Film nominations for the 2023 Independent Spirit Awards have been released to the public, with the entire list of nominees announced through YouTube. The Film Independent Spirit Awards have been a major platform to showcase the work of independent filmmakers since its establishment in 1984.
Beginning in 2023, the Independent Spirit Awards features gender-neutral categories, replacing the male and female-specified awards for lead and supporting performance categories with the gender-neutral Best Lead Performance and Best Supporting Performance awards. These categories now receive ten nominees each, instead of five.
A diverse list of nominees has been announced for the Best Lead Performance category this year, encompassing a wide variety of genres at the same time — from drama and comedy to horror. Most interestingly, the nominations see established stars, like the two-time Academy Award-winner Cate Blanchett, go head-to-head with newcomers like Paul Mescal, who made his feature film debut in 2021. While we await the air date of the award show, here is our ranking for the Best Lead Performance nominees of the 2023 Film Independent Spirit Awards.
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10 Regina Hall — Honk for Jesus. Save Your Soul.
Focus Features
Honk for Jesus. Save Your Soul. premiered at the 2022 Sundance Film Festival, and is a comedy that delves into the Black megachurch phenomenon. The movie was the directorial debut of Adamma Ebo, with Jordan Peele as executive producer. The film follows the life of a megachurch pastor and his wife, played by Sterling K. Brown and Regina Hall. Following a major scandal where the pastor is accused of coercing young male congregants into sexual relations, the couple decides to hire a documentary crew to stage a comeback and reopen their church.
MOVIEWEB VIDEO OF THE DAY
MOVIEWEB VIDEO OF THE DAY
MOVIEWEB VIDEO OF THE DAY
9 Dale Dickey — A Love Song
Bleecker Street
A Love Song has been called the “long-overdue role” in the career of Dale Dickey by LA Times. Writer-director Max Walker-Silverman presents an extraordinarily beautiful story in this directorial debut. A Love Song is a stripped-down movie, featuring a main cast of only two characters: Dickey’s Faye, and Wes Studi’s Lito. The movie follows these two characters over a short period of time as they reconnect as childhood friends meeting after an entire lifetime spent apart. It is the poignant performances of the two actors that allows the movie to shine as it does.
8 Paul Mescal — Aftersun
MubiA24
Another debut film by a talented writer-director, Aftersun has been received with overwhelming praise, which can clearly be seen by the many nominations the film has received. The movie was directed by Charlotte Wells and masterfully explores the relationship between a father and his daughter, with Paul Mescal taking on the role of the father. The New York Times review of the movie praises Wells for “nearly reinventing the language of film,” and Mescal proves himself as the perfect medium for her unique cinematic style, simultaneously appearing strange and aloof while also projecting a heartbreaking emotionality.
7 Jeremy Pope — The Inspection
A24
Better known as a theater and Broadway actor, Jeremy Pope has already bagged the Virtuosos Award at the Santa Barbara International Film Festival for The Inspection. He stars in the movie as Ellis French, a gay man who enlists in the U.S. Marine Corps and attempts to go through the boot camp while hiding his sexuality. A semi-autobiographical film by director Elegance Bratton, the movie details his experiences at the boot camp as he struggles with his own erotic impulses, the bullying of his superiors, and his troubled relationship with his homophobic mother.
6 Taylor Russell — Bones and All
MGM
Taylor Russell has garnered a long list of accolades in the last few years, achieving a breakthrough year in 2019 with Escape Room and Waves. Bones and All brought her together with acclaimed director Luca Guadagnino for a horror-romance feature, where she has hit out of the park as a teenage cannibal. The movie pits her longside Timothée Chalamet as she discovers a dark impulse within her, an impulse that sets her on the run from the law. Bones and All traces its own identity against everything in horror cinema, and Russel stands out as the perfect protagonist to lead this terrifying story.
5 Mia Goth — Pearl
A24
The slasher horror film Pearl is the prequel story to another movie that was released to much praise earlier in the year, titled X. The film is set in the early-20th Century and told the villainous origin story of Pearl, the murderous old woman who terrorized a group of adult film actors in the first movie. Mia Goth appears as the binding thread across these two projects, starring as both Maxine Minx in X, and the younger version of the Pearl in the prequel. Her gleeful portrayal of the disturbed young farm girl is definitely one to behold, earning her a well-deserved nomination for the Independent Spirit Awards’ Best Lead Performance.
4 Aubrey Plaza — Emily the Criminal
Vertical Entertainment
Having found her breakout role in Parks and Recreation as the eccentric and antisocial April Ludgate, Aubrey Plaza seems to never take off her quirky mannerisms — even in real life. While she excels in the many off-beat roles she enjoys performing, Emily the Criminal caused a lot of buzz for her standout performance. The movie follows Plaza as a former art student who struggles to find a well-paying job because of a felony conviction. When a chance meeting brings her the opportunity to get rich quick, she jumps on the offer. The movie showcases a whole new dimension to Plaza’s dramatic chops, and is a powerful new entry in her filmography.
3 Andrea Riseborough — To Leslie
Momentum Pictures
To Leslie is a heartbreaking story of a woman from West Texas who wins a local lottery, only to squander it all on alcohol. Along the way, she burns all her bridges, ending up in a miserable life. The movie begins with Andrea Riseborough’s character in a state of infectious joy as she wins the lottery. The immediate next scene picks up a number of years later, as she is completely alone and avoided even by the people on the street. To Leslie takes an unapologetically realistic perspective, to a devastating effect. Riseborough fully immerses herself in her character, taking the story to deeply uncomfortable depths.
2 Cate Blanchett — Tár
Cate Blanchett is a top favorite for this year’s Academy Award for Best Actress for her role in Tár, a riveting psychological drama set in the high world of classical music. The movie has racked up a long list of accolades, and Blanchett has won a handful of them already. She stars in the movie as Lydia Tár, a masterful classical music conductor and composer at the peak of her career. Blanchett has given one of the best performances of her career in this film, as it leads to a nail-biting exploration of genius, cancel culture, and the corrupting influence of power.
1 Michelle Yeoh — Everything Everywhere All at Once
Everything Everywhere All at Once can be called the most popular indie movie of 2022, as it caused waves with its groundbreaking storytelling and visual effects work. The Daniels presented a story with virtually no equivalent in cinema, taking Michelle Yeoh on a genre-bending run across infinite absurd universes, while still managing to make a poignant statement about love and family. Yeoh presented in one of the most unusual roles of her career in this movie, casting aside her composed and elegant demeanor to convincingly portray a bumbling, awkward mother and laundromat owner. Her natural grace allows her to flow through the many absurd elements of the movie in a way that would be impossible for any other actor. The chaotic and uniquely creative brilliance of the movie could only have been perfected with Yeoh at its center. For this reason, she is our favorite nominee for the Best Lead Performance category of the 2022 Independent Spirit Awards.
