Congratulations to all the 2021 Oscar nominees — and thoughts and prayers to all the Oscar voters and cinephiles now figuring out how to watch all the nominated films.
On Monday morning, celebrity couple Priyanka Chopra Jonas and Nick Jonas unveiled this year’s Oscar nominees in 23 categories ranging from best picture to original screenplay. And while theatrical screenings are a viable option in some parts of the country, many cinemas across the United States remain closed due to the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic as movie theaters slowly open up again.
As such, plenty of Oscars enthusiasts have no choice but to view this year’s contenders via streaming services, such as Netflix, Hulu, Disney+ and Amazon Prime Video. And some of the 2021 nominees aren’t available on major streaming platforms at all.
Leading the Oscar nominations this year is “Mank” with 10 nods, including best picture. Other top contenders include “Nomadland,” “Minari” and “Judas and the Black Messiah.” Winers will be announced during the Academy Awards ceremony on April 25.
The LA Times has compiled a comprehensive list of all the nominated, feature-length films and where to watch them. And read what Times critics had to say about each of this year’s nominees.
‘Another Round’
Where to watch: Video-on-demand (VOD)
Nominated for: Director
What we said: Thomas Vinterberg’s “‘Another Round’ itself often moves and swings like a piece of music: Staccato in its rhythms and symphonic in structure, it’s awash in Scarlatti and Schubert, bar tunes and patriotic songs, and climaxes with a jubilant blast of Danish pop/R&B.”
‘Borat Subsequent Moviefilm’
Where to watch: Amazon Prime Video
Nominated for: Supporting actress, adapted screenplay
What we said: “[A]s Borat’s latest misadventures exist to remind us, we live in a world gone mad, and compliance seems antithetical to his gleefully anarchic spirit.”
‘Da 5 Bloods’
Where to watch: Netflix
Nominated for: Score
What we said: “In these actors’ weary faces, incongruously bridging the divide between past and present, we see the most literal possible visualization of a war without end.”
‘Emma’
Where to watch: HBO Max
Nominated for: Costume design, makeup and hairstyling
What we said: “No one wrote about [romantic love] with a keener understanding, both comic and sympathetic, than [Jane] Austen, and any film that is true to her spirit, as this latest ‘Emma’ is, will have no trouble making us happy.”
‘Eurovision Song Contest: The Story of Fire Saga’
Where to watch: Netflix
Nominated for: Song
What we said: “‘The most renowned musical competition on Earth is also the most inclusive,’ the film’s marketing materials proudly proclaim. If only ‘Eurovision’ itself cared to make that statement ring true.”
‘The Father’
Where to watch: In theaters; VOD starting March 26
Nominated for: Best picture, actor, supporting actress, film editing, production design, adapted screenplay
What we said: “[T]he rigorous interiority of ‘The Father’ compels your attention: If narrative cinema is largely predicated on the illusion of seamlessness, there’s something apt about the way [director Florian] Zeller both upholds and shatters that illusion, bridging the narrative gap across a series of jarring discontinuities.”
‘Greyhound’
Where to watch: Apple TV+
Nominated for: Sound
What we said: “‘Greyhound,’ … is an efficient, satisfying war film. In that regard, it’s a fresh telling of familiar elements, buoyed by the powerfully understated performances from [Tom] Hanks and his fellow cast members.”
‘Hillbilly Elegy’
Where to watch: Netflix
Nominated for: Supporting actress, makeup and hairstyling
What we said: “The faintly scolding, moralizing tone of [J.D.] Vance’s prose has largely evaporated, only to be replaced by the hectoring profanities of Amy Adams and Glenn Close, two Hollywood royals who have subjected themselves to one of the industry’s most time-honored traditions: deglamorization in service of a dubious artistic cause.”
‘Judas and the Black Messiah’
Where to watch: In theaters, VOD release TBA
Nominated for: Best picture, supporting actor (x2), cinematography, song, original screenplay
What we said: “‘Judas and the Black Messiah’ is too honest to offer reassurances or solutions, but if nothing else, its tribute to Fred Hampton does warrant the final word: ‘America’s on fire right now, and until that fire is extinguished, don’t nothing else mean a damn thing.’”
‘The Life Ahead’
Where to watch: Netflix
Nominated for: Song
What we said: “[T]he chance to bask in Sophia Loren’s formidable glow is a pleasure not many movies can claim to offer, so with that in mind, plan your own ‘Life Ahead’ of movie-watching accordingly.”
