
Our Time Machine
A Thousand Cuts
Time

Best International Feature
Bacurau
Beanpole
Cuties (Mignonnes)
Identifying Features
Martin Eden
Wolfwalkers

Bingham Ray Breakthrough Director Award
Radha Blank – The Forty-Year-Old Version
Channing Godfrey Peoples – Miss Juneteenth
Alex Thompson – Saint Frances
Carlo Mirabella-Davis – Swallow
Andrew Patterson – The Vast of Night

Best Screenplay
Bad Education – Mike Makowsky
First Cow – Jon Raymond, Kelly Reichardt
The Forty-Year-Old Version – Radha Blank
Fourteen – Dan Sallitt
The Vast of Night – James Montague, Craig Sanger

Best Actor
Riz Ahmed – Sound of Metal
Chadwick Boseman – Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom
Jude Law – The Nest
John Magaro – First Cow
Jesse Plemons – I’m Thinking of Ending Things

Best Actress
Nicole Beharie – Miss Juneteenth
Jessie Buckley – I’m Thinking of Ending Things
Yuh-Jung Youn, Minari
Carrie Coon – The Nest
Frances McDormand – Nomadland

Breakthrough Actor
Jasmine Batchelor – The Surrogate
Kingsley Ben-Adir – One Night in Miami…
Sidney Flanigan – Never Rarely Sometimes Always
Orion Lee – First Cow
Kelly O’Sullivan – Saint Frances

Breakthrough Series – Long Format (over 40 minutes)
The Great
Immigration Nation
P-Valley
Unorthodox
Watchmen

Breakthrough Series – Short Format (under 40 minutes)
Betty
Dave
I May Destroy You
Taste the Nation
Work in Progress

 

Photo: Starz/Vertical Entertainment/Netflix