A Different Man / Sing Sing

Source: Sundance / TIFF

A Different Man / Sing Sing

The first major awards show of the season has spoken, and the future looks bright for A24 as A Different Man took best feature and Sing Sing top acting honours for Colman Domingo and Clarence Maclin at the 34th Gotham Awards on Monday night.

Cannes Palme d’Or winner Anora, which began the night at Cipriani Wall Street in New York with the most nominations on four, went home empty-handed. However Sean Baker’s madcap romantic comedy is expected to figure prominently as awards season continues.

Aaron Schimberg’s dark comedy A Different Man premiered in Sundance and stars Sebastian Stan as a sensitive playwright with facial disfigurement whose life takes a turn for the worse after a radical medical treatment drastically improves his appearance. Adam Pearson and Renate Reinsve also star.

In a huge night for the actors of prison drama Sing Sing, who collectively received the previously announced 2024 Gotham Social Justice Tribute, Domingo and Maclin took the respective Outstanding Lead Performance and Outstanding Supporting Performance awards for the Toronto 2023 premiere.

Domingo plays an inmate actor in the drama, inspired by the Rehabilitation Through The Arts programme at Sing Sing Maximum Security Prison. Debutant actor Maclin plays himself – and as a former inmate and stage actor, he has a strong narrative to tell as awards season unfolds.

Payal Kapadia’s popular Cannes grand prix winner and Indian road movie All We Imagine As Light triumphed in the best international feature category. The film is not contesting the best international feature film Oscar category after the Indian selection committee overlooked it. Sideshow and Janus Films distribute in the US.

RaMell Ross earned the best directing award for Telluride premiere Nickel Boys at Orion Pictures/Amazon MGM Studios, the story of two youngster incarcerated at a notorious Florida reform school. The film’s Brandon Wilson earned the breakthrough performer award.

Azazel Jacobs prevailed in the best screenplay category for his Netflix drama His Three Daughters, which debuted at TIFF 2023.

Antipode Films’ Berlinale selection No Other Land, which remains without a US distributor and chronicles the destruction of the West Bank hamlets that make up Masafer Yatta, won best documentary. Israeli journalist Yuval Abraham, Palestinian activist Basel Adra and Hamdan Ballal co-directed.

The night’s truly anarchic moment came when the Gothams awarded their breakthrough director honour to Vera Drew for The People’s Joker, a trans coming-of-age parody that riffs on the Batman films and drew close attention from Warner Bros Discovery’s legal team at its TIFF 2022 world premiere. The film opened earlier this year through Altered Innocence.

Previously announced special awards saw the cast of The Piano Lesson receive the 2024 Gotham Awards Ensemble Tribute. Individual honours went to Franklin Leonard and the Black List for the Anniversary Tribute; Zendaya for the Spotlight Tribute for Challengers; Angelina Jolie for the Performer Tribute for Maria; Denis Villeneuve for the Director Tribute for Dune: Part Two; and Timothée Chalamet and James Mangold for the Visionary Tribute for A Complete Unknown.

Winners appear below in bold.

Best Feature

Anora (Neon)
Babygirl (A24)
Challengers (Amazon MGM Studios)
A Different Man (A24)
Nickel Boys (Orion Pictures/Amazon MGM Studios)

Outstanding Lead Performance

Pamela Anderson, The Last Showgirl (Roadside Attractions)
Adrien Brody, The Brutalist (A24)
Colman Domingo, Sing Sing (A24)
Marianne Jean-Baptiste, Hard Truths (Bleecker Street)
Nicole Kidman, Babygirl (A24)
Keith Kupferer, Ghostlight (IFC Films)
Mikey Madison, Anora (Neon)
Demi Moore, The Substance (Mubi)
Saoirse Ronan, Outrun (Sony Pictures Classics)
Justice Smith, I Saw the TV Glow (A24)

Outstanding Supporting Performance

Yura Borisov, Anora (Neon)
Kieran Culkin, A Real Pain (Searchlight Pictures)
Danielle Deadwyler, The Piano Lesson (Netflix)
Brigette Lundy-Paine, I Saw the TV Glow (A24)
Natasha Lyonne, His Three Daughters (Netflix)
Clarence Maclin, Sing Sing (A24)
Katy O’Brian, Love Lies Bleeding (A24)
Guy Pearce, The Brutalist (A24)
Adam Pearson, A Different Man (A24)
Brian Tyree Henry, The Fire Inside (Amazon MGM Studios)

Best Screenplay

Between The Temples, Nathan Silver, C. Mason Wells (Sony Pictures Classics)
Evil Does Not Exist, Ryûsuke Hamaguchi (Sideshow and Janus Films)
Femme, Sam H. Freeman, Ng Choon Ping (Utopia)
His Three Daughters, Azazel Jacobs (Netflix)
Janet Planet, Annie Baker (A24)

Best Director

Payal Kapadia, All We Imagine as Light (Sideshow and Janus Films)
Sean Baker, Anora (Neon)
Guan Hu, Black Dog (The Forge)
Jane Schoenbrun, I Saw the TV Glow (A24)
RaMell Ross, Nickel Boys (Orion Pictures/Amazon MGM Studios)

Best International Feature

All We Imagine As Light (Sideshow and Janus Films)
Green Border (Kino Lorber)
Hard Truths (Bleecker Street)
Inside The Yellow Cocoon Shell  (Kino Lorber)
Vermiglio (Sideshow and Janus Films) 

Best Documentary Feature

Dahomey (Mubi)
Intercepted (Grasshopper Film)
No Other Land (Antipode Films)
Soundtrack to a Coup d’Etat (Kino Lorber)
Sugarcane (National Geographic Documentary Films)
Union (Self-distributed)

Breakthrough Director

Shuchi Talati, Girls Will Be Girls (Juno Films, Inc)
India Donaldson, Good One (Metrograph Pictures)
Alessandra Lacorazza, In the Summers (Music Box Films)
Vera Drew, The People’s Joker (Altered Innocence)
Mahdi Fleifel, To a Land Unknown (Watermelon Pictures)

Breakthrough Performer

Lily Collias, Good One (Metrograph Pictures)
Ryan Destiny, The Fire Inside (Amazon MGM Studios)
Maisy Stella, My Old Ass (Amazon MGM Studios)
Izaac Wang, Dìdi (Focus Features)
Brandon Wilson, Nickel Boys (Orion Pictures/Amazon MGM Studios)

Previously announced special awards saw the cast of The Piano Lesson receive the 2024 Gotham Awards Ensemble Tribute. Individual honours went to Franklin Leonard and the Black List for the Anniversary Tribute; Zendaya for the Spotlight Tribute for Challengers; Angelina Jolie for the Performer Tribute for Maria; Denis Villeneuve for the Director Tribute for Dune: Part Two; and Timothée Chalamet and James Mangold for the Visionary Tribute for A Complete Unknown.