And the winners of the 2012 Film Independent Spirit Awards are...

The Artist warmed up for the Oscars by taking home four gongs at the 2012 Film Independent Spirit Awards last night, with Michel Hazanavicius and Jean Dujardin's successes in the Best Director and Best Male Lead categories complimented by the awards for Best Cinematography (Guillaume Schiffman) and Best Feature.

Fellow Best Picture contender The Descendants picked up two awards - Best Screenplay (Alexander Payne, Nat Faxon and Jim Rash) and Best Supporting Female (Shailene Woodley) - as did Margin Call, which took home Best First Feature and the Robert Altman Award. Meanwhile it was also a good night for Michelle Williams, who was named Best Female Lead for her turn as Marilyn Monroe in My Week with Marilyn and could yet cause an upset at the Oscars against hot favourite Meryl Streep (The Iron Lady).

Check out all the nominees for yesterday's Independent Spirit Awards, with the winners highlighted in red...

Best Film
50/50
Beginners
Drive
Take Shelter
The Artist
The Descendants

Best Director
Mike Mills (Beginners)
Nicolas Winding Refn (Drive)
Jeff Nichols (Take Shelter)
Michel Hazanavicius (The Artist)
Alexander Payne (The Descendants)

Best First Feature
Another Earth
In The Family
Margin Call
Martha Marcy May Marlene
Natural Selection

Best Male Lead
Demian Bichir (A Better Life)
Jean Dujardin (The Artist)
Ryan Gosling (Drive)
Woody Harrelson (Rampart)
Michael Shannon (Take Shelter)

Best Female Lead
Lauren Ambrose (Think of Me)
Rachel Harris (Natural Selection)
Adepero Oduye (Pariah)
Elizabeth Olsen (Martha Marcy May Marlene)
Michelle Williams (My Week With Marilyn)

Best Supporting Male
Albert Brooks (Drive)
John Hawkes (Martha Marcy May Marlene)
Christopher Plummer (Beginners)
John C. Reilly (Cedar Rapids)
Corey Stoll (Midnight in Paris)

Best Supporting Female
Jessica Chastain (Take Shelter)
Anjelica Huston (50/50)
Janet McTeer (Albert Nobbs)
Harmony Santana (Gun Hill Road)
Shailene Woodley (The Descendants)

John Cassavetes Award (for best film made for under $500,000)
Bellflower
Circumstance
Hello Lonesome
Pariah
The Dynamiter

Best Documentary
An African Selection
Bill Cunningham New York
The Interrupters
The Redemption of General Butt Naked
We Were Here

Best Cinematography
Joel Hodge (Bellflower)
Benjamin Kasulke (The Off Hours)
Darius Khondji (Midnight in Paris)
Guillaume Shiffman (The Artist)
Jeffrey Waldron (The Dynamiter)

Best Screenplay
Joseph Cedar (Footnote)
Michel Hazanavicius (The Artist)
Tom McCarthy (Win Win)
Mike Mills (Beginners)
Alexander Payne (The Descendants)

Best First Screenplay
Mike Cahill and Brit Marling (Another Earth)
J.C. Chandor (Margin Call)
Patrick DeWitt (Terri)
Phil Johnston (Cedar Rapids)
Will Reiser (50/50)

Best Foreign Film
A Separation
Melancholia
Shame
The Kid With a Bike
Tyrannosaur

Robert Altman Award
Margin Call

Piaget Producers Award
Chad Burris (Mosquita)
Y Mari Sophia Lin (Take Shelter)
Josh Mond (Martha Marcy May Marlene)

Someone to Watch Award
Simon Arthur (Silver Tongues)
Mark Jackson (Without)
Nicholas Ozeki (Mamitas)

Truer Than Fiction Award
Heather Courtney (Where Soldiers Come From)
Danfung Dennis (Hell and Back Again)
Alma Har'el (Bombay Beach)