2017 GALECA Awards: Call Me Dorian

The picturesque gay coming-of-age romance Call Me By Your Name leads with nine nominations in the 9th Annual Dorian Awards, announced earlier today by GALECA: The Society of LGBTQ Entertainment Critics*. Guillermo del Toro's aquatic love story The Shape of Water and Jordan Peele's satirical thriller Get Out followed with seven and six nominations, respectively. In the top category, Film of the Year, they are joined by the French AIDS drama BPM (Beats Per Minute) and Greta Gerwig's quirky comedy Lady Bird.

The Shape of Water and Lady Bird leading ladies Sally Hawkins and Saoirse Ronan face off with Frances McDormand (as a grieving mother in Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri), Margot Robbie (as disgraced Olympic figure skater Tonya Harding in I, Tonya) and Chilean actress Daniela Vega (as the transgender title character of A Fantastic Woman) in the Film Performance of the Year - Actress category. Meanwhile, in Film Performance of the Year - Actor, newcomers Nahuel Perez Biscayart (BPM), Timothée Chalamet (Call Me By Your Name) and Daniel Kaluuya (Get Out) are up against two old pros in two wildly different biopics: James Franco as cult icon Tommy Wiseau in The Disaster Artist and Gary Oldman as the legendary Winston Churchill in Darkest Hour.

GALECA has added two new film categories this year to honor supporting performances. The first nominees for Supporting Film Performance of the Year - Actress are Mary J. Blige (Mudbound), Tiffany Haddish (Girls Trip), Allison Janney (I, Tonya), Laurie Metcalf (Lady Bird) and Michelle Pfeiffer (mother!), while the first nominees for Supporting Film Performance of the Year - Actor are Willem Dafoe (The Florida Project), Richard Jenkins (The Shape of Water), Sam Rockwell (Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri) and both Armie Hammer and Michael Stuhlbarg from Call Me By Your Name.

In addition to del Toro, Peele, Gerwig and Call Me By Your Name's Luca Guadagnino, Christopher Nolan (for the war epic Dunkirk) and Sean Baker (for the low budget The Florida Project) will vie for Director of the Year honors. Peele, Gerwig and del Toro (with co-writer Vanessa Taylor) are also nominated for Screenplay of the Year, along with James Ivory for Call Me By Your Name and Martin McDonagh for the polarizing drama Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri.

BPM (Beats Per Minute) and A Fantastic Woman are also nominated in both the Foreign Language Film of the Year and LGBTQ Film of the Year categories. In the former they are up against Angelina Jolie's First They Killed My Father, the Swedish Palme d'Or winner The Square and the Norwegian lesbian thriller Thelma, while in the latter they are joined by the Billie Jean King biopic Battle of the Sexes, the British romantic drama God's Own Country and Call Me By Your Name.

Women's stories dominate the nominees for Documentary of the Year with Bombshell: The Hedy Lamarr Story, The Death and Life of Marsha P. Johnson, Agnès Varda's Faces Places and Jane (as in famed primatologist Jane Goodall), along with feline fave Kedi. Dorian's Unsung Films of the Year include BPM (egregiously overlooked for Oscar's Foreign Language Film finalists), Todd Haynes' wonderful Wonderstruck and queer indies Beach Rats, God’s Own Country and Professor Marston and the Wonder Women.

Two unique Dorian Award categories add some glitz and (tacky) glitter to the nominations, with the Visually Striking Film of the Year nominees Blade Runner 2049, Call Me By Your Name, Dunkirk, The Shape of Water and Wonderstruck and the Campy Film of the Year nominees Baywatch, The Disaster Artist, The Greatest Showman, I, Tonya and mother!.

On the TV side, such Movie Dearest faves as Big Little Lies, Feud: Bette and Joan and Will & Grace received multiple nominations. See the comments section below for a complete list of all the Dorian Award nominations.

The Dorian Awards are named after the classic character Dorian Gray, created by GALECA's "patron saint" Oscar Wilde. The winners will be announced on January 31.

* Movie Dearest critics Chris Carpenter and Kirby Holt are members of GALECA: The Society of LGBTQ Entertainment Critics.