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:
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:
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:
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:
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:
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:
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:
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:
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:
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:
The Father
The Green Knight
The Harder They Fall
Nightmare Alley
Never Gonna Snow Again
Best Sound:
The Tragedy of Macbeth
The Power of the Dog
Nightmare Alley
The Mitchells vs. the Machines
The Green Knight
Best Score:
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:
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.
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