Paul Thomas Anderson’s One Battle After Another won Best Feature at the 35th annual Gotham Awards , which were handed out tonight in Manhattan.
Iranian filmmaker Jafar Panahi and his Palme d’Or winner It Was Just An Accident were the big winners: The film won Best International Feature, and Panahi took Best Director and Original Screenplay.
It Was Just an Accident is France’s entry for the International Feature Oscar next year.
RELATED: Oscars 2026 International Feature Film Submissions By Country Another Cannes-debuting pic was the only other double winner Monday night.
Over the weekend, the pic won Best Film at the British Independent Film Awards.
Paul Thomas Anderson’s One Battle After Another won Best Feature at the 35th annual Gotham Awards , which were handed out tonight in Manhattan. Iranian filmmaker Jafar Panahi and his Palme d’Or winner It Was Just An Accident were the big winners: The film won Best International Feature, and Panahi took Best Director and Original Screenplay.
Below is the complete list of winners.
On his fourth nomination in his career, Anderson received his first Gotham Award. He also was up for Best Director for the pic about a group of ex-revolutionaries whose archenemy resurfaces after 16 years. In the global box office, the movie starring Leonardo DiCaprio, Sean Penn, Benecio Del Toro, and others has surpassed $200 million. It came in with a record six nominations but no wins until this last. “I didn’t expect this,” Anderson said. “Thank you very much for enjoying this film, for rewarding this film. I thoroughly enjoyed creating it. ”.
RELATED: Iran’s Jafar Panahi Dedicates Gotham Award To Filmmakers “Deprived Of The Right To See And Be Seen”.
Panahi’s prizes were awarded just hours after he was convicted in absentia by Iran and sentenced to one year in prison and two years of probation. “This award belongs to all people who worked for me on this film,” he said onstage through an interpreter. “This award is dedicated to independent filmmakers worldwide. … I hope that this dedication will be considered a small tribute to all filmmakers who have been deprived of the right to see and to be seen but continue to create and to exist. The “.
He returned to the stage shortly after to accept the Gotham Award for Best International Feature. The French film It Was Just an Accident will be nominated for the International Feature Oscar the following year. See Deadline’s Cannes review by clicking here. And shortly after that he returned again for Best Director.
Organized by the Gotham Film and Media Institute, the Gothams kicked off movie awards season, as usual, calling out the first set of names and handing out the first crop of trophies.
RELATED: Oscars 2026 International Feature Film Submissions By Country.
Another Cannes-debuting pic was the only other double winner Monday night. After Akinola Davies Jr. won Breakthrough Director for My Father’s Shadow, Sopé Dìrísù was awarded Outstanding Lead Performance. Davies accepted an absentee Dìrísù. The semi-autobiographical film — which is the UK’s official Oscar submission for International Feature — tells the story of two young brothers who explore Lagos with their estranged father (Dìrísù) during the 1993 Nigerian election crisis. Read our review of the first film from Nigeria to play on the Croisette here and our Cannes Ones to Watch feature on Davies here.
The evening’s first acting award went to Wunmi Mosaku, who played Hoodoo conjurer and spiritual leader Annie in Warner Bros’ smash horror pic Sinners. She wasn’t at the ceremony so filmmaker Ryan Coogler accepted her statuette.
He stepped back on stage with the rest of the cast to receive the Gotham’s Ensemble Tribute. In moving remarks, he said that while he didn’t have a passport until he was 22 and in film school, “I felt like I had traveled, through movies [and] actors, in their performances, were the mode of transportation. The ”
“I had the good fortune to enter the film industry, and I explored some of the most intimate things I have ever done in this film. I went to the American South for the first time in my life… and the whole world came to meet me. ”.
Pillion writer-director Harry Pillion took Best Adapted Screenplay — a first-time Gothams category — for the gay biker drama, which A24 picked up months ahead of its Cannes Film Festival premiere. Over the weekend, the pic won Best Film at the British Independent Film Awards. Read Deadline’s review here.
My Undesirable Friends: Part I – Last Air in Moscow won the Gotham for Best Documentary Feature. Last month the pic about independent journalists being declared “foreign agents” by Vladimir Putin’s regime won the Indie Film Site Network Advocate Award, beating several top Oscar contenders.
Abou Sangaré won the Breakthrough Performance prize for his role in Souleymane’s Story from Kino Lorber, yet another film that played at Cannes. The film, which starred Sangaré as a Guinean immigrant trying to make ends meet in Paris, took home the Un Certain Regard sidebar’s Jury Prize.
RELATED: 2025–2026 Awards Season Schedule: Guilds, Oscars, Grammy Awards, and More.
Tribute awards previously announced were presented to Luca Guadagnino and Julia Roberts (Visionary Tribute for After The Hunt); Noah Baumbach (Director Tribute for Jay Kelly); the cast of Sinners (Ensemble Tribute); Guillermo del Toro, Oscar Isaac & Jacob Elordi (Vanguard Tribute for Frankenstein); Tessa Thompson (Spotlight Tribute for Hedda); Kate Hudson and Hugh Jackman (Musical Tribute for Song Sung Blue); and Jeremy Allen White and Scott Cooper (Cultural Icon Tribute for Springsteen: Deliver Me from Nowhere).
While defending movies “willfully made by humans, for humans,” Del Toro attacked artificial intelligence. ”.
Adam Sandler, no surprise, provided comic relief as he and Emily Mortimer introduced Baumbach. When I first saw The Squid and the Whale, I recall calling my agent and saying, “Come on, f*ck, Billy Baldwin got the role of the tennis coach? I could have done that.”. I’m a f*cking tennis buddy. Do you know me at all motherf*ckers? So sorry, keep going Emily. ”.
And Julia Roberts and Luca Guadagnino had a bit about her being his interpreter for the evening — he spoke a bit in English and she translated into Italian.
The Gothams expanded its Best Feature category this year to include 10 nominees, up from five. Some 40 features and 25 performances in 10 categories were nominated. It’s generally an indie-focused event although the organization removed budget caps to qualify in 2023, allowing bigger studio films into the mix.
Here are the winners at the 2025 Gotham Awards:.
Best Feature.
One Battle After Another: Paul Thomas Anderson, Sara Murphy, Adam Somner, producers (Warner Bros. Pictures).
Best Director.
Jafar Panahi, It Was Just an Accident (Neon).
Outstanding Lead Performance.
Sopé Dìrísù, My Father’s Shadow (Mubi).
Outstanding Supporting Performance.
Sinners and Wunmi Mosaku (Warner Bros. Pictures).
Breakthrough Performer.
Abou Sangaré, Souleymane’s Story (Kino Lorber).
The finest documentary.
My Undesirable Friends: Part I – Last Air in Moscow: Julia Loktev, director; Julia Loktev, producer (self-distributed).
Breakthrough Director.
Davies Akinola Jr. , My Father’s Shadow (Mubi).
Best International Feature.
Producers Philippe Martin and Jafar Panahi: It Was Just an Accident (Neon).
Top Screenplay Adaptation.
Pillion, Harry Lighton (A24).
