The Gotham Awards, which recognizes the best productions, directors, and actors in independent film, has announced its 2023 winners.

This year’s winners once again showcase the best of the best in indie films, and 2023’s top award went to Celine Song’s wistful romance Past Lives, which won Best Film.

Past Lives was a breakout at the Sundance Film Festival in January and at the Berlin Film Festival in February. The arthouse A24 hit was our Top Film of 2023 at the halfway point. For her debut film, Korean-born Canadian playwright-turned-director Celine Song gave us a nuanced, semi-autobiographical tale of two childhood friends who meet later in life, having been separated when one of their families emigrated from South Korea. Hae Sung (Teo Yoo) and Nora (Greta Lee) reconnect over social media and then in New York, where they confront notions of love, friendship, time and fate.

It’s a masterfully told and impeccably scripted film that eschews all clichés linked to love-triangles and romantic happy endings you might expect, further shining through its profound observations about life’s intricacies and matters of cultural identity.

To say we’re thrilled that it won Best Feature is putting it mildly. Expect it to feature prominently on our upcoming Top Films of 2023 list next month.

“This is the first film I’ve ever made and a very personal film about an extraordinary feeling I had in an ordinary bar in the East Village, not too many blocks away from here,” said Song, accepting the award. “As this film has been shared with the world, it has taught me — and taught us — that you’re never alone in that extraordinary feeling.”

Meanwhile, Lily Gladstone, who stars in Martin Scorsese’s Killers of the Flower Moon opposite Leonardo DiCaprio and Robert DeNiro, won for best lead performance — though not for that performance. Gladstone won for a lesser-known film released earlier in 2023: The Unknown Country, in which stars as a woman embarking on a road trip though the Midwest.

In her speech, she praised the filmmakers of both films for prioritizing Native perspectives.

“I challenge everybody in this room who makes films: Invest. When you have a budget, invest it in the people,” said Gladstone. “Invest in the people that you’re telling your story about. Your film will be better for it. Your lives will be better for it.”

For Best Supporting Performance, Charles Melton of Todd Haynes’ captivating May December won. He plays a young father who first began his relationship with his wife (Julianne Moore) when he was a minor, and his quietly profound performance was justly rewarded. Read our review of the film.  

Scroll down for the full list of the winners.

The Gothams have some quirks that make them different than other awards. For instance, prizes are chosen by small committees of film professionals, critics and journalists, and their acting categories are gender neutral – with 10 actors nominated for lead performance, and another 10 up for supporting performances.

Here are the key talking points for this year’s Gotham Awards:

Awards kick-off

The Gotham Awards, now in their 33rd year, represents award-season kick-off and the ceremony is an industry bellwether following fall festival buzz.

Many of the films which won last night are sure to be major award contenders on the road up to next year’s Oscars.

Indeed, the awards have a history of forecasting future awards glory. Last year, it was the first win in what became a runaway Oscar campaign for Everything Everywhere All at Once, and where Ke Huy Quan’s supporting-actor bid got its start. In 2020, its winner Nomadland went the distance to the Academy Awards.

With this in mind, Past Lives may be poised to be an Oscar (not so) sleeper this year. It’s a quietly devastating film that will tug on your heartstrings in all the right ways, on top of being one of the most captivating debuts in years. Hopefully it will resonate with Oscar voters, but chances are you’re likely to see its name pop up – and, if there’s any justice, its awards cabinet fill up by the time awards season comes to an end.

Speaking of which…

Anatomy of a win

This year, one of the most competitive categories was Best International Feature – which had nothing but gems as nominees.

Justine Triet’s Palme d’Or winning courtroom drama Anatomy of a Fall triumphed over the likes of Yorgos Lanthimos’ fantastic Venice winner Poor Things, Andrew Haigh’s excellent All of Us Strangers, the stunning Berlinale standout Tótem and Jonathan Glazer’s audacious Holocaust drama The Zone of Interest.

Triet’s film also won for Best Screenplay.

So, expect great things in this awards season for the French film, which will no doubt hoover up the awards at the upcoming European Film Awards in Berlin in two weeks’ time.

De Niro vs Trump vs Apple

The night’s biggest drama came in a political speech by Robert De Niro that the actor claimed had been edited without his permission.

Indeed, the ceremony went off-script when De Niro took the podium to present the Historical Icon and Creator Tribute award on behalf of Killers of the Flower Moon. While giving his remarks, De Niro noticed a section had been omitted on the teleprompter. After attempting to scroll back through, he completed his speech before returning to read from his phone.

“The beginning of my speech was edited, cut out,” De Niro said. “I didn’t know about it.”

De Niro, known for his fiery rhetoric against former President Donald Trump, then expanded on what he called America’s “post-truth society” and chided Hollywood — specifically John Wayne — for earlier depictions of Native Americans.

“Lying has become just another tool in the charlatan’s arsenal. The former President lied to us more than 30,000 times during his four years in office. And he’s keeping up the pace in his current campaign of retribution. But with all his lies, he can’t hide his soul,” he said. “He attacks the weak, destroys the gifts of nature and shows disrespect, for example, by using ‘Pocahontas’ as a slur. Filmmakers, on the other hand, strive — this is where I came in and I saw that they edited all that.”

