An A-to-Z cheat sheet to help you keep up with the awards chat this year.
It’s hard to stay on top of awards buzz here in Aotearoa, especially when all the announcements tend to happen when we’re all off the grid and at the beach. The Golden Globes, for example, took place while most of us were still recovering from New Year’s, and most of the big Oscar-nominated movies have only arrived in cinemas right as we’re all trying to stay as far away from dark, windowless rooms as possible. So if you need a quick catch-up on what’s been winning over critics and getting the most awards buzz this year, here’s our handy A-Z guide.
It was nominated for two Golden Globes in January for Best Non-English Feature Film and Best Director, and our own Shanti Mathias called this “incredibly dreamy film” one of her favourites of 2024. “The film investigates what women’s freedom looks like in extremely unequal contemporary India, and how there is space for playfulness and intrigue even within restrictive social codes,” she wrote. “With lush shots of monsoon downpours, apartments at night and sprawling beaches, the movie has a total confidence in the beauty of the world.” It shockingly missed out on any Oscar noms, but given it has already won the Cannes Grand Prix, is probably worth a peek.
Anora (In cinemas now)
Sean Baker’s Cinderella-story-turned-screwball caper just got six Oscar nominations, and is a must-see for Mikey Madison alone. Playing Ani, or Anora, a sex worker thrust into a bonkers world of luxury when she falls for the son of a Russian oligarch, Madison gives an all-time performance. “She rustles up a flawed, fearsome heroine who’s as gorgeous and grubby as life,” wrote The Guardian. Madison’s star-making role has already seen her nominated for a Bafta, a Golden Globe, and now a Best Actress Oscar nomination at just 25 years old (no Paquin, but still pretty impressive).
A Complete Unknown (In cinemas now)
It’s Timothée Chalamet as Bob Dylan and, as our in-house Dylan-head Claire Mabey writes, it gives the masses what they want. “Chalamet’s performance is some kind of magic and is a huge part of why A Complete Unknown is a compelling, watchable, if not honeyed version of Bob Dylan’s legendary path from penniless nobody into full-blown phenomenon.” We think she’s probably on to something – the film is up for eight Oscars, including Chalamet for Best Actor, so we can only hope he will wear a weird little Bob Dylan costume again.
A Real Pain (In cinemas now)
It’s nominated for Best Screenplay and Best Supporting Actor in Keiran Culkin, but A Real Pain really needs a special custom award for Best Playing to Type. Jesse Eisenberg’s David is a straight-laced family man and Culkin’s Benji is his loose unit cousin in a tie-dye hoodie. Reuniting in adulthood to embark on a trip to Poland to honour their late grandmother, what begins as a truly hilarious misfit road movie slowly peels back the layers of family tension and intergenerational trauma, and ends up something else entirely.
Babygirl (In cinemas January 30)
I had a lot of questions after watching the Babygirl trailer, but I’ll just park those for now and will quietly Google “does cookies mean something rude” in my own free time. There’s been a lot of chatter about Nicole Kidman’s latest film, with critics calling Babygirl both “a thought-provoking, appealingly askew look at workplace machinations and female thirst” and a sex-positive erotic thriller that “fails to bring the menace”. Either way, Kidman has won plenty of plaudits (including a Golden Globe nomination for best actress) for her performance of a CEO of a robotics company who embarks on a dangerous affair with a young male intern and, although being snubbed by the prudish Oscars today, Babygirl will be one of the most talked-about films of the year. Watch it with or without biscuits.
It won a bunch of Emmys last year, won the Golden Globe for Best Miniseries and Best Performance for an Actress in a Supporting Role and, frankly, if you don’t know what Baby Reindeer is by now then you probably have bigger problems than this humble article can fix. Based on the bizarre stalking saga that took place over several years of comedian Richard Gadd’s life, the series has since raised interesting questions about the collateral damage of retelling true stories. Or, as Antonia Prebble put it in our My Life in TV series: “I don’t feel like Baby Reindeer is on the right side of morality.” Watch it for yourself and see what you think!
