Watch These Oscar-Nominated Films in Theatres this Weekend

Past Lives

Nomination for Best Picture and Best Original Screenplay

The film follows Nora and Hae Sung, who initially meet at school in Korea until Nora’s family immigrates to Canada. The two reconnect at two points in the film, once virtually and once in New York City where Nora is settled with her husband, an American and fellow writer. There is a kind of gentle push and pull that Nora faces in her interactions with both these men: Korean or American, childhood or adulthood, past or present. Written and directed by Celine Song, Past Lives is a what-if tale seeped in a yearning that you can’t quite put your finger on.

May December

Nomination for Best Original Screenplay

May December has not been categorised as a horror story, but perhaps it should be. The screenplay is loosely based on Mary Kay Letourneau, a school teacher arrested for having a sexual relationship with one of her 12-year-old students. Letourneau and her student later married once she had been released from prison. The film itself follows TV actress Elizabeth, shadowing Gracie (based on Letourneau) who lives with her husband and their children and is inspiration for an upcoming role. There is a palpable feeling of unnerve hovering throughout the film, right from its score, to its design, and most of all its story that leaves you feeling queasy.

Anatomy of a Fall

Nomination for Best Picture, Best Leading Actress, Best Directing, Best Original Screenplay, Best Film Editing

Justine Triet’s Anatomy of a Fall, a cerebral whodunit trial drama, opens with the mysterious death of aspiring writer Samuel in the French Alps, with his more successful wife Sandra as the suspect. The film navigates investigation, tribunal, and verdict, primarily interested in questioning Sandra’s complexities rather than providing definitive answers. As experts testify and the couple’s blind son, Daniel, becomes a crucial observer, the film’s deliberate style, withholding answers, invites viewers to decide Sandra’s guilt.

Holdovers

Nomination for Best Picture, Best Leading Actor, Best Supporting Actress, Best Original Screenplay, and Best Film Editing

In the 1970s at Barton, an elite all-boys boarding school, The Holdovers takes place under the begrudging care of Paul Hunham during Christmas break, tasked with a guardian role for any student left behind during the holidays. When only Angus Tully is left by his mother and step-father to stay at school, the two forge an unlikely rapport. As the dynamics between Hunham, Tully, and Mary Lamb, the school cook, develop through their unique circumstance, the movie transforms into a picaresque journey of humour, wisdom, and a sweet warmth.

Killer of the Flower Moon

Nomination for Best Picture, Best Leading Actress, Best Supporting Actor, Best Directing, Best Original Score, Best Cinematography, Best Production Design, Best Costume Design, Best Film Editing, Best Original Song

In Martin Scorsese’s Killers of the Flower Moon, a cinematic requiem takes shape against the backdrop of 1920s Native American Country, intricately weaving genres of romance, western, drama, and police procedural. Departing from his familiar New York settings, Scorsese this time around, chooses to focus on the Osage Reservation’s fraught history in northern Oklahoma. The narrative centres on Ernest Burkhart, a war veteran entangled in a Hobbesian society led by his uncle. Through sweeping vistas and intimate moments, Scorsese paints a vivid picture of the Osage Reign of Terror, exposing the greed that preyed on their oil wealth.

Poor Things

Nomination for Best Picture, Best Leading Actress, Best Supporting Actor, Best Directing, Best Original Score, Best Cinematography, Best Production Design, Best Costume Design, Best Editing, Best Original Song, Best Writing for Adapted Screenplay, Best Makeup and Hairstyling, Best Original Score, Best Production Design and Best Film Editing

Yorgos Lanthimos’s Poor Things is a visually sumptuous and clever rendition of the Frankenstein tale, boasting Emma Stone as Bella and Willem Dafoe as Dr. Godwin Baxter. The film, adapted from Alasdair Gray’s novel, explores a phantasmagorical Victorian world filled with grotesque experiments and dissonance. Lanthimos, in his flamboyantly expressive style, creates a calculatedly dissonant universe with meticulous production design and showboating cinematography. Bella’s unconventional growth, guided by suitors McCandless and Wedderburn, transforms her into a monstrous yet liberated woman.

Teachers Lounge

Nomination for Best International Feature

In The Teachers’ Lounge, Ilker Catak offers a nuanced perspective on the challenges of teaching, countering the idealistic portrayals often seen in Dead Poet’s Society equivalents. The film follows Carla Nowak, a new teacher facing the harsh realities of managing a diverse sixth-grade classroom in a German school. Thwarted by theft accusations and racial bias against a Turkish student, Ms. Nowak’s good intentions crumble. Catak navigates societal struggle within the microcosm of a classroom, humorously highlighting the unpredictable nature of preteens and the challenges of democratic attempts to keep peace.

Napoleon

Nomination for Best Visual Effects, Best Production Design, Best Costume Design

Napoleon, directed by Ridley Scott, takes on the challenge to cover the French Revolution, military campaigns, and Napoleon Bonaparte’s ascent. Joaquin Phoenix delivers an eccentric performance as Napoleon, exploring the character’s humour and darker complexities. The film navigates historical events, from the Terror in Paris to battles across Europe and Africa, with vivid imagery and brusque narrative economy. The bifurcated plot surprises with its departure from mainstream historical epics, delivering a character study that unravels Napoleon’s cruelty and pathological vanity.