Your Oscar-Nominated Streaming Guide
Here's where to stream as many Oscar-nominated movies as possible before Sunday
Can you believe we are only a few days from the 2020 Academy Awards? It’s one of Do You Like Apples’ favorite nights, so we are doing everything in our power to get you prepared for the big night. Today we are showing you where to find all of the Oscar-nominated movies available to stream online, including features, documentary, animated, and short films. We wrote a bit about a few of them and provided a brief plot summary for the rest.
On Friday, we will present the Do You Like Apples Oscars Preview with predictions, analysis, upset picks, and more to get everyone properly hyped for Sunday. See you then! Subscribe here if you haven’t.
Feature Films
The Irishman (streaming on Netflix)
Nominated for: Best Picture, Best Director, Best Supporting Actor (2x), Best Adapted Screenplay, Best Cinematography, Best Costume Design, Best Production Design, Best Editing, Best Visual Effects
Drew: You can tell it was a particularly strong year for Oscar-nominated movies because The Irishman, Martin Scorsese’s staggering masterpiece, is not expected to win many awards on Sunday. In fact, many Oscar prognosticators aren’t expecting it to win any, despite its ten nominations. This would be a shame, because achievements like this film are extremely uncommon.
Look, I get why it’s not for everyone. This is a slow marathon of a movie, and it probably feels grueling to get through for some viewers. After watching it a second time, though, I found that while I loved it the first time, I may have underestimated the story’s richness and power. The Irishman actually has something to add to the mafia movie legacy of The Godfather, Goodfellas, and the rest. It’s a story about a man (Frank Sheeran, played by Robert De Niro) that leads a life of crime and murder and then, near the end of his life, has nothing and no one after all the terrible things he’s done. Even his famous friend Jimmy Hoffa is forgotten by the next generation.
It also features some of the finest acting of the year from a few legends nearing the end of their careers. If this the last we see of Joe Pesci on screen, that’s a hell of a performance to go out on. As Hoffa, Al Pacino delivers that larger-than-life presence we’ve come to expect. Finally, De Niro is simply devastating as the mob hitman Sheeran. His magnificent and measured performance has been underappreciated during this awards season.
And then there’s Martin Scorsese, orchestrating it all from the director’s chair. At 77, the number of movies he has left in him has to be dwindling. He’s certainly not done yet, but this is an extraordinary statement from a master late in his career. Even if the Academy doesn’t give his masterpiece its due right now, you can expect The Irishman to stand the test of time.
Read our Director Spotlight on Martin Scorsese here
Marriage Story (streaming on Netflix)
Nominated for: Best Picture, Best Actor, Best Actress, Best Supporting Actress, Best Original Screenplay, Best Original Score
Noah Baumbach's incisive and compassionate look at a marriage breaking up and a family staying together.
The Two Popes (streaming on Netflix)
Nominated for: Best Actor, Best Supporting Actor, Best Adapted Screenplay
Behind Vatican walls, the conservative Pope Benedict and the liberal future Pope Francis must find common ground to forge a new path for the Catholic Church.
Avengers: Endgame (streaming on Disney+)
Nominated for: Best Visual Effects
After the devastating events of Avengers: Infinity War, the universe is in ruins. With the help of remaining allies, the Avengers assemble once more in order to reverse Thanos' actions and restore balance to the universe.
Documentary
American Factory (streaming on Netflix)
Nominated for: Best Documentary
Drew: Netflix typically releases pretty solid documentaries, and American Factory may be the best of their nonfiction crop from last year. This nuanced look at culture clashes and labor relations is an enlightening watch. It’s about a Chinese company called Fuyao opening a new factory in an abandoned GM plant in Ohio. Soon the Chinese billionaire owner and the American workers discover that there are significant (and maybe unsolvable) differences between the two countries.
This is the first film produced by Barack and Michelle Obama’s new production company and you can see the money at work. It’s a very polished documentary, perhaps to its own detriment. However, this is worth a watch for anyone interested in how cultural divergence between the East and West plays out in the real world, especially as it relates to the U.S. and China’s outlook on work and life.
The Edge of Democracy (streaming on Netflix)
Nominated for: Best Documentary
Political documentary and personal memoir collide in this exploration into the complex truth behind the unraveling of two Brazilian presidencies.
For Sama (streaming on YouTube)
Nominated for: Best Documentary
An intimate yet epic journey into one young mother’s experience of the Syrian conflict.
Honeyland (streaming on Hulu)
Nominated for: Best Documentary and Best International Film
The last female bee-hunter in Europe must save the bees and return the natural balance in Honeyland, when a family of nomadic beekeepers invade her land and threaten her livelihood.
