The 2024 Gold Digger Mid-Year Award Winners

Happy October, everyone! Once again, I had the honor of participating in Patrick Gratton’s Gold Digger Awards recognizing the most notable achievements of films released between January and June of this year.

Of the nominees, Denis Villeneuve’s Dune: Part Two led with sixteen nominations total. Luca Guadagnino’s Challengers trailed in a close second with fifteen and Jane Schoenbrun’s I Saw the TV Glow landed in third place with ten nominations. Rounding out the Best Feature Film finalists were The Beast, Do Not Expect Too Much from the End of the World, Evil Does Not Exist, Furiosa: A Mad Max Saga, Hit Man, Kinds of Kindness, and Love Lies Bleeding.

The winner results were published last Friday, along with the following announcement:

After five rounds of tabulations using the preferential ballot method, The Gold Digger voting body members have named Bertrand Bonello’s The Beast as the Best Feature Film of the first half of 2024’s cinematic year. The Canada-France co-production also won two other awards. The film’s leading star Léa Seydoux took home the Best Leading Actress for her portrayal of Gabrielle, a woman who relives her past lives as she’s on the brink of losing her humanity and confirming as a Human-AI hybrid. The Beast also tied another Canadian co-production, Denis Villeneuve’s space opera Dune: Part Two for Best Production Design.

Dune: Part Two tied another Warner Bros. science fiction blockbuster set in a desert wasteland, George Miller’s Furiosa: A Mad Max Saga, as our awards leaders with both films winning four awards each. We could easily put an asterisk to Dune: Part Two’s winning total, as it not only tied in Best Production Design, but also tied for Best Ensemble Cast, with the cast ensemble of Kelly O’Sullivan and Alex Thompson’s Ghostlight. The IFC Films release centers around a family grieving over the suicide of their son, all the while the family’s patriarch joins a community theater group’s production of Romeo & Juliet. Dune Part Two, being the studio blockbuster that it is, also won Best Visual Effects and Best Sound Editing.

Furiosa: A Mad Max Saga, the prequel to the maximalist action film cult classic Mad Max: Fury Road, took home our Best Supporting Actor prize for Chris Hemsworth’s portrayal of the tyrannical villain Dementus, while also winning our Best Choreography (Stunts, Dance or Other) and two visual craft categories Best Costume Design and Best Makeup & Hairstyling.

Throughout our voting processes, The Beast’s biggest rival was Jane Schoenbrun’s I Saw the TV Glow, a trans 90s TV nostalgia fantasy fest following Maddy and Owen who grow up to realize that their favorite childhood television series resemble their lives. I Saw the TV Glow countered The Beast’s Best Feature Film win by winning Best Directing. Jane Schoenbrun marks the first time a transgendered filmmaker wins our directing prize. The film also took home Best Sound Mixing and Best Use of Music for its hypnotic soundtrack.

Another nomination leader, Luca Guadagnino’s Challengers, also fared well, winning three prizes. Josh O’Connor, for his portrayal of Patrick the chaotic rapscallion at the center of the film’s love/lust triangle, was deemed the Best Leading Actor. Our group also awarded the film Best Editing and Best Original Score. Two of the central factors behind the film’s dynamic and eclectic pacing. Katy O’Brian and Sophie Okonedo round off our acting award winners, winning Best Acting Newcomer and Best Supporting Actress respectively, for their performances in Rose Glass’ Love Lies Bleeding and Annie Baker’s Janet Planet.

In a year where competition was stiff, we’re announcing a third tie. Both international documentaries, Kleber Mendonça Filho’s Pictures of Ghosts & Neo Sora’s Ryuichi Sakamoto | Opus, tied as our Best Non-Fiction Award winners. Pictures of Ghosts is Mendonça Filho’s first person eulogy of downtown Recife, through the lens of his career of his career, the city’s gentrification and the failings of the downtown movie palaces. Ryuichi Sakamoto | Opus is the famed Japanese film composer’s concert film.

Our contingent of international membership bound together, resulting in two of our awards biggest upsets. Phạm Thiên Ân’s Inside the Yellow Cocoon Shell’s won its only nomination, Best Cinematography, for its breathtaking camera work. Radu Jude won the Best Screenplay category, for his unabashedly daring penning of Do Not Expect Too Much from the End of the World. Despite winning this prize, Do Not Expect Too Much from the End of the World lost to Ryûsuke Hamaguchi’s Evil Does Not Exist in the Best International Film Category. Evil Does Not Exist marks the director’s follow-up to his Academy Award-winning film Drive My Car.

With Dune Part Two and Furiosa: A Mad Max Saga, Warner Bros. triumphed, winning a total of eight awards, over indie juggernaut distributor A24 and boutique distributor Janus Films, which both took home five awards apiece.

The full list of winners is as follows:

Best Feature Film: The Beast

Best Directing: Jane Schoenbrun – I Saw the TV Glow

Best Film Not In the English Language: Evil Does Not Exist – Japan

Best Animated Film: Kung Fu Panda 4

Best Non-Fiction Film: Pictures of Ghosts **TIE** Ryuichi Sakamoto | Opus

Best Directorial Debut: Arkasha Stevenson – The First Omen

Best Ensemble: Dune: Part Two **TIE** Ghostlight

Best Leading Actress: Léa Seydoux – The Beast

Best Leading Actor: Josh O’Connor – Challengers

Best Supporting Actress: Sophie Okonedo – Janet Planet

Best Supporting Actor: Chris Hemsworth – Furiosa: A Mad Max Saga

Best Acting Newcomer: Katy O’Brian – Love Lies Bleeding

Best Choreography: Furiosa: A Mad Max Saga – Guy Norris, Mark Tearle, Tim Wong, Yasca Sinigaglia, Jacob Tomuri, Karl Van Moorsel, Richard Norton, and Caroline Kaspar

Best Screenplay: Radu Jude – Do Not Expect Too Much from the End of the World

Best Cinematography: Đinh Duy Hung – Inside the Yellow Cocoon Shell

Best Editing: Marco Costa – Challengers

Best Production Design: The Beast – Katia Wyszkop and Florence Aillerie **TIE** Dune: Part Two – Patrice Vermette, Zsuzsanna Sipos, and Shane Vieau

Best Costume Design: Jenny Beavan – Furiosa: A Mad Max Saga

Best Makeup & Hair Styling: Furiosa: A Mad Max Saga – Matteo Silvi, Luca Vannella, Larry Van Duynhoven, and Lesley Vanderwalt

Best Visual Effects: Dune: Part Two – Arnaud Brisebois, Michael Grobe, Stephen James, Rhys Salcombe, Franco Galiano, and Gerd Nefzer

Best Sound Mixing: I Saw the TV Glow – Daniel Timmons

Best Sound Editing: Dune: Part Two – Richard King

Best Original Score: Challengers – Trent Reznor and Atticus Ross

Best Use of Music: I Saw the TV Glow – Jessica Berndt

Though I can’t share exactly who I voted for on my own ballot, I have to say I was rather surprised by many of these results! Some of them pleasantly so, others… well, Gold Digger recruits critics, op-ed columnists, and film journalists with a diverse array of opinions every year, with mine only being one of them. Though my own personal choice for the best film of the first half of the year did not take the top prize, it won a respectable number of categories, which I hope is a portent of possible awards attention later this season.

What do you think of these winners from the first half of the year? Let us know in the comments.