The Seventh Annual Miles Awards for Achievement in Film

Are you looking for a film awards ceremony that isn't going to have a "twitter fan favorite" category this year? Well, look no further than The Miles Awards! Now in its seventh year, these are my picks for the best in film that 2021 had to offer. As always, these awards are my opinions and my opinions alone, so they are INCREDIBLY SUBJECTIVE, but hopefully can highlight some work that has sadly gone underseen this year. This year, I looked at all of 2021, and therefore am recognizing some films that were a part of last year's official awards season (as I deemed them ineligible for last year's awards). If you'd like to read my specific thoughts on my Best Picture nominees, you can do so here. And you can see my full list of 100 favorite performances here. Now, without any further ado, here are my winners and nominees in all categories. Congratulations to all honorees!

Best Picture:

Winner: This Is Not a Burial, It's a Resurrection

There Is No Evil

Judas and the Black Messiah

The Father

I Blame Society

C'mon C'mon

Nine Days

I'm Your Man

Limbo

Together Together

 

Best Director:

Winner: Lemohang Jeremiah Mosese—This Is Not a Burial, It’s a Resurrection

Mike Mills—C’mon C’mon

Shaka King—Judas and the Black Messiah

Gillian Wallace Horvat—I Blame Society

Mohammad Rasoulof—There Is No Evil

Florian Zeller—The Father

Rebecca Hall—Passing

Maggie Gyllenhaal—The Lost Daughter

Ryusuke Hamaguchi—Drive My Car

Jane Campion—The Power of the Dog

 

Best Leading Actor:

Winner: Mary Twala as Mantoa—This Is Not a Burial, It’s a Resurrection

Joaquin Phoenix as Johnny—C’mon C’mon

Olivia Colman as Leda Caruso—The Lost Daughter

Simon Rex as Mikey Davies/Mikey Saber—Red Rocket

LaKeith Stanfield as Bill O’Neal—Judas and the Black Messiah

Anthony Hopkins as Anthony—The Father

Magdalena Koleśnik as Sylwia Zajac—Sweat

Patti Harrison as Anna—Together Together

Adam Driver as Henry McHenry—Annette

Agathe Rousselle as Alexia—Titane

 

Best Supporting Actor:

Winner: Kathryn Hunter as The Witches—The Tragedy of Macbeth

Daniel Kaluuya as Fred Hampton—Judas and the Black Messiah

Martha Plimpton as Gail Perry—Mass

Dan Stevens as Tom—I’m Your Man

Ruth Negga as Clare Bellew—Passing

Jason Isaacs as Jay Perry—Mass

Fusako Urabe as Moka Natsuko—Wheel of Fortune and Fantasy

Mohammad Seddighimehr as Bahram—There Is No Evil

Woody Norman as Jesse—C’mon C’mon

Aitana Sánchez-Gijón as Teresa Ferreras—Parallel Mothers

 

Best Child Actor:

Winner: Woody Norman as Jesse—C’mon C’mon

Kiera Thompson as Leah—Martyrs Lane

Jude Hill as Buddy—Belfast

Sienna Sayer as Rachel—Martyrs Lane

Sydney Kowalske as Jessie LeBlanc—Blue Bayou

Ana Cristina Ordóñez González as Ana—Prayers for the Stolen

 

Best Ensemble Cast:

Winner: Mass (Kagen Albright, Reed Birney, Michelle N. Carter, Ann Dowd, Jason Isaacs, Martha Plimpton, Breeda Wool)

 

Nine Days (Zazie Beetz, Winston Duke, Tony Hale, Arianna Ortiz, David Rysdahl, Bill Skarsgård, Perry Smith, Benedict Wong)

 

There Is No Evil (Kaveh Ahangar, Ehsan Mirhosseini, Baran Rasoulof, Mohammad Seddighimehr, Mahtab Servati, Jila Shahi, Shaghayegh Shourian, Mohammad Valizadegan)

 

The Father (Olivia Colman, Mark Gattis, Anthony Hopkins, Imogen Poots, Rufus Sewell, Olivia Williams)

 

The Tragedy of Macbeth (Susan Berger, Bertie Carvel, Brendan Gleeson, Alex Hassell, Corey Hawkins, Kathryn Hunter, Ethan Hutchinson, Ralph Ineson, Moses Ingram, Frances McDormand, Harry Melling, Stephen Root, Scott Subiono, Brian Thompson, James Udom, Denzel Washington)

 

Red Rocket (Ethan Darbone, Brenda Deiss, Bree Elrod, Judy Hill, Marion Lambert, Simon Rex, Brittney Rodriguez, Suzanna Son, Shih-Ching Tsou)

 

Judas and the Black Messiah (Darrell Britt-Gibson, Dominique Fishback, Lil Rel Howery, Daniel Kaluuya, Jesse Plemons, Ashton Sanders, Martin Sheen, LaKeith Stanfield, Dominique Thorne)

 

The Humans (Beanie Feldstein, Jayne Houdyshell, Richard Jenkins, Amy Schumer, June Squibb, Steven Yeun)

 

Limbo (Kwabena Ansah, Vikash Bhai, Kenneth Collard, Amir El-Masry, Sidse Babett Knudsen, Kais Nashef, Ola Orebiyi)

 

Wheel of Fortune and Fantasy (Kotone Furukawa, Hyunri, Shouma Kai, Aoba Kawai, Katsuki Mori, Ayumu Nakajima, Kiyohiko Shibukawa, Fusako Urabe)

