The nominations for the 31st Film Independent Spirit Awards were announced on Tuesday, with Todd Haynes' 1950s-set lesbian love story Carol scoring a leading six nominations.
Netflix's first original feature film, Cary Fukunaga's Beasts of No Nation, landed five nominations.
Spotlight, about The Boston Globe's investigation into years of child sex abuse by Catholic priests and the subsequent cover-up, scored four nominations and is set to receive the Robert Altman Award for its ensemble cast.
All three films will compete in the categories of best feature and best director, along with Charlie Kaufman's stop-motion feature Anomalisa and Sean Baker's iPhone-shot Tangerine, which each scored three more nominations. It Follows' David Robert Mitchell also landed a best director nomination.
Fukunaga's adaptation of Beasts failed to land him a best screenplay nom, but Carol screenwriter Phyllis Nagy and Spotlight's Tom McCarthy and Josh Singer will compete in that category with Kaufman's Anomalisa script, Donald Margulies' screenplay for The End of the Tour and S. Craig Zahler's Bone Tomahawk script.
The Diary of a Teenage Girl, It Follows, James White, Mediterranea, Room and Songs My Brothers Taught Me each landed three nominations.
Bone Tomahawk, End of the Tour, Heaven Knows What and Manos Sucias each scored two mentions.
Diary of a Teenage Girl, James White, Manos Sucias, Mediterranea and Songs My Brothers Taught Me are all up for best first feature honors.
The category of best first screenplay include Diary of a Teenage Girl's Marielle Heller, Room's Emma Donoghue, Mediterranea's Jonas Carpignano, Me and Earl and the Dying Girl's Jesse Andrews and The Mend's John Magary, Russell Harbaugh and Myna Joseph.
Meanwhile, the John Cassavetes Award for best feature made for under $500,000 will see Benny and Josh Safdie's Heaven Knows What face off against Advantageous; Christmas, Again; Krisha; and Out of My Hand.
Despite its multiple nominations, Spotlight didn't receive any in the acting categories. Carol's two stars, Cate Blanchett and Rooney Mara, will fcompete in the best female lead category. Other nominees in that category include Brie Larson for Room, Bel Powley for The Diary of a Teenage Girl and Kitana Kiki Rodriguez for Tangerine.
Nominees for best male lead include Christopher Abbott (James White), Abraham Attah (Beasts of No Nation), Ben Mendelsohn (Mississippi Grind), Jason Segel (End of the Tour) and Koudous Seihorn (Mediterranea).
Beasts' Idris Elba, meanwhile, was nominated in the best supporting male category alongside Bone Tomahawk's Richard Jenkins, Results' Kevin Corrigan, Love & Mercy's Paul Dano and 99 Homes' Michael Shannon.
The best supporting female nominees are Robin Bartlett (H.), Marin Ireland (Glass Chin), Jennifer Jason Leigh (Anomalisa), Cynthia Nixon (James White) and Mya Taylor (Tangerine).
(T)error, Best of Enemies, Heart of a Dog, The Look of Silence, Meru and The Russian Woodpecker will vie for best documentary honors.
IFC will exclusively broadcast the 2016 Film Independent Spirit Awards on Feb. 27, 2016, at 2 p.m. PT/5 p.m. ET.
The full list of nominations follows:
