Spirit Awards Gives Love Is Strange Four Nods, Including Best Picture

Love Is Strange is already receiving love during awards season.

The film, which stars Alfred Molina and John Lithgow as gay partners faced with homelessness in New York, received four nominations from the 30^th Film Independent Spirit Awards.

Directed and cowritten by gay filmmaker Ira Sachs, Love Is Strange was nominated for Best Feature, alongside rumored Oscar contenders Birdman, Boyhood, Selma, and Whiplash.

Love Is Strange was also nominated for Best Screenplay, Male Lead (John Lithgow), and Supporting Male (Alfred Molina).

Other films with LGBT themes and producers were honored by the Spirit Awards, which shines a spotlight on independent films (a film's budget must not exceed $20 million) and is traditionally held the day before the Oscars.

Dear White People, a satire about race and sexual orientation in a fictional Ivy League school, was nominated for Best First Feature and Best Screenplay. The film was written and directed by The Advocate's 40 Under 40 honoree Justin Simien and produced by Angel Lopez, Julia Lebedev, Ann Le, Effie T. Brown, and fellow 40 Under 40 honoree Lena Waithe.

Julianne Moore was nominated for Best Female Lead for her performance in Still Alice, a drama directed by gay filmmakers and life partners Richard Glatzer and Wash Westmoreland. Mommy, a film by gay French Canadian director Xavier Dolan, is nominated for Best International Film.

CitizenFour, a film by Laura Poitras about whistleblowers Glenn Greenwald and Edward Snowden, is among the Best Documentary contenders.

Actor and filmmaker Desiree Akhavan received a nomination for her screenplay for Appropriate Behavior, in which she navigates bisexuality and a Persian-American family in Brooklyn. The period drama Test, which won Best Screenplay at Outfest, is nominated for the John Cassavetes Award, which is given to a feature made for under $500,000.

For a full list of nominees, visit SpiritAwards.com.