Jordan Peele’s Get Out Leads Pack at Gotham Independent Film Awards

The Gotham Independent Film Awards are considered the very first step on the long, often winding road towards Oscar glory. Two very different and very excellent films, Jordan Peele’s social thriller/horror/comedy masterpiece Get Out, and Luca Guadagnino’s gorgeous gay romance Call Me By Your Name can now be credibly considered two early frontrunners. 

Get Out nabbed breakthrough director, for Peele, best screenplay (Peele again), and the audience award. Peele’s film, which bakes social commentary and comedy into a horror template in a way that recalls the best horror films of all time, has the chance to break all sorts of previously hard and fast Oscar norms, ranging from ignoring films that come out early in the year (Get Out premiered in late February) to ignoring horror films for the major categories (best film, best director).  

“When I started to write this film I set out to make a movie that would be my favorite movie that I had never seen,” Peele said at the ceremony. “It’s so important that we support these voices from the outside, these perspectives we haven’t seen, we haven’t heard. They will resonate. We need these stories.”

Guadagnino’s Call Me By Your Name nabbed the night’s big award, best feature, and a breakthrough actor award for Timothée Chalamet, who plays Elio, the young man who falls in love with Armie Hammer’s visiting graduate student, Oliver.

Saoirse Ronan won best actress for Greta Gerwig’s Lady Bird, which is currently the best reviewed film in RottenTomatoes history.  Get Out, Call Me By Your Name, Lady Bird and Sean Baker’s The Florida Project are four early frontrunners, and you really couldn’t ask for a more diverse group of films or filmmakers.

For the Independent Spirit Awards, another major awards season harbinger, Get Out, Call Me By Your Name and Lady Bird were nominated for best feature, alongside of Baker’s The Florida Project and Chloe Zhoa’s The Rider. Peele, Gerwig, Guadagnino and Baker may be spending a lot more time together as the awards season heats up. We’ve got the goods on their films, including an interview with Gerwig, and interview with Get Out‘s cinematographer, Toby Oliver, an interview Call Me By Your Name‘s screenwriter, James Ivory, and Sean Baker.

Here’s the full list of your Gotham Independent Film Award winners:

Best Feature

Call Me by Your Name (Sony Pictures Classics)

Best Documentary

Strong Island (Netflix)

Best Actor

James Franco in The Disaster Artist (A24)

Best Actress

Saoirse Ronan in Lady Bird (A24)

Breakthrough Series – Long Form

Atlanta (FX Networks)

Bingham Ray Breakthrough Director Award

Jordan Peele for Get Out (Universal Pictures)

Breakthrough Actor

Timothée Chalamet in Call Me by Your Name (Sony Pictures Classics)

Breakthrough Series – Short Form

The Strange Eyes of Dr. Myes (YouTube)

Best Screenplay

Get Out, Jordan Peele (Universal Pictures)

Featured image: Jordan Peele and Betty Gabriel on the set of Get Out. Photo Credit: Justin Lubin. Courtesy Universal Pictures.