--- title: Oscars: Moonlight Gets Closer With Wins at Gotham Awards description: Moonlight, director Barry Jenkins’ beautiful tale in three chapters, took home the same award won by the last two Best Picture winners. canonical: https://time.com/4584003/gotham-awards-moonlight-best-feature-oscars/ author: Eliza Berman article:opinion: false article:content_tier: free article:published_time: 2016-11-29T15:38:10.000Z article:modified_time: 2026-02-23T02:01:07.595Z article:section: Entertainment og:title: The Gotham Awards Confirmed 'Moonlight's' Path to Oscars og:description: Awards season kicked off with a resounding celebration of Barry Jenkins' film og:url: https://time.com/4584003/gotham-awards-moonlight-best-feature-oscars/ og:site_name: TIME og:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt1b83290f30b5b279/6988afe45f570f20d8b23681/moonlight.jpg?branch=production&width=3840&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 og:image:width: 1200 og:image:height: 675 og:image:alt: Barry Jenkins accepts an award for 'Moonlight' along with actors Jharrel Jerome, Janelle Monae, Trevante Rhodes and Ashton Sanders at IFP's 26th Annual Gotham Independent Film Awards on November 28, 2016 in New York City. og:type: article twitter:card: summary_large_image twitter:title: The Gotham Awards Confirmed 'Moonlight's' Path to Oscars twitter:description: Awards season kicked off with a resounding celebration of Barry Jenkins' film twitter:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt1b83290f30b5b279/6988afe45f570f20d8b23681/moonlight.jpg?branch=production&width=3840&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 ---  # This Movie Just Won the Award That Predicted the Last Two Best Picture Winners > Sponsored content. 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Terms and conditions apply. * Savings buckets are a feature of Ally Bank's Savings Account. * No ATM fees from Ally Bank at Allpoint and Moneypass ATMs plus we reimburse for fees charged by other ATM owners nationwide up to $10 per statement cycle. * Early direct deposit offers eligible direct deposits up to two days sooner. * Spending buckets are a feature of Ally Bank's Spending Account.  by [Eliza Berman](https://time.com/author/eliza-berman/)  ## Eliza Berman Berman is a senior editor at TIME. Nov 29, 2016 3:38 PM UTC  Barry Jenkins accepts an award for 'Moonlight' along with actors Jharrel Jerome, Janelle Monae, Trevante Rhodes and Ashton Sanders at IFP's 26th Annual Gotham Independent Film Awards on November 28, 2016 in New York City. Barry Jenkins accepts an award for 'Moonlight' along with actors Jharrel Jerome, Janelle Monae, Trevante Rhodes and Ashton Sanders at IFP's 26th Annual Gotham Independent Film Awards on November 28, 2016 in New York City.Jemal Countess—Getty Images for IFP  by [Eliza Berman](https://time.com/author/eliza-berman/)  ## Eliza Berman Berman is a senior editor at TIME. Nov 29, 2016 3:38 PM UTC The movie awards season officially kicked off on Monday night with the Gotham Independent Film Awards in New York City, and the night was, above all, a celebration of [_Moonlight_](http://time.com/4488759/moonlight-tiff-toronto-international-film-festival/), which took home Best Feature, Best Screenplay, the Audience Award and a special jury award for Best Ensemble. Now in its 26th year, the Gotham Awards, which honor feature-length indie movies, is the first major event of awards season. Although the criteria limit nominees to smaller-budget productions, it has often served as an early indicator of the movies whose names will become familiar by the time the Oscars roll around in February. But the Gotham Awards have also, in recent years, served as a valuable predictive tool for February’s Hollywood gold rush—not that prognostication is, by any means, its _raison d’être_. The last two years’ Best Feature winners, [_Birdman_](http://time.com/3613240/birdman-nyc-gotham-independent-film-awards/)(2014) and [_Spotlight_](http://time.com/4130610/spotlight-gotham-movie-awards/)(2015), both went on to win the Oscar for Best Picture three months later. So while it’s too early yet to engrave anything in gold, the win certainly elevates the profile of an already acclaimed movie. _Moonlight_, which emerged victorious from a field that included [_Certain Women_](http://time.com/4549389/michelle-williams-interview-manchester-by-the-sea/), [_Everybody Wants Some!!_](http://time.com/4277525/everybody-wants-some-deserves-a-third-exclamation-mark/), [_Manchester by the Sea_](http://time.com/4575255/manchester-by-the-sea-movie-review/)and [_Paterson_](http://time.com/4337203/cannes-toni-erdmann-paterson/), is a coming-of-age story in three chapters that takes place in Miami during the height of the War on Drugs. Adapted by writer-director Barry Jenkins from Tarell Alvin McCraney’s play _In Moonlight Black Boys Look Blue_, it stars three actors of different ages as Chiron, a boy whose mother falls victim to the crack epidemic and whose burgeoning attraction to other boys he deals with secretly. It’s not only a beautiful movie but one that feels urgent: a sensitive and nuanced exploration of black masculinity during a year whose first six months saw more than 100 black men [killed by police](http://time.com/4394802/alton-sterling-police-shooting-baton-rouge/). It remains to be seen whether the awards-season success of recent Gotham winners is pure coincidence or representative of some larger trend—or, at the very least, of an Academy