Oscar Winners Streaming Now: Best Actor and Actress

Plus, find out what is new to streaming in April!

Apr 02, 2021

With the Academy Awards about three weeks away, it’s officially Oscar season at DYLA. This week we are kicking off a multi-part Oscar Winners Streaming Now series that will take us into this year’s awards. We’ll recommend different Oscar-winning movies you can find streaming on the major platforms. First up, it’s movies that won acting Oscars.

(New dad Drew has returned from his two-week paternity leave from DYLA lighter on sleep than usual, but ready to talk movies once again.)

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Drew recommends…

Beginners (streaming on HBO)

Best Supporting Actor: Christopher Plummer

As one of the most well-respected actors in Hollywood, Christopher Plummer had a productive and successful career well into his 80s before his death earlier this year at age 91. As a young man in the 1950s he made a name for himself on Broadway stages before transferring his skills to film, most famously as Captain von Trapp in The Sound of Music. In the 21st century, he slid naturally into the role of the wealthy patriarch with a dark past, playing a version of this character in Inside Man, The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo, and Knives Out.

However, he still managed to step out of this comfort zone from time to time. In 2011, he played an old man that comes out as gay after his wife dies in Beginners, the idiosyncratic dramedy written and directed by Mike Mills. The main character is a depressed middle-aged man named Oliver (Ewan McGregor), the son of Plummer’s Hal. As Oliver falls in love with Anna (Melanie Laurent), he is looking back on his life and the life of his father, who has recently died of cancer. Beginners is alternately funny, melancholy, and peculiar. It has its own style and its own speed. But Plummer is the best part about this very moving film.

Hal is discovering a way of life that he had denied himself for decades. There is regret and sadness in his eyes, but also joy and acceptance of all that life has to offer. It’s a fascinating and unique character that any actor would love to take on, but after seeing Beginners you will only be able to see Plummer in the role. He imbues Hal with a degree of levity and grace that only a performer of his stature is capable of generating.

When Plummer accepted his Oscar, he quipped, “You’re only two years older than me, darling. Where have you been all my life?” It’s this honest charm that made Plummer so beloved in his final years. He was the oldest winner in Oscars history at age 82, and he became the oldest nominee in history several years later. His peers clearly revered him, and after his remarkable turn in Beginners they couldn’t deny him a little gold man any longer.

My Cousin Vinny (streaming on Amazon Prime)

Best Supporting Actress: Marisa Tomei

Comedies typically have an uphill battle at the Academy Awards. The lighter movies are often overlooked for more “important” Oscar-friendly dramas. But sometimes there is no denying a unique and special comedic performance, such as Marisa Tomei in My Cousin Vinny. This 1992 courtroom comedy was not an awards contender for anything other than her whirlwind presence as Mona Lisa Vito, the bold and flamboyant Italian fiancée of Joe Pesci’s Vinny. Tomei was so funny, lovable, and memorable that Oscar voters had no choice but to give her a gold statue.

It’s not often that an actor’s big break leads to an Oscar, but that’s exactly what happened to Tomei. After a few years appearing in unremarkable films and shows, she popped off the screen in My Cousin Vinny. The movie is a classic fish-out-of-water story with two New Yorkers getting charged for a murder they didn’t commit in rural Alabama. One of them calls his cousin Vinny, a lawyer that doesn’t really practice law, to come represent them. Vinny brings his fiancée Mona Lisa along. The comedic chemistry between Tomei and Pesci’s profane and brash persona was gold. Pesci was in the zone during this period of his career -- this was right around the time of Goodfellas and the two Home Alone movies -- and Tomei seemed like she naturally belonged next to him on screen, despite little to no name recognition.

Why did her performance get rewarded when so many other comedy stars never even sniff the Oscars stage? Partly because My Cousin Vinny is just an accessible and well-crafted studio comedy that anyone can enjoy. But the biggest reason is the Oscars love an ingenue, a young actress that seemingly comes out of nowhere to beguile audiences. As Mona Lisa, Tomei was an unknown that radiated a certain confidence and self-reliance. While she went on to earn a couple more Oscar nominations down the line, as well as play Peter Parker’s Aunt May in the recent Spider-Man movies, she will almost certainly be known first and foremost as Mona Lisa from My Cousin Vinny. Lovable characters like this don’t ever fade away.

Billy recommends…

Rosemary’s Baby (streaming on Amazon Prime)

Best Supporting Actress: Ruth Gordon

About once a decade we get an award for a movie that is not typically an Oscar movie and Rosemary’s Baby is that movie. After watching this again this week I thought, “If Lil Nas X made us mad then how did Rosemary’s Baby make the people of the 60s feel?” If you don’t know of the Lil Nas X controversy or the plot of Rosemary’s Baby then I will not spoil it (Well, I can spoil the Lil Nas X video. He grinded on Satan in his music video), but I’ll tease both with one word: Satan.

