Only good movies
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It’s not too late to watch this year’s Oscar-winning films, even if you weren’t able to catch them before Sunday’s ceremony.
The 93rd Academy Awards, broadcast live from Los Angeles’ Union Station and Dolby Theatre, saw several acclaimed projects collect golden trophies across 23 categories.
The big winner of the night was “Nomadland,” which landed best picture and a historic victory for Chloé Zhao, the first woman of color and second woman ever to win the Oscar for director.
The gritty drama, starring lead actress winner Frances McDormand, is available to stream on Hulu. But where can folks watch the rest of 2021’s Academy Award winners?
From “Judas and the Black Messiah” to “Minari,” here’s a breakdown of each winning feature film by category and streaming service.
Keep up with the 93rd Academy Awards. Read our predictions and analysis, and follow our updates and takeaways from tonight’s potentially historic ceremony.
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‘Another Round’
Where to watch: Hulu
Won: International feature
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.”
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‘The Father’
Where to watch: Video-on-demand (VOD)
Won: Adapted screenplay, lead actor
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.”
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‘Judas and the Black Messiah’
Where to watch: VOD
Won: Supporting actor, song
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.’”
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‘Mank’
Where to watch: Netflix
Won: Cinematography, production design
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.”
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‘Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom’
Where to watch: Netflix
Won: Costume design, makeup and hairstyling
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.”
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‘Minari’
Where to watch: VOD
Won: Supporting actress
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.”
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‘My Octopus Teacher’
Where to watch: Netflix
Won: Documentary feature
What we said: “Amid a pandemic when many have been isolated in their homes, the crowd-pleasing Netflix film ‘My Octopus Teacher’ offers viewers eight arms to hold them — and a much-needed hug. The production heightens the familiar tropes of the nature-doc genre with its emotional account of a rare bond made between man and cephalopod.”
In a tight acting race at the 2021 Oscars, Frances McDormand wins her third lead actress award and nears record-holder Katharine Hepburn.
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‘Nomadland’
Where to watch: Hulu
Won: Director, lead actress, best picture
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.”
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‘Promising Young Woman’
Where to watch: VOD
Won: 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.”
Chloé Zhao’s ‘Nomadland’ was the big winner at the 2021 Oscars, while diverse winners made history and Hollywood hoped for a comeback
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‘Soul’
Where to watch: Disney+
Won: Animated feature, score
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.”
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‘Sound of Metal’
Where to watch: Amazon Prime Video
Won: Sound, film editing
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.”
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‘Tenet’
Where to watch: VOD (and on HBO Max beginning May 1)
Won: 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.”