‘Love and Monsters’
Where to watch: VOD
Nominated for: Visual effects
What we said: “Though it’s moderately likable throughout, only when ‘Love and Monsters’ gets serious about the difficulties of Joel’s situation does it feel genuinely relevant.”
‘Mank’
Where to watch: Netflix
Nominated for: Best picture, director, actor, supporting actress, cinematography, costume design, makeup and hairstyling, score, production design, sound
What we said: “A basic familiarity with ‘Citizen Kane,’ or at least an ability to tell Orson Welles from H.G. Wells, should suffice, and if that’s asking a lot of an idle Netflix surfer, well, tough: In this dense, luxuriant cinephile swoon of a movie, you either sink or swim.”
‘Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom’
Where to watch: Netflix
Nominated for: Actor, actress, costume design, makeup and hairstyling, production design
What we said: “Most of all, there is the late Chadwick Boseman, giving a furiously inventive screen performance that also happens to be his last. It’s one spellbinding final reminder of what we’ve lost, and of how easily God, to invoke one of [August] Wilson’s unseen major characters, can giveth and taketh away.”
‘The Midnight Sky’
Where to watch: Netflix
Nominated for: Visual effects
What we said: “The film’s themes of extinction and survival are worthy of thoughtful treatment, something that eludes the ambitious movie as it succumbs to a schematic and sentimental telling that overreaches for a grand gesture and obscures the more meaningful ideas.”
This image released by A24 shows Steven Yeun, foreground, in a scene from “Minari.” David Bornfriend/A24 via AP
‘Minari’
Where to watch: VOD and in theaters
Nominated for: Best picture, director, actor, supporting actress, score, original screenplay
What we said: “‘Minari’ in its entirety feels like a balm right now, a gentle, truthful and tender story of family filled with kind people trying to love one another the best they can.”
‘Mulan’
Where to watch: Disney+
Nominated for: Costume design, visual effects
What we said: “A smaller-screen viewing at home … provided some useful perspective — a chance to look past the visual wonders and dramatic blunders and see the movie for the messy, admirable, unenviable tangle of cultural contradictions that it is.”
‘News of the World’
Where to watch: VOD
Nominated for: Cinematography, score, production design, sound
What we said: “With its gorgeous wheat-toned landscapes and its salutary nods to pictures such as ‘The Searchers,’ ‘True Grit’ and ‘Paper Moon,’ ‘News of the World’ finds its maker navigating the conventions of the Western and the road movie with relative ease.”
‘Nomadland’
Where to watch: Hulu and in theaters
Nominated for: Best picture, director, actress, cinematography, film editing, adapted screenplay
What we said: “Fluid, inventive and even playful in ways that belie its generally somber tone, ‘Nomadland’ exists at that blurry juncture where fiction and nonfiction meet — a well-traveled zone that is nonetheless still rife with artistic possibilities.”
This image released by Amazon Studios shows Leslie Odom Jr., from left, Eli Goree, Kingsley Ben-Adir and Aldis Hodge in a scene from “One Night in Miami.” Amazon Studios via AP
‘One Night in Miami…’
Where to watch: Amazon Prime Video
Nominated for: Supporting actor, song, adapted screenplay
What we said: “The wit and the compassion of ‘One Night in Miami … ‘ lie in its refusal of easy answers, which is to say its recognition that the answers are different for everyone, as you can see from the passion and ambivalence with which each man regards his particular cultural sphere.”
‘The One and Only Ivan’
Where to watch: Disney+
Nominated for: Visual effects
What we said: “What stands out about ‘The One and Only Ivan’ is just how amazingly rendered the computer-generated animal performances are. It’s not just the photorealistic visuals, but the animators have landed on a performance style that blends both animal and human expression.”
‘Onward’
Where to watch: Disney+
Nominated for: Animated feature
What we said: “The result may sound like an incongruous pileup of genres on paper — picture an ancient storybook quest, a rowdy ’80s-flavored buddy comedy and an out-and-out male weepie in a noisy three-way collision — but there are glimmers of real enchantment and honest feeling amid the rubble.”