Married couple Rosemary and Guy Woodhouse move into a beautiful New York apartment and there is immediate talk of once they get settled they will begin to start their new family. Rosemary (Mia Farrow) meets a nice woman in the basement laundry who tells her she is staying with a nice family that are neighbors to the Woodhouse’s. A nice apartment, friendly neighbors, and a family in the near future? It seems like everything is on par for having a simple and joyful stage of life. Then things turn quickly. The new friend commits suicide and while the Woodhouse’s are talking to the police they meet the family hosting the woman Rosemary met in the basement, Minnie and Roman Castavet.

At first they seem like a classic elderly couple who are extremely friendly, but have lost all awareness about boundaries. And they like to latch on to couples who are beautiful and destined to have their name in lights. Rosemary is a beautiful strawberry blonde woman and Guy is a successful actor who is not having the most fulfilling career. Minnie and Roman have a story about everything and you can tell their lavish lifestyle is eating at Guy each time they meet. Instead of pushing them away because of their overbearing personalities he leans in and hopes that their connections can take him to the next level of fame.

This is an actor episode and besides the obvious classic Mia Farrow performance, who did not win an Oscar, we have Ruth Gordon giving one of the best heat check Oscar-winning performances of all time. She plays Minnie and the way she rides the line of comforting presence, overbearing personality, and uneasiness is masterful. Each time there is a terrifying moment we go back to her and it almost softens the blow without meaning to.

Don’t fall for that, though. Rosemary’s Baby is not my favorite horror movie of all time, but it is up there for many people as the best. Its performances, direction, writing, score, and terror can’t escape your mind upon finishing this one. Not that many of our readers are going to blindly watch Rosemary’s Baby, but in case you need a clear picture of what you might be seeing, critic Brian Formo on his Letterboxd page explains the terror of this movie by saying, “...one of the most terrifying and transfixing sequences ever committed to film, it’s one of cinema’s biggest violations. There’s a violation of trust and body so profound…” Calling this movie a “violation” is a perfect way to describe how you will feel by the end. Violated. Which is why I proposed my question above, “How did Rosemary’s Baby make the people of the 60s feel?” I imagine it left people aghast, especially the church. Rosemary’s Baby has a luxury that people like Lil Nas X don’t have the benefit of, being a film (and ya know, an industry that doesn’t put the pressure of morality on to white artists as much as they do black artists). You can touch almost any subject and in the confinement of the movie theater or your home. By just turning it on you open up to what you are seeing and give it a chance. You may love it, hate it, be mad at it, or turn it off halfway through. Don’t run from those feelings. Embrace them.

As Good as It Gets (streaming on Hulu)

Best Actor: Jack Nicholson

Surprisingly, I saw As Good as it Gets for the first time this week. Not many movies make me feel so much confusion by the end. Not because the plot is confusing, but I can’t decide if this movie has aged horribly or I respect how director/writer James L. Brooks creates such despicable characters. The dialogue is thick and the performances enticing. It has everything you desire to enjoy a simple watch while being one of the most Oscar-baity movies of all time. And you know what? Sometimes creating something the Oscars will adore works on me as well. A movie doesn’t have to be original for me to like it.

Jack Nicholson plays Melvin Udall, a racist, misogynistic, and homophobic man who has OCD. His hatred comes out partially because he struggles through life everyday and tries to put people down before they realize his obsessive habits. He steps over every crack. Locks and unlocks his front door 5 times before he can lock it. Uses soap for about a 2 second wash, throws it away, and opens a new one. And finally, there is him having to go to the same restaurant for lunch everyday, sit at the same table, and have the same waitress (Helen Hunt). I have not known anyone with OCD, but I imagine this is not the most authentic portrayal of this disease. You get classic Nicholson here, though. Loud and obnoxious but you can’t help but enjoy every performance he gives. Including this one.

Nicholson has had more worthy performances that could have yielded an Oscar, but As Good as It Gets has all the bells and whistles to get it noticed. An ensemble cast, Hans Zimmer with the score, a classic director, and a young woman falling in love with an old man in the end. This movie is a perfect “Oh! I didn’t know that was streaming” movie. A movie that was heralded at the time, but because of its content or maybe because it is cliché at every turn, it has fallen out of the limelight. Regardless, watch this sometime soon and let the Apples team know how you felt. Did it age poorly or do you wish movies these days unleashed like this movie does?

What’s New To Streaming in April 2021

Netflix

Friends with Benefits
Insidious
Legally Blonde
The Pianist
The Time Traveler’s Wife
Yes Man
The Master (April 15th)

Amazon Prime

Anna Karenina
Forgetting Sarah Marshall
How To Train Your Dragon
Inception
Milk
Minority Report
Moonrise Kingdom
The Sum Of All Fears
Arrival (April 28th)

Hulu

Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid
Devil in a Blue Dress
Die Hard
Die Hard With A Vengeance
Four Weddings and a Funeral
Garden State
Hancock
Mad Max
Master and Commander: The Far Side of the World
Napoleon Dynamite
The Sandlot
That Thing You Do!
Arrival (April 28th)

HBO and HBO Max

All Is Lost
The Bodyguard
Boogie Nights
Caddyshack
Dirty Harry
The Longest Yard (1974)
The Natural
Risky Business
Space Jam
Ted (April 3rd)
The Dark Knight Rises (April 17th)
Dreamgirls (April 24th)

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