Although its timing has modified through the years, the Movie Unbiased Spirit Awards nonetheless marks the ultimate flip towards the end line of awards season, placing a highlight on each the movies which are main Oscar contenders, in addition to the initiatives that show nice cinema will be made on the most micro of budgets.
Whereas the present was expansive when it comes to what it honored, together with the very best of tv as properly, there was a sure throughline in what was acknowledged on the Unbiased Spirit Awards this 12 months. Under, IndieWire dives into the true winners of the 2025 Indie Spirits.
We should begin by stating the apparent, because the Palme d’Or successful movie launched by Neon not solely gained Greatest Movie, however Greatest Director for Sean Baker, and Greatest Lead Efficiency for Mikey Madison proper on the heels of a handful of key awards wins at locations just like the PGA Awards, the DGA Awards, and the BAFTAs. Baker’s acceptance speech specifically appears to preview what he could also be planning to say on the Academy Awards ought to the movie earn Greatest Image.
“I’m an indie movie lifer, and I do know that there are different indie movie lifers on this room, those that don’t see indie movies as calling playing cards, those that don’t make these movies to land a collection or a studio movie,” mentioned the Oscar-nominated filmmaker. “A few of us wish to make private movies which are meant for theatrical launch with subject material that might by no means be greenlit by the large studios. We wish full inventive freedom and the liberty to forged who is true for the function, not who we’re pressured to forged contemplating field workplace worth, or what number of followers they’ve on social media. The system has to alter as a result of that is merely unsustainable.”
From Greatest First Movie to Greatest Screenplay to the John Cassavetes Award honoring options with a finances underneath $1 million, lots of the winners for the largest classes on the movie facet of the Unbiased Spirit Awards went to movies that first premiered on the Sundance Movie Pageant. Taking a look at its 2024 version alone, winners Maisy Stella (“My Outdated Ass”), Sean Wang (“Dìdi”), and Shuchi Talati (“Women Will Be Women”) bought their begin there, and due to this fact thanked the pageant, and a number of the key figures working on the Sundance Institute like Michelle Satter of their acceptance speeches. All of it served as a reminder that regardless of current conversations about Sundance’s place within the movie ecosystem, the pageant continues to be a serious participant in awards conversations.
Though the manufacturing firm Fruit Tree didn’t win all of the awards it may have, its founders Emma Stone and Dave McCary nonetheless bought loads of shoutouts from the stage, having been part of getting nominees “A Actual Ache,” “I Noticed the TV Glow,” “Problemista,” and “Fantasmas” made. Along with Stone being recreation for some enjoyable gags shepherded by host Aidy Bryant, “A Actual Ache” author/director Jesse Eisenberg (one other Sundance 2024 alum) devoted the top of his acceptance speech to the Oscar successful actress, and mentioned within the winners room ““Each single individual on this planet who opens a Remaining Draft folder desires to jot down one thing for Emma Stone. She’s the best in every part ever.”
On the tv facet of the Unbiased Spirit Awards, the largest winner was “Child Reindeer,” which collected trophies for Greatest Lead Efficiency, Greatest Breakthrough Efficiency, and Greatest Supporting Efficiency, with the latter going to Nava Mau. The award is one other win for the trailblazing trans star, made all of the extra particular by it being offered to her by her peer Hunter Schafer (“Euphoria”). Although Mau’s speech extra broadly referred to as for unity among the many labor that’s actually chargeable for making movie and TV, “Methods to Not Die Alone” creator/star Natasha Rothwell did use a part of her acceptance speech for Greatest Ensemble Forged in a New Scripted Sequence to let the trans group know that she and the inventive group is right here for them. Movies with trans themes like “I Noticed the TV Glow” and “The Individuals’s Joker” had been additionally among the many nominees for giant classes on the awards present.
One particular second proper earlier than the aforementioned John Cassavetes Award was handed out was presenters Natasha Lyonne and Patti Lupone declaring that this 12 months they’d be altering the award’s identify to the Gena Rowlands Award in honor of the filmmaker’s major associate in his life and work, “A Girl Below the Affect” actress Rowlands, who died in August 2024.
Later, as Movie Unbiased representatives got here out to provide a reminder of the awards being a fundraiser for lots of the group’s efforts to maintain impartial filmmaking alive, two standing ovations got to Josh Welsh, the late President of Movie Unbiased whose a few years of labor helped make the night time attainable within the first place.