In a surprise that stunned the audience of Hollywood's first big awards-season bash, "A Different Man," a dark comedy about doppelgängers, deformity and authenticity in acting, won best feature film at the 34th Gotham Awards on Monday night.
Much can be unpredictable at the Gotham Awards, which uses small juries of insiders and film industry veterans to pick nominees and winners. But as the "A Different Man" ensemble, including Sebastian Stan and Adam Pearson, took the stage, writer-director Aaron Schimberg was in obvious disbelief.
"I don't think I'm the only person in this room who's totally stunned," said Schimberg. "Considering the other nominees, I thought it would be hubris to prepare a speech."
At a starry Gothams that drew Zendaya, Timothée Chalamet and Angelina Jolie, most were expecting triumph for Sean Baker's "Anora," a comedy about a sex worker who marries the son of a Russian oligarch. It came in the lead nominee, the Cannes Palme d'Or winner, and maybe a top best-picture contender at the Oscars, but went home empty-handed.
Instead, the night belonged to the A24 release "A Different Man," which stars Stan as a man with facial deformities who's healed of them. He's then upstaged by the character played by Pearson, who genuinely has neurofibromatosis, a condition that covers much of his face with benign skin tumors.
The Gothams aren't an Oscar bellwether, though several of its recent top winners - including last year's winner "Past Lives," as well as "Everything Everywhere All at Once" and "Nomadland" - have gone on to be nominated for best picture at the Academy Awards, with "Everything Everywhere" and "Nomadland" winning.
Whether any of the winners Monday night — "Sing Sing" and "Nickel Boys" were also victorious — will use the early wins as a springboard for more trophies remains to be seen. But the Gothams, a black-tie affair held at Cipriani Wall Street in downtown Manhattan, tend give some sense of the flavor of the upcoming gauntlet of award-season ceremonies.
How prominent politics, and the upcoming inauguration of President-elect Donald Trump, might be in this year's Oscar race is one of the biggest questions as the season ramps up. On Monday, Trump's name was never uttered on stage (though Stan is in the awards mix for playing him in "The Apprentice" ), nor were there any overtly political statements. But several winner seemed to allude to the shifting political climate.
"Let's keep doing the work that really matters and makes a difference," said Colman Domingo, who won best lead performance. "That's what we can do right now. That can be the light in the darkness."
Domingo won for his starring role in "Sing Sing," the indie drama about a real prison program called Rehabilitation Through the Arts, which helps incarcerated people heal through theater productions. Clarence Maclin, one of the formerly incarcerated men who co-star in the film, won best supporting performance. (The Gothams give gender-neutral acting awards that number 10 nominees instead of the typical five.)
"If someone was going to tell me ten years ago, I was going to be here, I wouldn't have believed it," said Maclin.
"Sing Sing," also from A24, was arguably the emotional winner of the night. The film's ensembled also accepted a tribute award. In one of the evening's most powerful speeches Sean Dino Johnson, a founding member of RTA, spoke passionately about the redemptive qualities of the arts.
"Standing here tonight we are proof that movies like 'Sing Sing' don't just entertain," said Johnson. "They change lives."
RaMell Ross' "Nickel Boys," his arrestingly photographed Colson Whitehead adaptation, also won two major awards: best diretor for Ross and breakthrough performer for Brandon Wilson. Ross' film, about two Black teenagers at an abusive juvenile reform school in Jim Crow-era Florida, is filmed largely from the first-person perspective of its two main characters.
For many, the Gothams are a chance to make an impression with a speech that helps solidify their awards chances. To that cause, the Gothams gave out an array of tribute awards. This year's crop was particularly starry, including Zendaya (for "Challengers" ), Jolie (for "Maria"), Chalamet and James Mangold (for "A Complete Unknown"), Denis Villeneuve (for "Dune: Part Two" ), the cast of "The Piano Lesson," and Franklin Leonard, founder of the fabled unproduced screenplay platform The Black List.
Jolie, who plays the opera singer Maria Callas in "Maria," also spoke about the importance of the arts.
"It's so important that art be taught in our schools, and so concerning that is being reduced," Jolie said.
Zendaya, honored for her performance in Luca Guadagnino's "Challengers," took a moment to thank her date. "My mom's here tonight," she said. "Shout out mom."
Chalamet read a short speech about his transformation into Bob Dylan for the upcoming "A Complete Unknown."
"Getting to study and immerse myself in the world of Bob Dylan has been the greatest education a young artist can receive," Chalamet said. "If you're already a fan of Bob Dylan, this will make perfect sense to you. If you're not familiar with his work, perhaps our film can serve as a humble gateway to one of the great poets and chroniclers of our times."
Best documentary went to "No Other Land," a film made by a Palestinian and Israeli filmmaker collective that documents Israeli occupation of a Palestinian village in West Bank over the course of years. Despite being one of the year's most acclaimed documentaries, "No Other Land" remains without an American distributor.
Payal Kapadia's "All We Imagine as Light," a poetic drama about three women in modern Mumbai, took the award for best international film. Though the film was the first Indian movie in competition in more than 30 years at the Cannes Film Festival, India opted not to select it for its Oscar submission.
The award for breakthrough director went to Vera Drew for "The People's Joker," a superhero parody about gender identity. Drew thanked Warner Bros. "for not suing me" and Nicole Kidman, an attendee, because, Drew said, "'Batman Forever' is when I realized I was trans."