Blitz (Apple TV+)
Written and directed by Academy Award winner Steve McQueen and with a soundtrack created by Hans Zimmer, this historical film is set in London during World War II. It tells the story of 9-year-old George, who is evacuated to the countryside by his single mother Rita (Saiorse Ronan) to avoid the bombings, but is determined to make the perilous journey back home to his family. The movie is described as “a rousing war-time adventure”, and has received a variety of nominations for awards ranging from the Critics’ Choice to the Middleburg Film Festival.
Conclave (In cinemas now)
Ralph Fiennes, Stanley Tucci and John Lithgow don frocks for this twisty tale of intrigue, crises of faith and corruption within the Vatican. In the same vein as a couple of other recent pope-y dramas (The New Pope and The Two Popes), the Pope is dead and the cardinals meet in conclave, sequestered away until consensus is reached on who the new pope should be. Based on the 2016 book by Robert Harris, Fiennes, Tucci and Lithgow are in fine form, while Isabella Rossellini makes fleeting but consequential contributions as a straight-talking nun. The story and performances are coded “serious, but there’s a camp undertone to this film, bolstered by a series of visual gags (vaping cardinal), which makes it a fun and accurate pastiche of the ridiculous and ritualistic pomp and ceremony of the Catholic church”. Conclave has picked up eight Oscar nominations, including Best Picture and acting nods for Fiennes and Rossellini. This is Rossellini’s first Oscar nomination.
Emilia Pérez (In cinemas now)
This Spanish language musical comedy crime thriller was the big winner at this year’s Golden Globes, picking up four awards for best supporting actress (Zoe Saldaña), best foreign language film, best comedy/musical and best original song. Directed by Jacques Audiard and starring Karla Sofía Gascón and Selena Gomez, Emilia Pérez tells the story of a Mexican drug lord who transitions to life as a woman. The film has just earned a whopping 13 Oscar nominations along with months of critical praise, with one review calling it “a powerful, unfiltered portrait of someone who challenges several stereotypes at once”, and another describing it as a gritty crime thriller turned glitzy soap opera that’s “riotously entertaining”.
Flow (In cinemas now)
In our mini-reviews from Whānau Marama last year, Madeleine Holden called animated film Flow “a very special movie” indeed. “The film’s main focus is the growing bond between the unlikely gang of animals, which is all the more moving for not being saccharine or overcooked: even as the animals develop bonds of loyalty and trust, they’re also wary, irritable, selfish,” she wrote. “Sprinkled on top are just a touch of fantasy (the leviathans!) and heavenly transcendence.” After being the toast of film festivals around the world, Flow won the Golden Globe for Best Animated Film, and is looking very likely to take home the same category at The Academy Awards as well.
Hacks (TVNZ+)
Take one cynical millennial comedy writer, cast aside from the industry after doing a dodgy tweet, and pair her up with a cynical Boomer Vegas comedian hanging on to relevance for dear life. Sweeping the Emmys and The Golden Globes this year (sorry to The Bear), Hacks continues to get better and better with every season as the testy professional and personal relationship between Deborah Vance (Jean Smart) and Ava Daniels (Hannah Einbinder) erodes and repairs on repeat. The series also tackles so much nuanced stuff around MeToo and cancel culture, ageing and ambition, show business and sexuality, without ever feeling … hack!
I’m Still Here (In cinemas February 20)
Inspired by the true story of a woman whose husband disappeared in Brazil in the early 1970s, I’m Still Here was the talk of the Golden Globes after lead actress and “subtle marvel” Fernanda Torres took out Best Actress in a Drama Film over Kate Winslet, Nicole Kidman, Angelina Jolie, Tilda Swinton, and Pamela Anderson. Just last weekend I’m Still Here dethroned The Brutalist, delivering the best per-theatre average box office return of any film currently playing in the United States. It’s up for Best Picture, Best Actress and Best International Feature at the Oscars, and will be a must-see come February.
Maria (In cinemas January 30)
Angelina Jolie plays an opera singer in her declining years in Pablo Larraín’s Maria, a film which has been called “strange, sad, and mordantly witty” by some and also “a bit of slog” by others. “This film has had a mixed, sometimes frosty reception,” wrote Peter Bradshaw for The Guardian. “I can only say I found Jolie’s performance as luxurious as state-of-the-art fake fur, and there is an overt theatricality and artificiality which gives the film its life.” With more than a few Golden Globe nominations and an Oscar nod for Best Cinematography, our only hope is that they start doing sing-along screenings when it opens later this month.
