Among the films that have managed to make their way to the big screen or to video-on-demand platforms this year, despite the health crisis, eight have been selected by the Academy of Oscars for the supreme award: l ‘Oscar for best feature film. The 93e ceremony will take place on the night of Sunday, April 25 to Monday, April 26, in Los Angeles.
Adapted from a play by Florian Zeller and directed by the French author himself, The Father, starring the legendary Anthony Hopkins, takes the viewer on a terrifying journey to senile dementia.
The film takes place in a London apartment where the stubborn Anthony (Hopkins), despite his fragile health, chased the last of a long series of caregivers, forcing his daughter Anne (Olivia Colman) to find a replacement. emergency. But appearances are often deceptive in the life of this not so quiet father whose faculties are deteriorating at a rapid pace, blurring all his bearings and those of the spectator at the same time.
Acclaimed during its presentation at the Sundance Film Festival in January 2020, notably for the performance of Anthony Hopkins, The Father however, is not among the favorites of the Oscars.
The “Father” trailer:
“Judas and the Black Messiah”
The past year has seen many films produced by black filmmakers featuring black actors, but only one Judas and the Black Messiah managed to land an Oscar nomination for best feature film.
Departing from the usual conventions of “Biopic”, the film tells the tragic story of Fred Hampton (Daniel Kaluuya) half from the point of view of the charismatic leader of the Black Panthers, half from that of the FBI informant who betrayed him, William O’Neal (Lakeith Stanfield.)
Produced by Ryan Coogler, director of the Marvel hit Black panther, Judas and the Black Messiah takes place in 1960s Chicago and follows Fred Hampton’s efforts to mobilize the mob against police brutality even as he is surrounded by the FBI along with his supporters. The last to arrive in the Oscar race with a press presentation in February, the film still garnered six nominations in total, but it lags behind in predictions.
The trailer for “Judas and the Black Messiah”:
Mank, David Fincher’s ode to Hollywood’s golden age, holds the record for nominations this year, no less than ten. Entirely shot in black and white with extreme attention to detail in the reconstruction, David Fincher’s film stages, in a very romanticized way, the birth of the film Citizen Kane of Orson Welles and its writing by screenwriter Herman Mankiewicz, played by Gary Oldman.
Usually very alcoholic, Mank crosses paths with the titans who built the Hollywood legend, such as producers David O. Selznick, Louis B. Mayer and Orson Welles himself. On paper, Mank had many assets to win over the film professionals who make up the Oscar jury, but reviews have been quite mixed, and it seems unlikely he would win the award for best feature film.
The “Mank” trailer:
South Korean-American filmmaker Lee Isaac Chung was about to give up directing to become a teacher when he filmed Minari, last game of poker strongly inspired by his own childhood.
With dialogues in English and Korean, the film is a fundamentally American story, about migrants who left everything behind to carve out a future for themselves in the great outdoors. As it happens, “Minari” follows a South Korean family trying their luck in farming in the middle of 1980s Arkansas.
The film brought together Korean speaking actors from both sides of the Pacific, including Steven Yeun, made famous by the series. Walking dead, and South Korean star Yuh-Jung Youn. He endeavors to portray the intimate relationships within this family without dwelling on questions of integration or racism.
Even if he did not necessarily unleash passions, Minari was well received everywhere and is certainly the most consensual film of the selection. He appears to be an outsider but has a chance to surprise thanks to the very particular voting system. “Preferential” in force in the category of best feature film.
The “Minari” trailer:
Rarely does a film dominate fall festivals and continue to be a big favorite months later for the Oscars. But Nomadland, a one-of-a-kind hybrid of road movie, social drama and documentary that follows elderly Americans living on the roads after losing everything in the subprime crisis, has achieved this feat.
In Chloe Zhao’s film, most of the actors are amateurs who play their own role, with Fern as the central character, played by Oscar-winning actress Frances McDormand, who initiated and produced the project. It is directly inspired by an eponymous book published in 2017 by the American journalist Jessica Bruder after having stayed among these nomads with gray hair who crisscross the United States in their small camper vans, living between deserts and odd jobs, but free.
Most experts bet on Nomadland as the big winner of the Oscars, and the film is also expected to win statuettes in several other categories.
The “Nomadland” trailer:
“Promising Young Woman”
With her pop songs, her candy pink aesthetic and a previously royally unknown director, Promising Young Woman nothing of the film formatted to win the Oscars. But this is a deliberately atypical film.
For her first feature film, Emerald Fennell stars Cassie (Carey Mulligan), a young woman who seeks revenge for the rape of her best friend by former college classmates. Cassie then decides to sow terror among the machos of her hometown and those who are, in her eyes, their accomplices. The young woman sets her ambushes in bars. She feigns drunkenness in order to attract to her men playing the ” nice “ and push them to reveal their misogyny.
With five nominations in total, it could keep its promises for the Oscar for Best Feature, but the voting system is usually not favorable to films that have sparked controversy, as is the case for Promising Young Woman.
The “Promising Young Woman” trailer:
The film awards season for Sound of Metal has been a long journey that began in 2019 at the Toronto Film Festival, with a gradual rise in power thanks to word of mouth that has never wavered.
At the Oscars, this low-budget independent film landed six nominations, a feat for a work dealing with a rather depressing and not very popular subject: Ruben, a heavy metal drummer (played by Riz Ahmed) lost his hearing and also suffers from addiction problems. He is torn between his desire to regain his faculties with the help of expensive implants and the peace of mind he is beginning to find within the deaf community.
If it is among the films least likely to win, Sound of Metal shed a spotlight on the hearing impaired and more broadly how people with disabilities are treated in Hollywood. He could win statuettes in technical categories, especially for sound disciplines.
The “Sound Metal” trailer:
“The Chicago Seven”
With his prestigious cast, an experienced director-writer and an extraordinarily topical subject, which coincided with the gigantic anti-racist protests of last summer and a presidential election as controversial as ever, Chicago Seven ticks most of the boxes needed to win an Oscar.
It was Steven Spielberg himself who asked Aaron Sorkin to write a story about the riots against the Vietnam War in Chicago in 1968 and the violent police and judicial repression that followed.
Creator of the series West WingAaron Sorkin eventually got behind the camera as well, drawing stars like Mark Rylance, Frank Langella, Sacha Baron Cohen and Eddie Redmayne to the project. A distribution recently rewarded with the coveted prize of the American Union of Actors. For Hollywood award specialists, if a film has any chance of blowing victory at Nomadland Sunday night is good Chicago Seven.
The “Chicago Seven” trailer: