Film/TV

A Complete List of 2021 Oscar Nominees and Where to Watch Them in Portland

Sound of Metal, The Father, and Other Oscar Hopefuls Streaming and/or Screening IRL
March 16, 2021
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Anthony Hopkins and Olivia Coleman are both up for awards for their roles in the Best Picture nominee The Father, playing at Living Room and other local theaters and hitting VOD on March 26. (Sean Gleason/Sony Pictures Classics)

The 93rd edition of the year's biggest movie award show (which will once again be host-less) will go virtual Past Event List for the first time on April 25, leaving you with a little over a month to catch all the nominated films you haven't seen yet. Unlike previous years, almost all of the contenders were released online and are therefore available to stream or rent, so you don't have to brave a movie theater if you don't want to (although there are a few playing IRL if you do, like all three short films blocks Past Event List coming to Living Room Theaters on April 2). We've rounded up all the details on feature-length films currently available to watch below, sorted by most to least nominations, from Best Picture hopefuls like Mank Remind List , Sound of Metal Remind List , The Trial of the Chicago 7 Remind List , and Minari Remind List to international features like Collective Past Event List .

* = Staff pick

10 NOMINATIONS

*Mank Remind List
Streaming: Netflix
The newest film from David Fincher is most certainly not what we expected from the director. It's a black and white, semi-autobiographical biopic of writer Herman J. Mankiewicz as he works on the screenplay for the acclaimed film Citizen Kane. It's been six years since Fincher made his last film, Gone Girl. This new feature could not be more different. I can't overstate how much it stands out as an odd entry in Fincher’s filmography. To be clear, odd does not mean bad. Just different. The praiseworthy aspects remain Fincher's devout commitment to creating precise visuals with near-perfect shot construction. One particular scene is when Gary Oldman's Mankiewicz, who prefers to go by the titular Mank, strolls onto a film set while nursing a hangover. Everything is meticulously crafted, and Fincher creates a unique feeling of being in a fantasy world that also happens to be sharply witty. CHASE HUTCHINSON
Nominated for: Best Picture, Best Director (David Fincher), Best Actor (Gary Oldman), Best Supporting Actress (Amanda Seyfried), Production Design, Costume Design, Cinematography, Makeup & Hair, Sound, Score

SIX NOMINATIONS

*Judas and the Black Messiah Past Event List
Streaming: VOD release TBD
In-Person: Living Room Theaters & Century 16

Shaka King's Judas and the Black Messiah which premiered at Sundance this year, stars Lakeith Stanfield as FBI informant William O' Neal and Daniel Kaluuya as Black Panther Party Chairman Fred Hampton.
Nominated for: Best Picture, Best Supporting Actor (Daniel Kaluuya and Lakeith Stanfield), Original Screenplay, Cinematography, Original Song ("Fight for You")

*The Father Remind List
Streaming: VOD starting March 26
In-person: Various theaters
Praised by the New York Times as "stupendously effective and profoundly upsetting," Florian Zeller's drama stars Anthony Hopkins as a man who moves in with his daughter (Olivia Coleman in her second Oscar-nominated performance) when his dementia renders him incapable of caring for himself.
Nominated for: Best Picture, Best Actor (Anthony Hopkins), Best Supporting Actress (Olivia Coleman), Original Screenplay, Production Design, Editing

*Nomadland Remind List
Streaming: Hulu
In-Person: Living Room Theaters
Watching director Chloé Zhao's gentle epic Nomadland is a transportive experience—quite literally, since much of the film is spent inside or around converted vans, zooming down interstates or sneakily parked on empty lots. It's dreamy, even spiritual, to see characters left behind by mainstream society unspool their lives against the American West's abundant beauty. Based on Jessica Bruder's 2017 non-fiction book of the same name and set against the backdrop of the 2008 recession, the film is a unique mixture of reality and fiction. The events that precede the film are real: In 2011, a US Gypsum plant shut down in Empire, Nevada, effectively killing the town around it. After caring for her late husband, a former Empire resident and widow, Fern (Frances McDormand), decides against permanent relocation and takes her life on the road. JASMYNE KEIMIG
Nominated for: Best Picture, Best Director (Chloé Zhao), Best Actress (Frances McDormand), Adapted Screenplay, Cinematography, Editing

*Minari Remind List
Streaming: Cinema 21, Hollywood Theatre & Northwest Film Center (and VOD)
In-person: Living Room Theaters & CineMagic
Filled with the ups and downs of everyday life, Minari is a portrait of a Korean family as it grows up, grows old, and grows apart. In a media landscape where Asian-Americans are too often invisible, the film is a landmark for American cinema. Despite telling a quintessentially American story at Best Picture caliber, the film was relegated to the Foreign Language Film category (which it won) at this year’s Golden Nepotism Awards. (They’ll do better at being less racist next year, they promise.) The film takes its name from a resilient Korean vegetable, emblematic of the resilience of immigrants and families. In pursuit of his American dream, patriarch Jacob (Steven Yeun) moves his wife and two children to rural Arkansas. He hopes to build a farm and a better life, escaping his and wife Monica’s menial job of chicken sexing. Monica (Han Ye-ri) is less than amused at having to move to the middle of nowhere, while trying to hype up her young kids (Alan Kim and Noel Kate Cho) for their grandmother’s arrival. JANEY WONG
Nominated for: Best Picture, Best Director (Lee Isaac Chung), Best Actor (Steven Yeun), Best Supporting Actress (Yuh-Jung Youn), Original Screenplay, Score

*Sound of Metal Remind List
Streaming: Amazon Prime
Sound of Metal is a transcendent film that happens to be deeply grounded. It feels revolutionary, weaving a profound rhythm into its quietest moments. It stars Riz Ahmed as Ruben, a drummer for a metal band who discovers he's rapidly losing his hearing and with it almost his entire way of living. Ruben fears he'll no longer be able to perform and that he'll lose his girlfriend, Olivia Cooke's Lou, a source of stability in his life who tours with him. The path Ruben must undertake requires him to reevaluate his entire sense of self and identity. Sound of Metal explores Deaf—with a capital D—community and culture in a way few other pieces of cinema have, breaking down prevailing notions outsiders might have. The richer reality, which the film taps into, is that the Deaf community is vast in background and beliefs. The film complicates the often leveled-down narrative of the community, exploding what life can be like for those who experience some form of deafness. CHASE HUTCHINSON
Nominated for: Best Picture, Best Actor (Riz Ahmed), Best Supporting Actor (Paul Raci), Original Screenplay, Editing, Sound

*The Trial of the Chicago 7 Remind List
Streaming: Netflix
Based on the conspiracy trial of the 1968 Democratic National Convention protest leaders, Aaron Sorkin's political thriller stars Sacha Baron Cohen, Eddie Redmayne, Joseph Gordon-Levitt, and Jeremy Strong as the major players in this historic case.
Nominated for: Best Picture, Best Supporting Actor (Sacha Baron Cohen), Original Screenplay, Cinematography, Editing, Original Song ("Hear My Voice")

FIVE NOMINATIONS

*Ma Rainey's Black Bottom
Streaming: Netflix
Remind List
A year before Chadwick Boseman died of cancer, he played one of the most complex characters in August Wilson's ten-part Century Cycle plays, Levee Green, the cornetist in Ma Rainey's Black Bottom. It was to be the last role of an actor who had reached American iconic status with his performance in Ryan Coogler's 2018 global box-office monster Black Panther. Now, when Boseman played the king of Wakanda, almost no one knew he was fighting for his life. But when we watched him in the film adaptation of Ma Rainey's Black Bottom, it was well known he was a goner. And so his death, which shocked the world when it was announced in the third week of August, cannot help but be at the center of a film that not only concluded his short career but also involved him with two of the top names, Denzel Washington (the film's producer) and Viola Davis (the film's star), of the A-list black Hollywood club he officially became a member of in 2018. (Ma Rainey's Black Bottom is the second work in Washington's current project to bring all of Wilson's plays to the big screen—the first is Wilson's Fences, which also starred Davis.) CHARLES MUDEDE
Nominated for: Best Actor (Chadwick Boseman), Best Actress (Viola Davis), Production Design, Costume Design, Makeup & Hair

*Promising Young Woman Remind List
Streaming: VOD
In-Person: Liberty Theatre

With directorial reign over the second season of Killing Eve and a starring role as Duchess of Cornwall in The Crown under her belt, Emerald Fennell's new revenge thriller stars Carey Mulligan as a justice-seeker who traps would-be sexual assailants at clubs and teaches them a lesson about consent. Come for the thrill of watching smarmy men get what's coming for them, stay for the string-quartet rendition of Britney Spears' "Toxic."
Nominated for: Best Picture, Best Director (Emerald Fennell), Best Actress (Carrey Mulligan), Original Screenplay, Editing