whose tastes are trending toward those of the veteran indie actors and filmmakers that sit on Gotham’s juries. Even for Best Feature picks that haven’t gone on to take home the Academy’s highest honor, a win at Gotham has almost always translated into some kind of love from the Academy. _Sideways_ (2004) received four Oscar nominations. _Capote_ (2005) and _Beginners_ (2012) earned acting Oscars for Philip Seymour Hoffman and Christopher Plummer, respectively. Since the Gotham Awards began handing out the Best Feature award in 2004, a movie has never won that blue ribbon without at least getting nominated for one little gold statue in February. Of course, the indie nature of the Gotham Awards means that more than a handful of prestige studio pictures, which will campaign heavily throughout the coming months, weren’t present on Monday night. These include offerings from Paramount (_Fences_, _Silence_, _Florence Foster Jenkins, Arrival_); Fox (_Jackie_, _Hidden Figures_); Lionsgate (_La La Land_) and Warner Bros. (_Sully_). It’s also worth remembering that the path to February is long and paved with many glamorous events: The [National Board of Review](http://time.com/4131668/mad-max-national-board-of-review/) Awards, the [New York Film Critics Circle](http://time.com/4132996/carol-new-york-film-critics-circle-awards/) Awards, the SAG Awards and the Golden Globes, among others. And for _Moonlight_, with its steady stream of accolades since premiering at the Telluride Film Festival in September and theatrically on Oct. 21, these wins are merely confirmation of its status as an awards-season frontrunner. The win also comes after 2016’s Academy Awards ceremony had an [all-white](http://time.com/4180433/oscar-nominations-white-diversity-oscarssowhite/) crop of acting nominees, which qualified more as trend than anomaly. While there’s no direct correlation between changes made by the Academy since then to push toward greater inclusion among its ranks and the emergence of [several contenders](http://time.com/4543087/movies-awards-season-diversity-inclusion/) this year that feature stories about people of color, signs seem to be pointing toward progress, however incremental, in an industry that’s been [slow to change](http://labs.time.com/story/oscars-diversity/)—and it’s hardly a surprise to see it most clearly in indie-land. Other winners Monday night include _O.J.: Made in America_ (Best Documentary); Trey Edward Shults, writer-director of _Krisha_ (Breakthrough Director); Isabelle Huppert, star of _Elle_ (Best Actress); Casey Affleck, star of _Manchester by the Sea_ (Best Actor); Anja Taylor-Joy, star of _The Witch_ (Breakthrough Actor); _Crazy Ex-Girlfriend_ (Breakthrough Series – Longform); _Her Story_ (Breakthrough Series – Shortform). ```json [{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"NewsArticle","@id":"https://time.com/4584003/gotham-awards-moonlight-best-feature-oscars/","mainEntityOfPage":{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https://time.com/4584003/gotham-awards-moonlight-best-feature-oscars/"},"headline":"This Movie Just Won the Award That Predicted the Last Two Best Picture Winners","datePublished":"2016-11-29T15:38:10.000Z","dateModified":"2026-02-23T02:01:07.595Z","description":"The Gotham Awards confirmed Moonlight as an Oscar frontrunner","url":"https://time.com/4584003/gotham-awards-moonlight-best-feature-oscars/","keywords":["movies","Oscars","awards season","Oscars 2017"],"thumbnailUrl":"https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt1b83290f30b5b279/6988afe45f570f20d8b23681/moonlight.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=1200:675&height=675","author":[{"@type":"Person","name":"Eliza Berman","jobTitle":"Berman is a senior editor at TIME.","url":"https://time.com/author/eliza-berman/"}],"articleSection":"Entertainment","image":[{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt1b83290f30b5b279/6988afe45f570f20d8b23681/moonlight.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=1200:675&height=675","width":1200,"height":675,"headline":"Barry Jenkins accepts an award for 'Moonlight' along with actors Jharrel Jerome, Janelle Monae, Trevante Rhodes and Ashton Sanders at IFP's 26th Annual Gotham Independent Film Awards on November 28, 2016 in New York City.","caption":"Barry Jenkins accepts an award for 'Moonlight' along with actors Jharrel Jerome, Janelle Monae, Trevante Rhodes and Ashton Sanders at IFP's 26th Annual Gotham Independent Film Awards on November 28, 2016 in New York City.","creditText":"Jemal Countess—Getty Images for IFP","representativeOfPage":true}],"publisher":{"@type":"Organization","name":"Time","url":"https://time.com/","logo":{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://time.com/images/logo.png","width":528,"height":156},"foundingDate":"March 3, 1923","sameAs":["https://www.facebook.com/time","https://www.instagram.com/time/?hl=en","https://twitter.com/time","https://www.pinterest.com/timemagazine"]}},{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"BreadcrumbList","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"item":{"@id":"/section/entertainment/","name":"Entertainment"}},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"item":{"@id":"/tag/movies/","name":"movies"}},{"@type":"ListItem","position":3,"item":{"@id":"https://time.com/4584003/gotham-awards-moonlight-best-feature-oscars/","name":"This Movie Just Won the Award That Predicted the Last Two Best Picture Winners"}}]}] ```