We're about to enter into the most exciting time of year. And no, I'm not talking about the holiday season. I'm talking about awards season — a time of going to the movies, having fervent debates over which film deserves Best Picture, and narrowing down Oscars bets.
Unless you're a member of the Academy, you can't take an active role in determining which of these films will walk away from the ceremony on March 4, 2018 with a gold statuette. However, you can still be an active participant in the Oscars, simply by watching the movies. The three hour-long ceremony is about a million times more exciting if you've seen the films, and have favourites in the running. The victories are sweeter when you've been rooting for them for months; the losses, more bitter — I'm still angry about Boyhood losing to Bird Man in 2014.
All of the following movies, most already in cinemas, are likely to garner Oscars nominations. These are all the movies currently available to watch before nominations come out on January 23.
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Dunkirk
The Gist: In two shocking, visually spectacular hours, Christopher Nolan recreates the rescue of 300,000 British, French, Belgian, and Dutch troops from the beaches of Dunkirk, France in May 1940.
Potential Nominations: Best Picture, Best Director (Christopher Nolan), Best Supporting Actor (Mark Rylance), Best Original Screenplay
Call Me By Your Name
The Gist: Over the course of five weeks in a small town in Northern Italy, a 17-year-old boy falls madly, irrevocably in love with his family's summer guest, and the guest falls in love back.
Potential Nominations: Best Picture, Best Director (Luca Guadagnino), Best Actor (Timothée Chalamet), Best Supporting Actor (Armie Hammer, Michael Stuhlbarg), Best Adapted Screenplay
The Shape of Water
The Gist: Elisa (Sally Hawkins), a mute woman, works as a maid in a mysterious government facility in 1960s Baltimore. She develops a deep kinship with the merman creature being held in a tank there.
Potential Nominations: Best Picture, Best Director (Guillermo del Toro), Best Actress (Sally Hawkins), Best Supporting Actor (Michael Shannon, Richard Jenkins), Best Original Screenplay
Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri
The Gist: A mother (Frances McDormand) is enraged with her town's police inaction after her daughter's murder goes unsolved. So, she takes action by renting the small Missouri town's three billboards bordering the highway, and plastering them with controversial messages directed at the police chief.
Potential Nominations: Best Picture, Best Director (Martin McDonagh), Best Actress (Frances McDormand), Best Supporting Actor (Sam Rockwell, Woody Harrelson), Best Original Screenplay
Get Out
The Gist: After a few months of dating, Chris (Daniel Kaluuya) is taking the next step with his girlfriend, Rose (Allison Williams): Visiting her parents. On the way over, Rose drops that she hasn't told her parents that Chris is Black. More weirdness is to come. Chris is deeply unsettled by the Armitage family – and by their strangely mechanical Black hired help.
Potential Nominations: Best Picture, Best Director (Jordan Peele), Best Actor (Daniel Kaluuya), Best Original Screenplay
Wonder Woman
The Gist: She's an Amazon princess, and she's here to save humanity from its worst traits. Or at least those are Diana's (Gal Gadot) intentions when she leaves the enchanted island of Themyscira to kill Hades, stop WWI. Instead, Diana learns from her human companions, just as they learn from her.
Potential Nominations: Best Picture, Best Director (Patty Jenkins)
The Big Sick
The Gist: At first, the biggest challenge Kumail (Kumail Nanjiani) faces with his new girlfriend, Emily (Zoe Kazan), is his Pakistani parents' reluctance for him to be with someone outside their culture. Then, Emily falls into a coma. The Big Sick is based on Nanjiani and his wife's real history.
Potential Nominations: Best Picture, Best Supporting Actress (Holly Hunter), Best Original Screenplay
The Florida Project
The Gist: Six-year-old Moonee (Brooklynn Prince) lives with her single mother (Bria Vinaite) in a fairy tale-themed motel near Walt Disney World. As Moonee goes on care-free summer adventures with other motel kids, her mother struggles to keep them afloat.
Potential Nominations: Best Picture, Best Director (Sean Baker), Best Supporting Actor (Willem Dafoe), Best Supporting Actress (Brooklynn Prince), Best Original Screenplay
Lady Bird
The Gist: Before Lady Bird (Saoirse Ronan) can bust out of Sacramento and move somewhere "interesting" people live, she has to go through her final year of high school, complete with first loves, dirtbag boyfriends, prom dress shopping, fights with her mom, and spurts of goofing off with her best friend.
Potential Nominations: Best Picture, Best Director (Greta Gerwig), Best Actress (Saoirse Ronan), Best Supporting Actress (Laurie Metcalf), Best Original Screenplay
Darkest Hour
The Gist: Almost immediately after being appointed as Prime Minister in May 1940, Winston Churchill, played by Gary Oldman, has to decide whether to submit to peace talks with Nazi Germany, or hold true to democratic ideals and potentially subject the British people to invasion.
Potential Nominations: Best Picture, Best Actor (Gary Oldman), Best Director (Joe Wright), Best Supporting Actress (Kristin Scott Thomas)
I, Tonya
The Gist: Tonya Harding was a rising star in the competitive ice skating world, until she became embroiled in a scandal during the National Figure Skating Championships in 1994. Nancy Kerrigan was Harding's biggest competitor, and her leg was broken during the competition. Harding and her boyfriend were found responsible for the career-ending injury.
Potential Nominations: Best Picture, Best Actress (Margot Robbie), Best Supporting Actress (Allison Janney), Best Original Screenplay
Mudbound
The Gist: Two veterans — one Black, one white — return from the WWII front to their families in a small Mississippi Delta town. Ronsel Jackson's (Jason Mitchell) family works the land of Jamie McAllan's (Garrett Hedlund) family. Three members of both the Jackson and McAllan families narrate this American epic.
Potential Nominations: Best Picture, Best Director (Dee Rees), Best Actress (Carey Mulligan), Best Supporting Actor (Garrett Hedlund, Jason Mitchell), Best Supporting Actress (Mary J. Blige)
The Disaster Artist
The Gist: Things are about to get meta. In 2002, the so-called " Citizen Kane of bad movies" was released. It was called The Room, and it became a cult classic. The Disaster Artist is about the unconventional creation of The Room, which the mysterious Tommy Wiseau wrote, directed, and starred in.
Potential Nominations: Best Actor (James Franco), Best Adapted Screenplay
Stronger
The Gist: Jake Bauman was waiting at the Boston Marathon finishing line for his ex-girlfriend the bomb exploded. He lost both of his legs. Jake Gyllenhaal gives a wrenching performance of Bauman's brutal recovery process.
Potential Nominations: Best Actor (Jake Gyllenhaal), Best Supporting Actress (Tatiana Maslany)
Battle of the Sexes
The Gist: In 1973, Billie Jean King faced off against self-pronounced "male chauvinist pig," former tennis champ Bobby Rigg, in a highly televised matched called the Battle of the Sexes. King's triumph would symbolise a victory for the feminist movement.
Potential Nominations: Best Picture, Best Actress (Emma Stone), Best Supporting Actor (Steve Carell), Best Original Screenplay
mother!
The Gist: An unnamed woman (Jennifer Lawrence) lives with her husband (Javier Bardem) in a large house. She tries to work on the renovations, but he's busy entertaining many, many uninvited guests. Also, the house may or may not be alive.
Potential Nominations: Best Actress (Jennifer Lawrence), Best Director (Darren Aronofsky)
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