Though the 85th Academy Awards are a mere day away, tonight an awards ceremony of a different sort took place to celebrate the best of independent film.  Unsurprisingly, Oscar player Silver Linings Playbook took home the most awards of the night with four wins, including Best Picture, Best Director for David O. Russell, Best Actress for Jennifer Lawrence, and Best Screenplay for Russell.  The crowdpleasing pic beat out the likes of Beasts of the Southern Wild and Moonrise Kingdom for the top prize, but John Hawkes was named Best Actor for his swell work in The Sessions.  The Best First Feature prize deservingly went to The Perks of Being a Wallflower.

Hit the jump to read the full list of winners for the 2013 Independent Spirit Awards.

The nominations for the 2013 Independent Spirit Awards have been announced, and Oscar hopefuls Silver Linings Playbook and Moonrise Kingdom lead the pack.  Both films picked up nominations for Best Feature, Director, and Screenplay with Jennifer Lawrence and Bradley Cooper landing acting noms for SLP and Bruce Willis garnering a swell Best Supporting Actor nomination for his work in Moonrise Kingdom.  Beasts of the Southern Wild, Bernie, and Keep the Lights On round out the Best Feature nominees, while The Perks of Being a Wallflower and Safety Not Guaranteed were singled out for the Best First Feature award.  Also, Matthew McConaughey pulled double nominations for his stellar work in this year’s Magic Mike and Killer Joe, landing a Best Supporting Actor and Best Actor nod, respectively.  Notably shut out of the race entirely was Leos Carax‘s critically-lauded Holy Motors.

Hit the jump to check out the full list of nominations.  The winners of the 2013 Spirit Awards will be announced on Saturday, February 23, 2013.

The 2012 Independent Spirit Awards were announced tonight and—you’re not gonna believe this—the voters were smitten with The Artist.  The film won Best Feature, Michel Hazanavicius was awarded Best Director, Jean Dujardin was named Best Male Lead, and they threw in Best Cinematography to Guillaume Schiffman for good measure.  Some of the other winners have a good shot at repeating tomorrow night at the Oscars, like Christopher Plummer for Beginners (Best Supporting Male), Michelle Williams for My Week with Marilyn (Best Female Lead), or the script for The Descendants by Alexander Payne, Nat Faxon, and Jim Rash (Best Screenplay).  The “independent spirit” was seemingly saved for the unique categories: see Will Reiser’s 50/50 script as Best First Screenplay, Pariah for the John Cassavetes Award, Take Shelter for the Piaget Producers Award.  Hit the jump for the full list of winners.

Joel McHale has been tapped to host the 2011 Film Independent Spirit Awards.  McHale’s career has been heating up over the past year as he’s landed roles in The Big Year, What’s Your Number?, and Spy Kids 4: All the Time in the World.  Of course, when you star on NBC’s Community, which is one of the best shows on TV, that helps.  Seriously, if you’re not watching Community, then you’re missing out.  Also, if you want more of McHale on a weekly basis, make sure you watch The Soup, which is the only reason to ever watch anything on E!

Hit the jump for press release.  Nominees for the 2011 Film Independent Spirit Awards will be announced on November 30th.  The ceremony will air on IFC on Saturday, February 26th at 10pm ET/PT.

When the Oscars are finally handed out tomorrow night, Lee Daniels’ Precious: Based on the Novel Push By Sapphire will probably lose out to that band of blue horse cats or Bigelow’s bomb squad, but at the Independent Spirit Awards it pretty much rode to a complete sweep.

At Friday night’s ceremony hosted by comedian Eddie Izzard, Precious won five awards, including best feature, best lead actress for Gabourey Sidibe, best supporting actress for Mo’Nique, best director for Daniels and best first screenplay for Geoffrey Fletcher, all well deserved in this movie buff’s opinion. The only one likely to prevail on Sunday night is Mo’Nique, but we tune in to find out, right?

In other big categories, Oscar favorite Jeff Bridges took the best actor prize for his work as Bad Blake in Crazy Heart, and Woody Harrelson, who had a rather amazing year, took the best supporting actor prize for The Messenger. Hit the jump to hear what the winners had to say and to see a full list of the prizes handed out.