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Riz Ahmed Wins Best Actor, Nomadland takes top prize at Gotham Awards

Nicole Beharie wins Best Actress, and Amazon nabs four trophies at the 30th Gotham Independent Awards.

by Jacqueline Coley | January 11, 2021 | Comments

(Photo by IFP)

The 30th Annual Gotham Independent Film Awards were awarded Monday night in New York during a semi-live virtual broadcast. The Gothams honor films that encapsulate every facet of modern independent cinema and pay tribute to the industry’s best, including a tear-jerking tribute to Chadwick Boseman and stunned acceptance speeches from people like The Forty-Year-Old Version writer/director Radha Blank, who took home the prize for Best Screenplay. Amazon led the night with four wins, followed by HBO and Searchlight Pictures with two each.

Riz Ahmed took home the Best Actor trophy for his visceral performance of a drummer losing his hearing in Sound of Metal, while Nicole Beharie took Best Actress for her turn in the Texas pageant queen drama Miss Juneteenth. Newcomer Kingsley Ben-Adir was awarded the Breakthrough Actor prize for his role as Malcolm X in One Night in Miami, adding to a landmark year for representation as people of color took home prizes in most of the top categories. See below for the full list of winners.

Best Feature

93% The Assistant (2019)
96% First Cow (2019)
93% Nomadland (2020) – WINNER
92% Relic (2020)
99% Never Rarely Sometimes Always (2020)

Best Actor

Riz Ahmed – Sound of Metal – WINNER
Chadwick Boseman – Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom
Jude Law – The Nest
John Magaro – First Cow
Jesse Plemons – I’m Thinking of Ending Things

Best Actress

Nicole Beharie – Miss Juneteenth – WINNER
Jessie Buckley – I’m Thinking of Ending Things
Youn Yuh-jung – Minari
Carrie Coon – The Nest
Frances McDormand – Nomadland

Breakthrough Actor

Jasmine Batchelor – The Surrogate
Kingsley Ben-Adir – One Night in Miami – WINNER
Sidney Flanigan – Never Rarely Sometimes Always
Orion Lee – First Cow
Kelly O’Sullivan – Saint Frances

Bingham Ray Breakthrough Director Award

Radha Blank – The Forty-Year-Old Version
Channing Godfrey Peoples – Miss Juneteenth
Alex Thompson – Saint Frances
Carlo Mirabella-Davis – Swallow
Andrew Patterson – The Vast of Night – WINNER

Breakthrough Series – Long Form

96% The Great
100% Immigration Nation
95% P-Valley
96% Unorthodox
96% Watchmen – WINNER

Breakthrough Series – Short Form

98% Betty
90% Dave
98% I May Destroy You – WINNER
- - Taste the Nation With Padma Lakshmi
100% Work in Progress

Best Screenplay

94% Bad Education (2019)
96% First Cow (2019)
99% The Forty-Year-Old Version (2020) – WINNER (TIE)
98% Fourteen (2019) – WINNER (TIE)
92% The Vast of Night (2019)

Best Documentary

100% 76 Days (2020)
98% City Hall (2020)
100% Our Time Machine (2019)
100% A Thousand Cuts (2020) – WINNER (TIE)
98% Time (2020) – WINNER (TIE)

Best International Feature

93% Bacurau (2019)
93% Beanpole (2019)
86% Cuties (2020)
97% Identifying Features (2020) – WINNER
87% Martin Eden (2019)
99% Wolfwalkers (2020)