Gotham Independent Film Award for Breakthrough Performer

The Gotham Independent Film Award for Breakthrough Performer is one of the annual Gotham Independent Film Awards. It was first awarded in 1998, with Sonja Sohn and Saul Williams being the first recipients of the award for their roles as Lauren Bell and Ray Joshua in Slam, respectively.

Gotham Independent Film Award for Breakthrough Performer
Country	United States
Presented by	The Gotham Film & Media Institute
First award	1998
Currently held by	Brandon Wilson for Nickel Boys (2024)
Website	awards.thegotham.org

The category was called Gotham Independent Film Award for Breakthrough Actor until 2021.^[1]

Winners and nominees

1990s

Year	Winner and nominees	Film	Role	Ref.
1998	Sonja Sohn	Slam	Lauren Bell	[2]
	Saul Williams	Slam	Ray Joshua
	Norman Reedus	Six Ways to Sunday	Harold
	Sam Rockwell	Lawn Dogs	Trent Burns
	Robin Tunney	Niagara, Niagara	Marcy
1999	Dylan Baker	Happiness	Bill Maplewood	[3]
	Janet McTeer	Tumbleweeds	Mary Jo Walker

2000s

Year	Winner and nominees	Film	Role	Ref.
2000	Michelle Rodriguez	Girlfight	Diana Guzman	[4]
2001	Yolonda Ross	Stranger Inside	Treasure	[5]
2002	Maggie Gyllenhaal	Secretary	Lee Holloway	[6]
2003	Lee Pace	Soldier's Girl	Calpernia Addams	[7]
	Bobby Cannavale	The Station Agent	Joe Oramas
	Jesse Eisenberg	Roger Dodger	Nick
	Judy Marte	Raising Victor Vargas	Judy
	Victor Rasuk	Raising Victor Vargas	Victor
	Paul Schneider	All the Real Girls	Paul
2004	Catalina Sandino Moreno	Maria Full of Grace	Maria Álvarez	[8]
	Mos Def	The Woodsman	Lucas
	Ensemble Cast	Everyday People	Various
	Anthony Mackie	Brother to Brother	Perry
	Dallas Roberts	A Home at the End of the World	Jonathan Glover
2005	Amy Adams	Junebug	Ashley Johnsten	[9]
	Camilla Belle	The Ballad of Jack and Rose	Rose Slavin
	Joseph Gordon-Levitt	Mysterious Skin	Neil McCormick
	Terrence Howard	Hustle & Flow	DJay
	Damian Lewis	Keane	William Keane
2006	Shareeka Epps	Half Nelson	Drey	[10]
	Rinko Kikuchi	Babel	Chieko Wataya
	Abigail Breslin	Little Miss Sunshine	Olive Hoover
	Melinda Page Hamilton	Sleeping Dogs Lie	Amy
	Channing Tatum	A Guide to Recognizing Your Saints	Antonio (young)
2007	Elliot Page[a]	Juno	Juno MacGuff	[11]
	Emile Hirsch	Into the Wild	Chris McCandless
	Kene Holliday	Great World of Sound	Clarence
	Jess Weixler	Teeth	Dawn O'Keefe
	Luisa Williams	Day Night Day Night	She
2008	Melissa Leo	Frozen River	Ray Eddy	[12]
	Pedro Castaneda	August Evening	Jaime
	Rosemarie DeWitt	Rachel Getting Married	Rachel Buchman
	Rebecca Hall	Vicky Cristina Barcelona	Vicky
	Alejandro Polanco	Chop Shop	Alejandro "Ale"
	Micheal J. Smith Sr.	Ballast	Lawrence
2009	Catalina Saavedra	The Maid	Raquel	[13]
	Ben Foster	The Messenger	SSgt. Will Montgomery
	Patton Oswalt	Big Fan	Paul Aufiero
	Jeremy Renner	The Hurt Locker	Sergeant First Class William James
	Souléymane Sy Savané	Goodbye Solo	Solo