Queer (In cinemas April 3)
Queer stars Daniel Craig, who is reinventing himself as an actor capable of far more than playing the world’s best-known spy. He debuted his post-007 era by modelling for Loewe where, as the NYT’s chief fashion critic Vanessa Friedman writes, he “killed his James Bond dead, with a sweater”. Challengers and Call Me by Your Name director Luca Guadagnino continues a prolific streak at the helm of this adaption of a 1985 novella by William S. Burroughs. Set in Mexico City in the 50s, Craig plays an American ex-pat who becomes infatuated with a much younger man (Drew Starkey). The onscreen chemistry between Craig and Starkey is apparently electric. Responding to pearl-clutching about their sex scenes at the LA premiere of Queer, Craig said, “It’s pretty prudish to me.” Sadly, no Oscar nominations for Queer and Craig, and Guadagnino’s absence from the best actor and best director lists have been noted as “snubs”.
Shōgun (Disney+)
Shōgun dominated the awards scene from the moment the Disney+ series premiered early last year. As well as picking up four Golden Globes (including best actress for New Zealand-born Anna Sawai), the sweeping Japanese historical epic also won 18 Emmy Awards in 2024, the most ever won for a single TV show. Based on the James Clavell novel of the same name, Shōgun deals with power, class and political struggles in 17th century Japan, and impressed viewers and critics alike to score a hallowed 100% on Rotten Tomatoes. It’s also regularly recommended by our My Life in TV guests. “Shōgun is the perfect mix of beautiful, romantic, moody, then everyone gets blown up by a cannon, then it’s beautiful and romantic again,” comedian Dai Henwood raved. “I would recommend it to anyone.”
Sing Sing, starring Colman Domingo, one of the most sartorially adept men alive right now, is based on the true story of the Rehabilitation Through the Arts programme started at Sing Sing maximum-security prison in New York. Prisoners are involved in creating theatrical stage shows through the programme. Domingo and Paul Raci act alongside formerly incarcerated men who are alumni of the real-life programme. Released by A24, Sing Sing sits in a sweet spot between known and anticipated, and critical acclaim. The New York Times’ chief film critic Manohla Dargis and fellow NYT film critic Alissa Wilkinson released their Oscars picks list at the beginning of January. It contained very few of the popular social media meme-machine films or stars that have swamped other lists, where buzz perhaps masks a lack of substance, but Domingo and newcomer Clarence Maclin — a former prisoner — are on their lists for Best Actor and Best Supporting Actor respectively. Sing Sing has been nominated for three Academy Awards including Domingo for Best Actor, Best Adapted Screenplay and Best Original Song.
The Bear (Disney+)
Jeremy Allen White won a Golden Globe for the third consecutive year for his performance as perpetually frazzled chef Carmy in Disney+’s series The Bear. The series was also nominated for Best Comedy and Musical (bizarre, The Bear is neither a comedy or a musical), with Allen White’s colleagues Ayo Edebiri, Ebon Moss-Bachrach and Liza Colón-Zaya also nominated for their performances. While season three of the show about one man’s quest to turn his run-down family diner into a five star restaurant divided The Spinoff (“nothing happened!” said Mad Chapman; “everything happened!” argued Claire Mabey), there’s no doubt that the stressful intensity and messy emotions of The Bear makes it a compelling watch. Bon appetit.
The Brutalist (in cinemas now)
The Brutalist won three Golden Globe Awards and has received 10 Oscar nominations, including Best Picture, Best Director and Best Actor. Considered a frontrunner for Best Picture, the film has generated a lot of conversation about its length and mandatory intermission and, in recent days, backlash about using an AI tool to improve the actors’ Hungarian dialects and dialogue. Director Brady Corbet has defended using the AI tool and the performances of leads Adrian Brody and Felicity Jones. Brody plays a fictional Hungarian-born Jewish architect who immigrates to the United States after surviving the Holocaust. Guy Pearse plays a wealthy industrialist who changes Brody’s fortunes. Many reviews mention ambition about the film’s central theme and the scale of what the film and Corbet aim to achieve.