Animated
Toy Story 4 (streaming on Disney+)
Nominated for: Best Animated Feature, Best Original Song
When a new toy called "Forky" joins Woody and the gang, a road trip alongside old and new friends reveals how big the world can be for a toy.
The Lion King (streaming on Disney+)
Nominated for: Best Visual Effects
After the murder of his father, a young lion prince flees his kingdom only to learn the true meaning of responsibility and bravery.
Klaus (streaming on Netflix)
Nominated for: Best Animated Feature
A simple act of kindness always sparks another, even in a frozen, faraway place. When Smeerensburg's new postman, Jesper, befriends toymaker Klaus, their gifts melt an age-old feud and deliver a sleigh full of holiday traditions.
I Lost My Body (streaming on Netflix)
Nominated for: Best Animated Feature
Billy: Animated movies have reached a weird threshold. The technology can be rendered so realistic that many of the new animated movies are trying to transform themselves into live action stories. Mainly this is coming from the American animation industry. Foreign animated films are the ones that are bringing unique animated styles to create a more well-rounded story. I Lost My Body being a brilliant example of how animation creates stories that did not seem possible.
I Lost My Body follows a young man and his hand. Well, that is a weird way to explain it. Our first shot opens up to the main character Naoufel on the floor after an accident in his workshop. An accident that severed his hand. His hand then goes on a journey to try and reconnect itself to its body. Stay with me here because the story that is told through the hand’s journey is incredibly moving. Naoufel was orphaned from a young age and through that was put into an undesirable situation. Flashing back to when his parents were alive, we see how much touch shaped his young life. And how much it influences the memories of his parents.
This theme is where I Lost My Body separates itself from pretty much any other animated movie. It puts the animation and visual style into the background. Not that this movie is not beautiful. It is breathtakingly gorgeous, but the experience of the hand and the remembered emotions through it make for a relatable story for any audience. Naoufel begins the latter part of his two-hand journey as a pizza delivery boy who meets a mysterious voice named “Ms. Martinez” over a high-rise apartment building intercom. That interaction propels him back into a path he had once forgotten. As a child his two dreams were to be a pianist and an astronaut. Success in those industries requires plenty of use of the hands. After he “meets” this mysterious voice he tracks her down in a creepy way and runs into her uncle who needs a carpentry apprentice. The love for this mysterious woman brought him to a familiar child-like place.
This is where I Lost My Body shines. Using simple and familiar emotions through the sense that is often overlooked: touch. Remember the vibrations of the activities you love. The texture of an object that left you repulsed or delighted. The feel of dirt on your hands that is simultaneously gross and rewarding. Then as you go past the physical memories the emotion of why those situations are memorable come rushing back into the forefront of your mind. I Lost My Body is a worthwhile nomination for the Best Animated Feature Oscar and seeing it bring home the prize will be a pleasant surprise.
Shorts
In the Absence (streaming on Vimeo)
Nominated for: Best Documentary Short
Drew: I watched this 28-minute documentary short on a whim and came away stunned (and a little embarrassed) I wasn’t familiar with this story. In 2014, a South Korean passenger ferry sank unexpectedly, taking over 300 lives, mostly schoolchildren, with it. The ferry took two and a half hours to sink, while the captain and crew abandoned ship and the government’s disaster relief responded slowly and poorly.
In the Absence takes a hard and clear look at exactly what happened and who was culpable. It’s not a light watch, but this is an important and distressing view at a recent real-life catastrophe that shows how much damage incompetence and negligence can leave in their wake.
Life Overtakes Me (streaming on Netflix)
Nominated for: Best Documentary Short
In the grip of trauma, hundreds of refugee children in Sweden withdraw from life's uncertainties into a coma-like illness called Resignation Syndrome.
The Neighbors’ Window (streaming on Vimeo)
Nominated for: Best Live Action Short
It tells the story of a middle aged woman with small children whose life is shaken up when two free-spirited twenty-somethings move in across the street.
Walk Run Cha-Cha (streaming on Vimeo)
Nominated for: Best Documentary Short
Paul and Millie Cao lost their youth to the aftermath of the Vietnam War. Forty years later, they have become successful professionals in Southern California-and are rediscovering themselves on the dance floor.
Links to get you hyped
Super Bowl Sunday brought a whole slew of new trailers for new movies and shows coming soon, including A Quiet Place Part II, Hunters, Fast & Furious 9, Top Gun: Maverick, Mulan, and three new Marvel shows. Click here to check out all of those (and more).
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