2010s

Year	Winner and nominees	Film	Role	Ref.
2010	Ronald Bronstein	Daddy Longlegs	Lenny Sokol	[14]
	Prince Adu	Prince of Broadway	Lucky
	Greta Gerwig	Greenberg	Florence Marr
	Jennifer Lawrence	Winter's Bone	Ree Dolly
	John Ortiz	Jack Goes Boating	Clyde
2011	Felicity Jones	Like Crazy	Anna Maria Gardner	[15]
	Elizabeth Olsen	Martha Marcy May Marlene	Martha/Marcy May/"Marlene Lewis"
	Harmony Santana	Gun Hill Road	Michael/Vanessa
	Shailene Woodley	The Descendants	Alexandra "Alex" King
	Jacob Wysocki	Terri	Terri Thompson
2012	Emayatzy Corinealdi	Middle of Nowhere	Ruby	[16] [17]
	Mike Birbiglia	Sleepwalk with Me	Matt Pandamiglio
	Thure Lindhardt	Keep the Lights On	Erik Rothman
	Melanie Lynskey	Hello I Must Be Going	Amy
	Quvenzhané Wallis	Beasts of the Southern Wild	Hushpuppy
2013	Michael B. Jordan	Fruitvale Station	Oscar Grant III	[18]
	Dane DeHaan	Kill Your Darlings	Lucien Carr
	Kathryn Hahn	Afternoon Delight	Rachel
	Lupita Nyong'o	12 Years a Slave	Patsey
	Robin Weigert	Concussion	Abby Ableman / Eleanor
2014	Tessa Thompson	Dear White People	Samantha "Sam" White	[19]
	Riz Ahmed	Nightcrawler	Rick
	Macon Blair	Blue Ruin	Dwight Evans
	Ellar Coltrane	Boyhood	Mason Evans Jr.
	Joey King	Wish I Was Here	Grace Bloom
	Jenny Slate	Obvious Child	Donna Stern
2015	Mya Taylor	Tangerine	Alexandra	[20]
	Rory Culkin	Gabriel	Gabriel
	Arielle Holmes	Heaven Knows What	Harley
	Lola Kirke	Mistress America	Tracy Fishko
	Kitana Kiki Rodriguez	Tangerine	Sin-Dee Rella
2016	Anya Taylor-Joy	The Witch	Thomasin	[21]
	Lily Gladstone	Certain Women	Jamie
	Lucas Hedges	Manchester by the Sea	Patrick Chandler
	Royalty Hightower	The Fits	Toni
	Sasha Lane	American Honey	Star
2017	Timothée Chalamet	Call Me by Your Name	Elio Perlman	[22]
	Mary J. Blige	Mudbound	Florence Jackson
	Harris Dickinson	Beach Rats	Frankie
	Kelvin Harrison Jr.	It Comes at Night	Travis
	Brooklynn Prince	The Florida Project	Moonee
2018	Elsie Fisher	Eighth Grade	Kayla Day	[23]
	Yalitza Aparicio	Roma	Cleodegaria "Cleo" Gutiérrez
	Helena Howard	Madeline's Madeline	Madeline
	KiKi Layne	If Beale Street Could Talk	Clementine "Tish" Rivers
	Thomasin McKenzie	Leave No Trace	Tom
2019	Taylor Russell	Waves	Emily Williams	[24]
	Julia Fox	Uncut Gems	Julia Holmes
	Aisling Franciosi	The Nightingale	Clare Carroll
	Chris Galust	Give Me Liberty	Vic
	Noah Jupe	Honey Boy	Young Otis Lort
	Jonathan Majors	The Last Black Man in San Francisco	Montgomery Allen

2020s

Year	Winner and nominees	Film	Role	Ref.
2020	Kingsley Ben-Adir	One Night in Miami...	Malcolm X	[25]
	Jasmine Batchelor	The Surrogate	Jess Harris
	Sidney Flanigan	Never Rarely Sometimes Always	Autumn Callahan
	Orion Lee	First Cow	King-Lu
	Kelly O'Sullivan	Saint Frances	Bridget
2021	Emilia Jones	CODA	Ruby Rossi	[26] [27]
	Natalie Morales	Language Lessons	Cariño
	Rachel Sennott	Shiva Baby	Danielle
	Suzanna Son	Red Rocket	Strawberry
	Amalia Ulman	El Planeta	Leonor Jimenez
2022	Gracija Filipović	Murina	Julija	[28]
	Anna Cobb	We're All Going to the World's Fair	Casey
	Frankie Corio	Aftersun	Sophie
	Anna Diop	Nanny	Aisha
	Kali Reis	Catch the Fair One	Kaylee
2023	Not awarded			[29]
2024	Brandon Wilson	Nickel Boys	Turner	[30]
	Lily Collias	Good One	Sam
	Ryan Destiny	The Fire Inside	Claressa "T-Rex" Shields
	Maisy Stella	My Old Ass	Elliott
	Izaac Wang	Dìdi	Chris Wang

Notes

1. Credited as Ellen Page