De Niro seemed to blame Apple, which produced Killers of the Flower Moon, for the changes to his speech.

“So I’m going to say these things — to Apple and thank them, all that. Gothams. Blah blah blah. Apple. But I don’t really feel like thanking them at all for what they did,” said De Niro. “How dare they do that, actually.”

The documentary gem that could

Best documentary went to Kaouther Ben Hania’s bold and unique Tunisian film Four Daughters, a true story about a Tunisian women with two daughters who became radicalized. The film reconstructs their disappearance.

There was every chance that the topical 20 Days in Mariupol would win, but Ben Hania’s Cannes standout emerged triumphant.

The film confronts motherhood and religious fundamentalism, and Ben Hania’s approach is often unexpectedly playful. It is without a doubt her most accomplished film to date, following the strong Challat of Tunis (2013), Beauty and the Dogs (2017) and the middling and bafflingly overpraised The Man Who Sold His Skin (2020). Four Daughters achieves a level of empowerment without forsaking a sense of guarded optimism, and for all of its unexpected humour, the director shrewdly leaves the viewer rattled with a final note that questions whether future generations will be able to break the shackles of extremist religious dogma and cultural indoctrination, and whether the cycle of inherited suffering is doomed to repeat itself.

It’s a must-see. Read our review.

Star Power

Last night was the first Gothams ceremony in a decade with no budget caps for eligibility, leading to a more star-studded event than usual that saw Ryan Gosling with a Supporting Performance nomination for Barbie and Penelope Cruz for Ferrari.

The Tribute awards this year ensured that some star power hit the Gothams stage.

They were given to: Bradley Cooper, the director, star and co-writer of the terrific Maestro; Michael Mann, the director of Ferrari; George C. Wolfe, the director of Rustin; and Ben Affleck, the director and co-star of Air.

Affleck, however, wasn’t in attendance. The film’s screenwriter, Alex Convery, instead accepted the award.

Then, there was Greta Gerwig and Margot Robbie of Barbie. In their joint speech, Gerwig said her partner, Noah Baumbach, found out he was co-writing the movie with her from a Variety article that cited them both. He sent the article to Gerwig with just a question mark, she said.

“Then he wrote back: ‘It’s OK, we’ll make each other laugh,'” added Gerwig.

Here are the winners at the 2023 Gotham Awards:

Best Feature

“Past Lives” – WINNER
“Passages”
“Reality”
“Showing Up”
“A Thousand and One”

Outstanding Lead Performance

Lily Gladstone, “The Unknown Country” – WINNER
Aunjanue Ellis-Taylor, “Origin”
Greta Lee, “Past Lives”
Franz Rogowski, “Passages”
Babetida Sadjo, “Our Father, The Devil”
Andrew Scott, “All of Us Strangers”
Cailee Spaeny, “Priscilla”
Teyana Taylor, “A Thousand and One”
Michelle Williams, “Showing Up”
Jeffrey Wright, “American Fiction”

Outstanding Supporting Performance

Charles Melton, “May December” – WINNER
Juliette Binoche, “The Taste of Things”
Penélope Cruz, “Ferrari”
Jamie Foxx, “They Cloned Tyrone”
Claire Foy, “All of Us Strangers”
Ryan Gosling, “Barbie”
Glenn Howerton, “BlackBerry”
Sandra Hüller, “The Zone of Interest”
Rachel McAdams, “Are You There God? It’s Me, Margaret”
Da’Vine Joy Randolph, “The Holdovers”

Best Screenplay

“Anatomy of a Fall,” Justine Triet, Arthur Harari – WINNER
“All of Us Strangers,” Andrew Haigh
“May December,” Samy Burch
“R.M.N.,” Cristian Mungiu
“The Zone of Interest,” Jonathan Glazer

Best International Feature

“Anatomy of a Fall” – WINNER
“All of Us Strangers”
“Poor Things”
“Tótem”
“The Zone of Interest”

Best Documentary Feature

“Four Daughters” – WINNER
“20 Days in Mariupol”
“Against the Tide”
“Apolonia, Apolonia”
“Our Body”

Breakthrough Director

A.V. Rockwell, “A Thousand and One” – WINNER
Raven Jackson, “All Dirt Roads Taste of Salt”
Georgia Oakley, “Blue Jean”
Michelle Garza Cervera, “Huesera”
Celine Song, “Past Lives”

Outstanding Performance in a New Series

Ali Wong, “Beef” – WINNER
Jacob Anderson, “Anne Rice’s Interview With the Vampire”
Dominique Fishback, “Swarm”
Jharrel Jerome, “I’m a Virgo”
Natasha Lyonne, “Poker Face”
Bel Powley, “A Small Light”
Bella Ramsey, “The Last of Us”
Chaske Spencer, “The English”
Rachel Weisz, “Dead Ringers”
Steven Yeun, “Beef”

Breakthrough Television Over 40 Minutes

“A Small Light” – WINNER
“Anne Rice’s Interview With the Vampire”
“Dead Ringers”
“The English”
“The Last of Us”
“Telemarketers”

Breakthrough Television Under 40 Minutes

“Beef” – WINNER
“High School”
“I’m A Virgo”
“Rain Dogs”
“Swarm”