‘Over the Moon’
Where to watch: Netflix
Nominated for: Animated feature
What we said: “‘Over the Moon’ may hail from beyond the Disney umbrella, but it nonetheless bears a recognizable corporate imprint, from its abundance of cute animal sidekicks and so-so original songs to its strategic exploration of grief as both premise and theme.”
Vanessa Kirby in a scene from “Pieces of a Woman.” Benjamin Loeb/Netflix via AP
‘Pieces of a Woman’
Where to watch: Netflix
Nominated for: Actress
What we said: “While this remarkable actor can unleash hell with the best of them, [Vanessa Kirby’s] most eloquent gestures here are her quietest, whether she’s staring distractedly into the middle distance or deflecting her mom’s affectionate gesture, as if it were a slap in the face.”
‘Pinocchio’
Where to watch: VOD
Nominated for: Costume design, makeup and hairstyling
What we said: “Did we really need yet another screen iteration of Carlo Collodi’s 1883 children’s book about the miraculous wooden boy with the nose that grows? If this latest stab at ‘Pinocchio’ from Italian filmmaker Matteo Garrone is any indication, the answer is no, not really.”
‘Promising Young Woman’
Where to watch: VOD and in theaters
Nominated for: Best picture, director, actress, film editing, original screenplay
What we said: “It seeks to merge Cassie’s pain and our pleasure, then paper over the cracks with sharp tonal pivots, slick globs of style and, most of all, [Carey] Mulligan herself, with her remarkable ability to project both steeliness and vulnerability.”
‘A Shaun the Sheep Movie: Farmageddon’
Where to watch: Netflix
Nominated for: Animated feature
What we said: “The ability of the Shaun films to be lighthearted is all the more unexpected when you realize how much work goes into physically manipulating the small figures one frame at a time.”
The character 22, voiced by Tina Fey, left, and Joe Gardner, voiced by Jamie Foxx, in a scene from the animated film “Soul.” Disney Pixar via AP
‘Soul’
Where to watch: Disney+
Nominated for: Animated feature, score, sound
What we said: “Like an ethereal cousin to [codirector Pete Docter’s] triumphant ‘Inside Out,’ ‘Soul’ is another playful exercise in metaphysical world building, a door-slamming farce staged between the portals of consciousness. It reminds us that ordinary lives can be the stuff of extraordinary adventure.”
‘Sound of Metal’
Where to watch: Amazon Prime Video
Nominated for: Best picture, actor, supporting actor, film editing, sound, original screenplay
What we said: “It’s conventional, but it also breaks ground: Angsty addiction dramas may be overrepresented in the movies, but sensitive, lived-in portraits of Deaf culture and community have always been in short supply.”
‘Tenet’
Where to watch: VOD
Nominated for: Production design, visual effects
What we said: “It’s basically espionage adventure, but with a science fiction backbone: [Christopher] Nolan ups the ante on ‘Mission: Impossible’ by making the impossibility not just physical but quantum physical. And he goes about it expertly, bullishly and with giddily perverse intent to bewilder.”
Yahya Abdul-Mateen II as Bobby Seale in a scene from “The Trial of the Chicago 7.” Niko Tavernise/Netflix via AP)
‘The Trial of the Chicago 7′
Where to watch: Netflix
Nominated for: Best picture, supporting actor, cinematography, film editing, song, original screenplay
What we said: “[E]ven if ‘The Trial of the Chicago 7′ qualifies as catnip for Oscar voters — it’s a juicy courtroom drama, a sweeping ’60s panorama, an epic of liberal hand-wringing and an all-you-can-eat actors’ buffet rolled into one — it also, to its credit, rarely exaggerates its own topicality.”
‘The United States vs. Billie Holiday’
Where to watch: Hulu
Nominated for: Actress
What we said: “Within the confines of a straight-ahead, handsomely designed and photographed biopic beats the heart of a more adventurous presentation of Holiday’s tragic life.”
‘The White Tiger’
Where to watch: Netflix
Nominated for: Adapted screenplay
What we said: “It’s the clarity of complexity of [director Ramin Bahrani’s] moral vision that accounts for why ‘The White Tiger,’ engrossing and entertaining as much of it is, ultimately can’t sustain its gleefully amoral ride from start to finish.”
‘Wolfwalkers’
Where to watch: Apple TV+
Nominated for: Animated feature
What we said: “It is the type of stirring entertainment that delivers both the thrill of the moment and the kind of sophisticated ideas that can lead to discussion and even debate long after viewing.”
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