This week’s disturbance in the Force wasn’t just about Star Wars—don’t get us wrong, it was mostly about Star Wars, but we also experienced that all-important shift into awards season. The Gotham Awards nominees have just been announced, and sadly, they still have nothing to do with Batman. If we could give out a Gotham award, though, the recipient would probably be Barbara for “Most Improved Character,” or Donal Logue for some kind of rumpled-charm lifetime achievement.
But, as they stand, the Gotham Awards are the amuse-bouche to whet the appetite for all the Oscar- and Golden Globes-related revelry that’s on its way. They’re also not a bad barometer for success, as some of last year’s nominees went on to land even bigger prizes. Birdman got the Best Picture Oscar; CitizenFour, Best Feature Documentary; and Best Actress nominees Julianne Moore and Patricia Arquette won Academy Awards for Still Alice and Boyhood, respectively.
Deadline has a complete list of nominees, but the frontrunner is The Diary Of A Teenage Girl, a coming-of-age story starring Bel Powley, Kristen Wiig, and Alexander Skarsgård. The film received four nominations, including Best Feature and Screenplay. It’s followed closely by Tom McCarthy’s Spotlight, a drama that features a Pulitzer Prize winner, a Catholic Church cover-up, and past-Gotham Award winner (and former Batman) Michael Keaton.
The two other hat-trick nominees are Carol, which sees Cate Blanchett and Rooney Mara share a love that dare not speak its name, and “frenetic transgender iPhone Christmas movie of the year,” Tangerine. Both films are up for Best Feature, while two of Tangerine’s leads, Mya Taylor and Kitana Kiki Rodriguez, are nominated in the Best Breakthrough Actor category. Blanchett is a Best Actress nominee, and Carol screenwriter Phyllis Nagy is up for Best Screenplay.
Other notables include Love & Mercy, which got nominations for Best Actor (Paul Dano) and Screenplay, and The Look Of Silence, which was nominated for Best Documentary along with Approaching The Elephant. The winners will be announced on November 30.