See all of the 2025 Film Independent Spirit Award winners

The Film Independent Spirit Awards are back with their 40th ceremony to date.

For the second year in a row, Saturday Night Live alum Aidy Bryant is hosting Saturday’s awards show, which includes 12 categories honoring independent and low-budget film projects and six categories honoring television. As always, the ceremony is taking place in Santa Monica (just steps away from the beach!) starting at 8 p.m. ET/5 p.m. PT, and is streaming live on Film Independent’s YouTube channel and X (formerly Twitter) feed.

The Indie Spirits are a distinct organization in the awards season landscape because they’re specifically designed to focus on smaller film productions — to qualify for the awards, the maximum budget a movie can have is $28 million (though there’s no budget cap on the TV side — the shows just have to be new this year). 

As a result, the Indie Spirits only sometimes overlap with the Oscars — smaller-budget films like Everything Everywhere All at Once, Nomadland, and Moonlight have all found major success with both awards bodies, whereas movies like Past Lives have triumphed at the Spirits in years when higher-budget productions like Oppenheimer win big at the Academy Awards.

Another key distinction that sets the Indie Spirits apart from other awards shows: all acting categories at the Indie Spirits are gender-neutral, so there are fewer categories overall for both film and TV: Best Lead Performance, Best Supporting Performance, and Best Breakthrough Performance for both mediums, plus a Best Ensemble Cast on the TV side.

Going into the ceremony, Anora and I Saw the TV Glow dominated the film categories with five nominations each, while Shōgun leads the TV field, also with five noms. Projects like Dìdi, Baby Reindeer, and English Teacher all received four nominations each, while The Apprentice, Janet Planet, Sing Sing, and Agatha All Along all garnered three noms apiece.

Follow along as we update the winners in real time below.

MOVIES

Best Feature

Anora
I Saw the TV Glow
Nickel Boys
Sing Sing
The Substance

Best Director

Ali Abbasi, The Apprentice
Sean Baker, Anora
Brady Corbet, The Brutalist
Alonso Ruizpalacios, La Cocina
Jane Schoenbrun, I Saw the TV Glow

Best First Feature

WINNER: Dìdi
In the Summers
Janet Planet
The Piano Lesson
Problemista

Want more movie news? Sign up for Entertainment Weekly‘s free newsletter to get the latest trailers, celebrity interviews, film reviews, and more.

Best Lead Performance

Amy Adams, Nightbitch
Ryan Destiny, The Fire Inside
Colman Domingo, Sing Sing
Keith Kupferer, Ghostlight
Mikey Madison, Anora
Demi Moore, The Substance
Hunter Schafer, Cuckoo
Justice Smith, I Saw the TV Glow
June Squibb, Thelma
Sebastian Stan, The Apprentice

Best Supporting Performance

Yura Borisov, Anora
Joan Chen, Dìdi
Kieran Culkin, A Real Pain
Danielle Deadwyler, The Piano Lesson
Jack Haven, I Saw the TV Glow
Carol Kane, Between the Temples
Karren Karagulian, Anora
Kani Kusruti, Girls Will Be Girls
Clarence “Divine Eye” Maclin, Sing Sing
Adam Pearson, A Different Man

Best Breakthrough Performance

Isaac Krasner, Big Boys
Katy O’Brian, Love Lies Bleeding
Mason Alexander Park, National Anthem
René Pérez Joglar, In the Summers
WINNER: Maisy Stella, My Old Ass

Best Screenplay

Scott Beck and Bryan Woods, Heretic
WINNER: Jesse Eisenberg, A Real Pain
Megan Park, My Old Ass
Aaron Schimberg, A Different Man
Jane Schoenbrun, I Saw the TV Glow

Best First Screenplay

Joanna Arnow, The Feeling That the Time for Doing Something Has Passed
Annie Baker, Janet Planet
India Donaldson, Good One
Julio Torres, Problemista
Sean Wang, Dìdi

Best Documentary

Gaucho Gaucho
Hummingbirds
WINNER: No Other Land
Patrice: The Movie
Soundtrack to a Coup d’Etat

Best International Film

All We Imagine as Light
Black Dog
Flow
Green Border
Hard Truths

Best Cinematography

Đinh Duy Hưng, Inside the Yellow Cocoon Shell
Jomo Fray, Nickel Boys
Maria von Hausswolff, Janet Planet
Juan Pablo Ramírez, La Cocina
Rina Yang, The Fire Inside

Best Editing

Laura Colwell and Vanara Taing, Jazzy
Olivier Bugge Coutté and Olivia Neergaard-Holm, The Apprentice
Anne McCabe, Nightbitch
Hansjörg Weißbrich, September 5
Arielle Zakowski, Dìdi

John Cassavetes Award

Big Boys
Ghostlight
WINNER: Girls Will Be Girls
Jazzy
The People’s Joker

Robert Altman Award

WINNER: His Three Daughters
Director: Azazel Jacobs
Casting Director: Nicole Arbusto
Ensemble Cast: Jovan Adepo, Jasmine Bracey, Carrie Coon, Jose Febus, Rudy Galvan, Natasha Lyonne, Elizabeth Olsen, Randy Ramos Jr., and Jay O. Sanders

Producers Award

Alex Coco, producer of Anora
Sarah Winshall, producer of I Saw the TV Glow
Zoë Worth, producer of Thelma

Someone to Watch Award

Nicholas Colia, Director of Griffin in Summer
Sarah Friedland, Director of Familiar Touch
Phan Thien An, Director of Inside the Yellow Cocoon Shell

Truer than Fiction Award

Julian Brave NoiseCat and Emily Kassie, Directors of Sugarcane
Carla Gutiérrez, Director of Frida
Rachel Elizabeth Seed, Director of A Photographic Memory

TV

Best New Scripted Series

Baby Reindeer
Diarra From Detroit
English Teacher
Fantasmas
Shōgun

Best New Non-Scripted or Documentary Series

Erased: WW2’s Heroes of Color
Hollywood Black
Photographer
Ren Faire
Social Studies

Best Lead Performance in a New Scripted Series

Brian Jordan Alvarez, English Teacher
Richard Gadd, Baby Reindeer
Lily Gladstone, Under the Bridge
Kathryn Hahn, Agatha All Along
Cristin Milioti, The Penguin
Julianne Moore, Mary & George
Hiroyuki Sanada, Shōgun
Anna Sawai, Shōgun
Andrew Scott, Ripley
Julio Torres, Fantasmas

Best Supporting Performance in a New Scripted Series

Tadanobu Asano, Shōgun
Enrico Colantoni, English Teacher
Betty Gilpin, Three Women
Chloe Guidry, Under the Bridge
Moeka Hoshi, Shōgun
Stephanie Koenig, English Teacher
Patti LuPone, Agatha All Along
WINNER: Nava Mau, Baby Reindeer
Ruth Negga, Presumed Innocent
Brian Tee, Expats

Best Breakthrough Performance in a New Scripted Series

WINNER: Jessica Gunning, Baby Reindeer
Diarra Kilpatrick, Diarra From Detroit
Joe Locke, Agatha All Along
Megan Stott, Penelope
Hoa Xuande, The Sympathizer

Best Ensemble Cast in a New Scripted Series

WINNER: How to Die Alone
Ensemble Cast: Melissa DuPrey, Jaylee Hamidi, KeiLyn Durrel Jones, Arkie Kandola, Elle Lorraine, Michelle McLeod, Chris “CP” Powell, Conrad Ricamora, Natasha Rothwell, Jocko Sims