The Last Showgirl (in cinemas March 20)
We’re going to have to wait until March to see Pamela Anderson’s reportedly “dazzling” performance in The Last Showgirl. Directed by Gia Coppola (yes, the granddaughter of director Francis Ford Coppola), the film follows a middle-aged Las Vegas showgirl reconciling with the end of her three-decade-long run on The Strip. “Modestly scaled and loosely plotted, it is an unusually tender movie and an ideal vehicle for Coppola’s gift for expressing the intangible and the ephemeral,” wrote The New York Times. Another buzzed-about film that has been snubbed by the Oscars, but worth a look-in for Anderson’s return to the big screen.
The Penguin (Neon)
Colin Farrell won the Golden Globe Award for Best Actor in a Miniseries or Motion Picture Made for Television for his role as Ozwald Cobb in The Penguin. As Anna Rawhiti-Connell wrote last year: “I knew Colin Farrell had been cast as Cobb, but he was so unrecognisable that I exclaimed, ‘Oh my God, it’s Colin Farrell’ halfway through the first episode. While Oz is definitely not a good guy, Farrell’s rich and layered performance puts him among great TV antiheroes of our time like Tony Soprano or Walter White. Cristin Milioti is a captivating and menacing Sofia Falcone, and showrunner Lauren LeFranc’s imagined Gotham is the perfect backdrop for a brutal psychological thriller.”
The Room Next Door (in cinemas now)
Amaldóvar fans rejoice, Pedro is back, and he’s united two actors at the height of their powers, Tilda Swinton and Julianne Moore in his first English-language full-length feature, The Room Next Door. Time describes the film as a “joyful film about death”. Shockingly, it’s the first full-length collaboration with Amaldóvar for Swinton and Moore, and both performances have garnered acclaim. Swinton was nominated for a Best Actress Golden Globe. The Guardian called the performances of both actors “luxuriously self-aware”. Martha (Swinton) and Ingrid (Moore) are childhood friends who haven’t seen each other in a long time. Martha is dying and wants to spend one last weekend with her friend Ingrid, then self-euthanise, with Ingrid in the next room. The film won the Golden Lion at last year’s Venice Film Festival but has been passed over for Oscar nominations.
Demi Moore won a Golden Globe for her performance in The Substance, a horror film about a TV aerobics guru who is fired the moment she turns 50 and replaced by a younger woman. When she’s offered a mysterious substance to transform into an enhanced version of herself, all hell breaks loose. Stewart Sowman-Lund praised Moore’s performance and raved about the film in our weekly pop culture newsletter Rec Room, calling it “a visceral body horror” that “isn’t for the squeamish”. “While much of the horror does indeed come from bizarre things happening to human bodies, The Substance also has a biting social commentary about modern beauty standards that is often as scary as it is funny,” he wrote. It’s up for five Academy Awards including Best Actress and Best Screenplay, but strangely not Best New Beauty Routine?
True Detective: Night Country (Neon)
Even though this feels about as old as Silence of the Lambs, Jodie Foster only just took home the Golden Globe for her performance in True Detective: Night Country so it’s not too late to delve into the mysterious depths of this series. Set in the middle of an Alaskan winter, where the lakes have frozen and the darkness has crept into every corner, Foster plays Chief Liz Danvers alongside Kali Reis as Trooper Evangeline Navarro. Together, they seek out truth about a shocking local massacre – and unearth something more chilling than they could imagine.
The Apprentice (Neon)
There’s a reason you are seeing Jeremy Strong wearing weird outfits on the red carpet again, and that’s because The Apprentice is doing the awards rounds in a huge way. Scooping up a bunch of Golden Globe nominations including Best Actor (Strong) and Best Supporting Actor (Sebastian Stan) and now two Academy Award acting nods, the film examines Donald Trump’s career as a real estate businessman in New York City in the 1970s and 1980s. The Guardian called it “not quite an ultra-villain origin story. But nor is Iranian-Danish director Ali Abbasi’s The Apprentice in any way a flattering depiction of its subject.” Needless to say, Trump hates it.
Wicked (Neon)
It’s Wicked. It’s Ariana and Cynthia. It’s had a bunch of Golden Globe nods, has now chalked up 10 Oscar noms, and it’s holding space on Neon right now (for $29.99).