 

Best Original Screenplay:

Winner: Gillian Wallace Horvat and Chase Williamson—I Blame Society

Edson Ota—Nine Days

Maria Schrader and Jan Schomburg—I’m Your Man

Mohammad Rasoulof—There Is No Evil

Will Berson and Shaka King—Judas and the Black Messiah

Ben Sharrock—Limbo

 

Best Adapted Screenplay:

Winner: Christopher Hampton and Florian Zeller—The Father

Maggie Gyllenhaal—The Lost Daughter

Ryusuke Hamaguchi and Takamasa Oe—Drive My Car

Tony Kushner—West Side Story

Rebecca Hall—Passing

Stephen Karam—The Humans

 

Best Cinematography:

Winner: Pierre de Villiers—This Is Not a Burial, It’s a Resurrection

Bruno Delbonnel—The Tragedy of Macbeth

Eduard Grau—Passing

Ari Wegner—The Power of the Dog

Andrew Droz Palermo—The Green Knight

Ryan Jackson-Healy—Mass

 

Best Production Design:

Winner: Barb and Star Go to Vista Del Mar

The Father

The Green Knight

The Harder They Fall

Nightmare Alley

Never Gonna Snow Again

 

Best Sound:

Winner: The Vigil

The Tragedy of Macbeth

The Power of the Dog

Nightmare Alley

The Mitchells vs. the Machines

The Green Knight

 

Best Score:

Winner: Alex Weston—The Novice

Antonio Pinto—Nine Days

Dickon Hinchliffe—The Lost Daughter

Robert Aiki Aubrey Lowe—Candyman

Amine Bouhafa—The Summit of the Gods

Amir Molookpour—There Is No Evil

 

Best Isolated Scene:

Winner: Nine Days (Mike’s Moment of Choice)

The Worst Person in the World (Time stops)

I Blame Society (Epi-pen)

The Tragedy of Macbeth (The witches appear)

Nine Days (Song of Myself)

In the Heights (Pacienca y Fe)

Mass (“You don’t know how my son died”)

Everybody’s Talking About Jamie (This Was Me)

Judas and the Black Messiah (“I am a revolutionary!”)

I’m Your Man (Couples counseling)

 

Statistics:

This Is Not a Burial, It’s a Resurrection: 4 nominations, 4 wins

The Father: 6 nominations, 1 win

Nine Days: 6 nominations, 1 win

C’mon C’mon: 5 nominations, 1 win

The Tragedy of Macbeth: 5 nominations, 1 win

Mass: 5 nominations, 1 win

I Blame Society: 4 nominations, 1 win

The Vigil: 1 nomination, 1 win

The Novice: 1 nomination, 1 win

Barb and Star Go to Vista Del Mar: 1 nomination, 1 win

Judas and the Black Messiah: 7 nominations

There Is No Evil: 6 nominations

I’m Your Man: 4 nominations

Passing: 4 nominations

The Lost Daughter: 4 nominations

Limbo: 3 nominations

The Power of the Dog: 3 nominations

The Green Knight: 3 nominations

Together Together: 2 nominations

Drive My Car: 2 nominations

Wheel of Fortune and Fantasy: 2 nominations

Red Rocket: 2 nominations

Nightmare Alley: 2 nominations

Martyrs Lane: 2 nominations

The Humans: 2 nominations

The Mitchells vs. the Machines: 1 nomination

West Side Story: 1 nomination

Never Gonna Snow Again: 1 nomination

Sweat: 1 nomination

The Worst Person in the World: 1 nomination

Titane: 1 nomination

Parallel Mothers: 1 nomination

The Harder They Fall: 1 nomination

The Summit of the Gods: 1 nomination

In the Heights: 1 nomination

Everybody’s Talking About Jamie: 1 nomination

Annette: 1 nomination

Belfast: 1 nomination

Candyman: 1 nomination

Prayers for the Stolen: 1 nomination

Blue Bayou: 1 nomination

 

The clear winner here is the masterful This Is Not a Burial, It's a Resurrection, which not only took home Best Picture, but was the only film this year to win more than one Miles Award. That's never happened before. I think that the way the awards were spread out this year really speaks to how broad the quality of film was in 2021. My favorite films were all fascinating, and all completely different from one another. I'd like to give a few shoutouts here. Ryusuke Hamaguchi's wonderful Drive My Car has gotten a lot of awards attention this year (and he even picked up an Oscar nomination for direction), and it's very much deserved. But Hamaguchi's OTHER film this year, Wheel of Fortune and Fantasy is almost as good, and I was somewhat pleased to see they'd earned the same number of nominations from me. The absolutely lovely Nine Days (which just might be the most overlooked film of the year, and which I hope gets rediscovered down the line) not only won Best Scene from me, but is the first film to score two nominations in that category. There have been times in the past where I've considered nominating two scenes from the same film, but I've always decided against it and wanted to limit the nominees to the BEST scene from that movie. But both of the recognized scenes in Nine Days were powerful enough that I couldn't imagine the category without them. And I'd like to end this post with a special mention of Mary Twala, who I awarded Best Actor for her work in This Is Not a Burial, It's a Resurrection. Twala tragically passed away in 2020, but she left behind a wonderful legacy as one of the most revered actors in African cinema. Her work is worth knowing, and this film is a beautiful one to start with.