FOUR NOMINATIONS

News of the World Remind List
Streaming: VOD
Five years after the end of the Civil War, a veteran captain with a heart of gold (Tom Hanks) takes a traumatized orphan through hostile territory in Northern Texas in order to return her to her only living relatives.
Nominated for: Production Design, Cinematography, Sound, Score

THREE NOMINATIONS

*One Night in Miami Remind List
Streaming: Amazon Prime
A minimalist film that's vast in its ambition, One Night in Miami is a simply magnificent debut from director Regina King. King, an acclaimed actor, has directed television before, but with One Night in Miami she has tapped into something transfixing as she tells the story of four legends of history who find themselves together in a singular motel room. These legends are civil rights leader Malcolm X, boxer Cassius Clay, football player Jim Brown, and musician Sam Cooke played by Kingsley Ben-Adir, Eli Goree, Aldis Hodge, and Leslie Odom Jr. respectively. They all come together under the same roof as they discuss their individual and collective futures. The film's one night in question takes place after Cassius, who had yet to become Muhammad Ali, has defeated Sonny Liston. Well-directed boxing scenes are only the appetizer to the main course, which is scene after scene of crackling conversation. At the thirty-minute mark, the film settles in to become a canvas for reflective musings from the four friends. CHASE HUTCHINSON
Nominated for: Best Supporting Actor (Leslie Odom Jr.), Adapted Screenplay, Original Song ("Speak Now")

Soul Remind List
Streaming: Disney+
Did Soul really tackle the issues of racism in the US? Was the black experience finally translated into computer-generated images? The answer is "no." But this "no" does not in any way mean it was a bad film. I love Sidney Lumet's The Wiz like nobody's business, but I would be crazy to say that it realistically represents the most pressing issues of the black American experience in the 1970s. After Soul screened, praises and criticisms flooded social media. Most of the praise has been directed at the visual beauty of the work. For example, the scene in the black barber shop—its colors, its rays of light, its textures on the walls, chairs, and clothes—is one of the most numinous scenes that Pixar has ever produced. Also much expressed has been an appreciation for its metaphysical themes: birth, death, afterlife, the essences of human morality. The bulk of the criticisms, on the other hand, have mostly been directed at the film's failure to abolish certain old and new racist tropes. CHARLES MUDEDE
Nominated for: Animated Feature, Sound, Score

TWO NOMINATIONS

*Another Round
Streaming: VOD
Remind List
Danish snack Mads Mikkelsen stars as a bored school teacher who, along with three of his colleagues, takes a note from the books of Silicon Valley microdose enthusiasts and attempts to maintain a constant level of 0.05% drunkenness at all times with the goal of increasing his confidence and quality of life. Addictive substance that it is, the experiment quickly gets out of hand.
Nominated for: Best Director (Thomas Vintberg), International Feature (Denmark)

Borat Subsequent Moviefilm
Streaming: Amazon Prime
Remind List
In-person: Century 16
Sacha Baron Cohen is back as a Kazakhstanian reporter in the latest iteration of his mockumentary comedy film series Borat, this time tackling COVID, the presidential election, and a creepy, headline-making scene involving Rudy Giuliani and an underage girl.
Nominated for: Best Supporting Actress (Maria Bakalova), Original Screenplay

*Collective Past Event List
Streaming: Hollywood Theatre
An unflinching look at the investigative journalists of the Romanian newspaper Gazeta SporturilorCollective is a necessary examination of the corruption that can spread unchecked without a robust press to hold it accountable. It is fitting that Collective is Romania’s submission to the Academy Awards this year. The documentary is more than deserving of the award. Collective takes place following the horrifying fatal 2015 fire at the Collectiv nightclub in Bucharest, Romania. The fire killed 27 people. Widespread government health care fraud, corruption, and greed on all levels would kill 37 more. The film shows footage of the initial fire itself, caused by a pyrotechnic effect that set alight soundproofing foam, and the chaos that ensued. It is a starkly terrible event, which only makes it more horrific that the aftermath saw more preventable death. When the fire was put out, the horror continued for the victims and their families. The focus of the documentary is journalists Cătălin Tolontan, Mirela Neag, and Răzvan Luţac, who head up the team that blows the lid off the entire scandal. It is their reporting that shakes the country to its core. CHASE HUTCHINSON
Nominated for: Documentary Feature, International Feature (Romania)

