Your 2021 Oscar Nominee Streaming Guide
Here's where you can catch up on this year's Oscar-recognized films
What’s up, movie family. The Academy Awards are just around the corner, which means we need to get you ready for Sunday night’s festivities. This is a very strange and delayed Oscar year. Almost all of the nominated movies are available to watch at home right now, and many of them are available on streaming platforms. In this Oscar Nominee Streaming Guide, we will tell you where you can find each of the Best Picture nominees, as well as where you can stream many of the other nominated films, including documentaries, animation, and international features. We’ve included a brief plot summary for each, in addition to links with our past reviews.
Look out for our full 2021 Oscars Preview coming on Friday, including predictions, upset picks, and a reader contest! Subscribe here if you haven’t yet.
BEST PICTURE
The Father (available to rent on Amazon Prime, Apple TV, YouTube, etc.)
A man refuses all assistance from his daughter as he ages. As he tries to make sense of his changing circumstances, he begins to doubt his loved ones, his own mind and even the fabric of his reality.
Judas and the Black Messiah (available to rent on Amazon Prime, Apple TV, YouTube, etc.)
Bill O'Neal infiltrates the Black Panther Party per FBI Agent Mitchell and J. Edgar Hoover. As Party Chairman Fred Hampton ascends, falling for a fellow revolutionary en route, a battle wages for O'Neal's soul.
Mank (streaming on Netflix)
1930's Hollywood is reevaluated through the eyes of scathing social critic and alcoholic screenwriter Herman J. Mankiewicz as he races to finish the screenplay of Citizen Kane (1941).
Minari (available to rent on Amazon Prime, Apple TV, YouTube, etc.)
A Korean family starts a farm in 1980s Arkansas.
Nomadland (streaming on Hulu)
Billy: What a cliché… writing about the front runner at this year's Oscars. This tiny movie is shot with surprising grandeur and because of that it is being inappropriately equated with some of the things this movie critiques. All movies warrant analyzing and if these weird controversies bring more eyes to Nomadland then I’m all for it. 2020 was a down year purely by circumstance. Hopefully that circumstance doesn’t hinder what was a year that brought us a new lens from immigrant directors into the American psyche. Chloe Zhao, in particular, brought us a beautiful and unique look into the western frontier with Nomadland. It is beautiful, simple, warrants repeat viewing for me, and hopefully first time viewership for many.
Promising Young Woman (available to rent on Amazon Prime, Apple TV, YouTube, etc.)
A young woman, traumatized by a tragic event in her past, seeks out vengeance against those who crossed her path.
Sound of Metal (streaming on Amazon Prime)
A heavy-metal drummer's life is thrown into freefall when he begins to lose his hearing.
The Trial of the Chicago 7 (streaming on Netflix)
The story of 7 people on trial stemming from various charges surrounding the uprising at the 1968 Democratic National Convention in Chicago, Illinois.
OTHER FILMS WITH MULTIPLE NOMINATIONS
Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom (streaming on Netflix)
Nominated for: Best Actor, Best Actress, Best Production Design, Best Makeup and Hairstyling, Best Costume Design
During a recording session, tensions rise between Ma Rainey, her ambitious horn player and the white management determined to control the uncontrollable "Mother of the Blues".
One Night in Miami (streaming on Amazon Prime)
Nominated for: Best Supporting Actor, Best Adapted Screenplay, Best Original Song
A fictional account of one incredible night where icons Muhammad Ali, Malcolm X, Sam Cooke, and Jim Brown gathered discussing their roles in the Civil Rights Movement and cultural upheaval of the 60s.
Borat Subsequent Moviefilm (streaming on Amazon Prime)
Nominated for: Best Supporting Actress, Best Adapted Screenplay
Borat returns from Kazakhstan to America and this time he reveals more about the American culture, the COVID-19 pandemic and the political elections.
BEST DOCUMENTARY
Collective (streaming on Hulu)
Director Alexander Nanau follows a crack team of investigators at the Romanian newspaper Gazeta Sporturilor as they try to uncover a vast health-care fraud that enriched moguls and politicians and led to the deaths of innocent citizens.
Crip Camp (streaming on Netflix)
Down the road from Woodstock, a revolution blossomed at a ramshackle summer camp for teenagers with disabilities, transforming their lives and igniting a landmark movement.
The Mole Agent (streaming on Hulu)
A private investigator in Chile hires someone to work as a mole at a retirement home where a client of his suspects the caretakers of elder abuse.
My Octopus Teacher (streaming on Netflix)
A filmmaker forges an unusual friendship with an octopus living in a South African kelp forest, learning as the animal shares the mysteries of her world.
Time (streaming on Amazon Prime)
Fox Rich fights for the release of her husband, Rob, who is serving a 60-year sentence in prison.
BEST ANIMATED FILM
Onward (streaming on Disney Plus)
Drew: Even mid-tier Pixar is still pretty good. The animation studio has a better movie in this same category this year -- Soul is very likely to win -- but Onward is a delightful good time if you go in with slightly lower expectations. It’s a fantasy adventure movie set in a world that looks kind of like ours except one major difference, which is that magic used to be real before modern inventions like cars and electricity made it less relevant. Tom Holland and Chris Pratt voice two elf brothers who set off on a quest to bring back their dead father for a day via magic. Julia Louis-Dreyfus and Octavia Spencer also voice main characters and, as always with Pixar, the voice acting is excellent. While Onward won’t blow you away with the originality and innovation of Pixar’s best, it is a humorous and sentimental journey that you will not regret embarking upon.
Over the Moon (streaming on Netflix)
In this animated musical, a girl builds a rocket ship and blasts off, hoping to meet a mythical moon goddess.
A Shaun the Sheep Movie: Farmageddon (streaming on Netflix)
When an alien with amazing powers crash-lands near Mossy Bottom Farm, Shaun the Sheep goes on a mission to shepherd the intergalactic visitor home before a sinister organization can capture her.
Soul (streaming on Disney Plus)
After landing the gig of a lifetime, a New York jazz pianist suddenly finds himself trapped in a strange land between Earth and the afterlife.
Wolfwalkers (streaming on Apple TV Plus)
A young apprentice hunter and her father journey to Ireland to help wipe out the last wolf pack. But everything changes when she befriends a free-spirited girl from a mysterious tribe rumored to transform into wolves by night.
BEST INTERNATIONAL FILM
Another Round (streaming on Hulu)
Four friends, all high school teachers, test a theory that they will improve their lives by maintaining a constant level of alcohol in their blood.
Collective (streaming on Hulu)
Director Alexander Nanau follows a crack team of investigators at the Romanian newspaper Gazeta Sporturilor as they try to uncover a vast health-care fraud that enriched moguls and politicians and led to the deaths of innocent citizens.
Quo Vadis, Aida? (streaming on Hulu)
Aida is a translator for the UN in the small town of Srebrenica. When the Serbian army takes over the town, her family is among the thousands of citizens looking for shelter in the UN camp.