'Get Out' is the big winner at the Spirit Awards - is the Oscars next?

Five of the last six best feature winners at the awards show have gone on to win the Oscar for best picture

Jordan Peele accepts the Best Director award award for 'Get Out'. Mario Anzuoni / Reuters

Jordan Peele's satirical horror flick Get Out triumphed Saturday at the Spirit Awards – the latest in a string of honours the film has picked up, with the Oscars just one day away.

Generating rave reviews from experts and audiences alike, Peele's feature directorial debut – which cost under $5 million (Dh18.36m) to produce – has raked in $255 million at theatres worldwide.

The film – a dark send-up of the African-American experience and of suburban white guilt over racial inequality – follows a young black man, Chris (Daniel Kaluuya), who is so nervous about meeting the family of his white girlfriend (Allison Williams) that he fails to realise the menace lurking within their mansion.

"This project didn't start as a statement. It began as me wanting to make a film in my favourite genre," said Peele, who also bagged best director honours.

The Film Independent Spirit Awards, an annual celebration of low-budget cinema that takes place on Santa Monica beach just outside Los Angeles, are seen as an strong indicator of movies that could strike Oscars gold.

Five of the last six best feature winners have gone on to best picture glory at the Academy Awards, including Moonlight, Spotlight and Birdman.

Get Out has four nominations for Sunday's Oscars, including best picture and best director.

Fearless

The prize for best actor went to American-French rising star Timothee Chalamet, whose acclaimed performance as a lovelorn teen in Call Me By Your Name has seen him win numerous awards.

Frances McDormand won best actress, her third Spirit Award, for her searing performance as a rage-filled grieving mother in Martin McDonagh's black comedy Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri.

"I continue to be amazed that you let me get to the microphone. Are you crazy? One thing I know is that we are allowed to swear," joked McDormand, a mainstay on this year's awards circuit who is the favourite for the Oscar.

"Do you know how hard it has been not to swear for the last couple of months?" she asked, before cursing a blue streak.

Sam Rockwell won best supporting actor for Three Billboards, in which he plays opposite McDormand as a racist, violent police officer.

The best supporting actress prize went to Allison Janney, for playing figure skater Tonya Harding's cold, brutal mother LaVona in Craig Gillespie's acclaimed biopic I, Tonya.

"I play a lot of confused and complicated women, but not anyone this dark. I don't think people think of me that way," Janney said backstage.

"I guess I have to play more dark characters – that's in my future."

Best screenplay for Lady Bird

Coming-of-age tale Call Me by Your Name had led the nominations going into Saturday's event.

The film was nominated in six categories, winning best cinematography and editing ahead of Chalamet's triumph.

Josh and Benny Safdie's heist thriller Good Time tied in second place with nods for directing, editing and three actors, including for its star Robert Pattinson – but went home empty-handed.

Greta Gerwig's comedy Lady Bird – up for best picture at the Oscars – earned her a best screenplay award while real-life couple Emily Gordon and Kumail Nanjiani took best first screenplay for The Big Sick, the comedy story of their romance.

See a gallery of the best dressed from the event:

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Read more:

Where and how to watch the Oscars in the UAE

What the Baftas mean for this year's Oscars race

Oscars 2018: In best-director nominees, a wealth of milestones

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