*Emma  Remind List
Streaming: HBO Max
From the moment Mr. Woodhouse (Bill Nighy) bounded down the steps of his staircase in full scowl, I wanted to see Emma again. I went in pretty hyped up because Anya Taylor-Joy was making full use of her signature penetrating stare to play the character closer to the book—little did I expect that she would be matched frown for frown by Nighy, playing her father, whose background sighing and perpetual phobia of drafts lit up every scene with endearing ridiculousness. SUZETTE SMITH
Nominated for: Costume Design, Makeup & Hair

Hillbilly Elegy Remind List
Streaming: Netflix
This contentious Netflix adaptation of J. D. Vance's bestselling (but also contentious) 2016 memoir centers around the Appalachian values of his white, working-class, Kentucky-based family. Here's an outtake from Alissa Wilkinson's Vox review: "I am surprised it’s as bad as it is. Written for the screen by Vanessa Taylor (The Shape of Water, Hope Springs) and directed by Ron Howard, it is distractingly Hollywoodified, a rich person’s idea of what it is like to be a poor person, a tone-deaf attempt to assuage a very particular kind of liberal guilt by reifying the very thing that caused the guilt in the first place. And, perhaps worst of all, it’s a very dull movie." The Academy sure thinks Glenn Close is good in it.
Nominated for: Best Supporting Actress (Glenn Close), Makeup & Hair

Mulan Remind List
Streaming: Disney+
Disney's live-action remake of the 1998 animated favorite Mulan follows the basic original story—a young Chinese woman disguises herself as a man and takes the place of her father in the Imperial Army—but it's not winning as many hearts. That no doubt has something to do with its lead, Liu Yifei, who's been in the news for not-great reasons, but it's also gotten flak for whitewashing certain aspects of Chinese culture for Western audiences. 
Nominated for: Costume Design, Visual Effects

Tenet Remind List
Streaming: VOD
In Christopher Nolan's action-packed thriller, John David Washington stars as a secret agent who manipulates time to try to save the world from World War III. It's got IMAX-worthy bangs and booms and a complicated storyline that will have you "shush"-ing your household.
Nominated for: Production Design, Visual Effects

ONE NOMINATION

Better Days Remind List
Streaming: VOD
After having been pulled from the 2019 Berlin Film Festival for mysterious reasons and being subject to long delays and cancelations for release, this drama from prolific Chinese actor-filmmaker Derek Tsang is finally available to stream, to much acclaim. It follows a bullied high-school student and a small-time criminal who become the prime suspects in the murder of a teenage girl, who happens to have been the main teen's academic rival in the state Gaokao exam. 
Nominated for: International Feature (Hong Kong)

*Crip Camp Remind List
Streaming: Netflix
The second Netflix original documentary executive-produced by the Obamas (American Factory being the first), Crip Camp spotlights a Catskills summer camp tied to 70s-era American disability rights activism. 
Nominated for: Documentary Feature

Da 5 Bloods Remind List
Streaming: Netflix
In Spike Lee's Netflix Original film, four black American war veterans return to Vietnam after 40 years to recover the body of their fallen squad leader and the treasure that was buried with him.
Nominated for: Score

Eurovision Song Contest Remind List
Streaming: Netflix
Will Ferrell stars in David Dobkin's Netflix comedy Eurovision Song Contest: The Story of Fire Saga as an Icelandic pop-star wannabe who dreams of making it big via the televised music competition that made ABBA famous. He makes it on, alongside his music partner Sigrit Ericksdottir (Rachel McAdams), whom he's in love with but also might be related to (?).
Nominated for: Original Song ("Husavik")

Greyhound Remind List
Streaming: Apple TV+
Based on C.S. Forester’s 1955 novel The Good Shepherd and adapted for the screen by none other than Tom Hanks (who also stars), this maritime thriller set during the 1942 Battle of the Atlantic will have you spewing obscure nautical terminology you never knew existed.
Nominated for: Sound

The Life Ahead Remind List
Streaming: Netflix
Sophia Loren plays an aging Holocaust survivor who forges an unlikely bond with a young immigrant from Senegal.
Nominated for: Original Song ("Lo Sì")

Love and Monsters Remind List
Streaming: VOD
Humanity lives underground thanks to a destructive species of monsters that have been roaming the earth for seven years. After reconnecting with his high school girlfriend over a radio signal, a man risks it all to reconnect with her in person.
Nominated for: Visual Effects

The Midnight Sky Remind List
Streaming: Netflix
Oh no, George Clooney's gravelly voice is stranded in the Arctic! What's more, he's scrambling to convince Felicity Jones and her fellow astronauts to stay in outer space, which is much safer than the post-apocalyptic catastrophe-stricken Earth. Clooney is also the director of this adaptation of Lily Brooks-Dalton’s acclaimed novel Good Morning, Midnight.
Nominated for: Visual Effects

*The Mole Agent Remind List
Streaming: Hulu and VOD
A delightful man in his 80s poses as a resident in a Chilean nursing home to see if he can spot signs of abuse to report. If you watched I Care a Lot Remind List —a movie about a woman who cons elderly people and unnecessarily forces them into nursing homes—the journey of this documentary's justice-seeking protagonist should feel cathartic. 
Nominated for: Documentary Feature

My Octopus Teacher Remind List
Streaming: Netflix
If you haven't already stopped eating octopi after learning that they are absolute brainiacs, this emotional Netflix doc about a diver who bonds with an eight-legged mollusk that lives in the deep kelp forests of South Africa will surely change your mind.
Nominated for: Documentary Feature

The One and Only Ivan Remind List
Streaming: Disney+
A CGI-talking silverback gorilla named Ivan (voiced by Sam Rockwell) and his tiny elephant friend (Angelina Jolie) hatch a plan to escape from the circus in this Disney+ adaptation of Katherine Applegate's bestselling kids' book.
Nominated for: Visual Effects

*Onward Remind List
Streaming: Disney+ and VOD
Especially when compared to Pixar's best, there's definitely stuff to nitpick in the studio's latest, Onward. Fair? Maybe, but then again, even Pixar movies can have a hard time living up to Pixar movies. But to focus on Onward's benign, minor missteps—none of which detract from the story's surprisingly emotional arc—is to miss the bigger picture. Funny and wholly original, it's a fantasy adventure that digs into something nearly all of us know but rarely talk about: How the memory of an absent family member can hang over the lives of the living. ERIK HENRIKSEN
Nominated for: Animated Feature

*Over the Moon
Streaming: Netflix
Remind List
A little girl builds a rocket ship to meet a mythical moon goddess in this very cute-looking Netflix original that Wikipedia categorizes as an "American-Chinese computer-animated musical family fantasy film."
Nominated for: Animated Feature

Quo Vadis, Aida? Remind List
Streaming: VOD
In Jasmila Žbanić's drama set in mid-90s Bosnia, a UN translator finds herself negotiating with her employers to let her family take shelter from the Serbian army in the UN camp.
Nominated for: International Feature (Bosnia & Herzegovina)

A Shaun the Sheep Movie: Farmageddon Remind List
Streaming: Netflix
Your favorite animated ruminant, Shaun the Sheep, bears witness to intergalactic aliens on Mossy Bottom Farm and must devise an escape plan. 
Nominated for: Animated Feature

*Short Film Blocks Past Event List
In-person: Living Room Theaters (starting Fri April 2)
The nominees for best animated, live-action, and documentary shorts will come to Living Room!
Nominated for: Best Animated Films

*Time Remind List
Streaming: Amazon Prime
Filmed over two decades, director Garrett Bradley chronicles Fox Rich's campaign for the release of her husband, Rob, who is serving a 60-year prison sentence for a robbery they both committed in the early 1990s in a moment of desperation. Deemed "substantive and stunning" by the New York Times, the film reveals a whole lot about systemic inequality in the prison system and beyond. 
Nominated for: Documentary Feature

*The United States vs. Billie Holiday Remind List
Streaming: Hulu
Lee Daniels (Precious) directs this dramatization of the FBI's harassment of legendary jazz singer Billie Holiday following the release of her famous anti-lynching ballad "Strange Fruit." 
Nominated for: Best Actress (Andrea Day)

The White Tiger Remind List
Streaming: Netflix
Based on the Booker Prize-winning novel by Aravind Adiga, this adaptation from Iranian American director Ramin Bahrani (Man Push Cart, Fahrenheit 451) stars Priyanka Chopra Jonas as an impoverished cab driver in a rapidly changing India.
Nominated for: Adapted Screenplay

*Wolfwalkers Remind List
Streaming: Apple TV+
This Apple original film from the makers of Song of the Sea is extremely magical. In a woodsy fantasy world, a seemingly normal little girl realizes she's among the storied wolfwalkers—people who transform into wolves when the sun goes down.
Nominated for: Animated Feature

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