Home » Oscars 2021: Where to Watch all the Nominated Films

Oscars 2021: Where to Watch all the Nominated Films

by Yasmine Kandil
A still from Nomadland, one of the big winners of the 2021 Oscars.

With the end of the 2021 award season capping off with the 93rd Academy Awards, audiences are spoiled with a plethora of choices when it comes to what to watch next. This particular pool of nominees offers a diverse range of content with a multitude of unique stories and characters. Without further ado, here is where you can watch every Oscar nominated film from this year’s awards.

Nomadland

Nominations: Best Picture, Director, Lead Actress, Adapted Screenplay, Cinematography, and Editing

Synopsis: A woman in her sixties who, after losing everything in the Great Recession, embarks on a journey through the American West, living as a van-dwelling modern-day nomad.

Where to watch: Hulu

Sound of Metal

Nominations: Best Picture, Lead Actor, Supporting Actor, Sound, Original Screenplay, and Editing

Synopsis: A heavy-metal drummer’s life is thrown into freefall when he begins to lose his hearing.

Where to watch: Amazon Prime Video

Minari

Nominations: Best Picture, Director, Lead Actor, Supporting Actress, Original Screenplay, and Original Score

Synopsis: A Korean American family moves to an Arkansas farm in search of its own American dream. Amidst the challenges of this new life they discover the undeniable resilience of family and what really makes a home.

Where to watch: VOD (YouTube, Google Play, Apple TV, etc.)

Promising Young Woman

Nominations: Best Picture, Director, Lead Actress, Original Screenplay, and Editing

Synopsis: A young woman, traumatized by a tragic event in her past, seeks out vengeance against those who crossed her path.

Where to watch: VOD (YouTube, Google Play, Apple TV, etc.)

Mank

Nominations: Best Picture, Director, Lead Actor, Supporting Actress, Sound, Production Design, Original Score, Makeup and Hairstyling, Costume Design, and Cinematography

Synopsis: 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.

Where to watch: Netflix

The Father

Nominations: Best Picture, Lead Actor, Supporting Actress, Adapted Screenplay, Editing, and Production Design

Synopsis: 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.

Where to watch: Amazon Prime Video

Judas and the Black Messiah

Nominations: Best Picture, Supporting Actor (x2), Original Song, Original Screenplay, and Cinematography

Synopsis: Bill O’Neal (LaKeith Stanfield) infiltrates the Black Panther Party per FBI Agent Mitchell and J. Edgar Hoover. As Party Chairman Fred Hampton (Daniel Kaluuya) ascends, falling for a fellow revolutionary en route, a battle wages for O’Neal’s soul.

Where to watch: VOD (YouTube, Google Play, Apple TV, etc.)

The Trial of the Chicago 7

Nominations: Best Picture, Supporting Actor, Original Screenplay, Editing, Cinematography and Original Song

Synopsis: The story of 7 individuals on trial stemming from various charges surrounding the uprising at the 1968 Democratic National Convention in Chicago, Illinois.

Where to watch: Netflix

Another Round

Nominations: Director and International Feature Film

Synopsis: 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.

Where to watch: Hulu

Borat Subsequent Moviefilm

Nominations: Supporting Actress and Adapted Screenplay

Synopsis: Borat returns from Kazakhstan to America and this time he reveals more about the American culture, the COVID-19 pandemic and the political elections.

Where to watch: Amazon Prime Video

Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom

Nominations: Lead Actress, Lead Actor, Production Design, Makeup and Hairstyling, and Costume Design

Synopsis: 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”.

Where to watch: Netflix

Soul

Nominations: Animated Feature, Sound, and Original Score

Synopsis: 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.

Where to watch: Disney+

One Night in Miami

Nominations: Supporting Actor, Adapted Screenplay, and Original Song

Synopsis: 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.

Where to watch: Amazon Prime Video

Pieces of a Woman

Nominations: Lead Actress

Synopsis: When a young mother’s home birth ends in unfathomable tragedy, she begins a year-long odyssey of mourning that fractures relationships with loved ones in this deeply personal story of a woman learning to live alongside her loss.

Where to watch: Netflix

Tenet

Nominations: Visual Effects and Production Design

Synopsis: Armed with only one word and fighting for the survival of the entire world, a Protagonist journeys through a twilight world of international espionage on a mission that will unfold in something beyond real time.

Where to watch: VOD (YouTube, Google Play, Apple TV, etc.)

Da 5 Bloods

Nominations: Original Score

Synopsis: Four African-American vets battle the forces of man and nature when they return to Vietnam seeking the remains of their fallen squad leader and the gold fortune he helped them hide.

Where to watch: Netflix

Emma

Nominations: Makeup and Hairstyling and Costume Design

Synopsis: Based on the Jane Austen novel by the same name. In 1800s England, a well-meaning but selfish young woman meddles in the love lives of her friends.

Where to watch: HBO Max

Onward

Nominations: Animated Feature

Synopsis: Two elven brothers embark on a quest to bring their father back for one day.

Where to watch: Disney+

Hillbilly Elegy

Nominations: Supporting Actress and Makeup and Hairstyling

Synopsis: An urgent phone call pulls a Yale Law student back to his Ohio hometown, where he reflects on three generations of family history and his own future.

Where to watch: Netflix

News of the World

Nominations: Sound, Production Design, Original Score and Cinematography

Synopsis: A Civil War veteran agrees to deliver a girl, taken by the Kiowa people years ago, to her aunt and uncle, against her will. They travel hundreds of miles and face grave dangers as they search for a place that either can call home.

Where to watch: Netflix

Wolfwalkers

Nominations: Animated Feature

Synopsis: 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.

Where to watch: Apple TV+

My Octopus Teacher

Nominations: Documentary Feature

Synopsis: 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.

Where to watch: Netflix

The Midnight Sky

Nominations: Visual Effects

Synopsis: A post-apocalyptic tale follows Augustine, a lonely scientist in the Arctic, as he races to stop Sully and her fellow astronauts from returning home to a mysterious global catastrophe.

Where to watch: Netflix

Eurovision Song Contest: The Story Of Fire Saga 

Nominations: Original Song

Synopsis: When aspiring musicians Lars and Sigrit are given the opportunity to represent their country at the world’s biggest song competition, they finally have a chance to prove that any dream worth having is a dream worth fighting for.

Where to watch: Netflix

Collective

Nominations: International Feature and Documentary Feature

Synopsis: 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

Where to watch: VOD (YouTube, Google Play, Apple TV, etc.)

Mulan

Nominations: Visual Effects and Costume Design

Synopsis: A live-action rendition of Disney’s iconic animated feature. A young Chinese maiden disguises herself as a male warrior in order to save her father.

Where to watch: Disney+

Greyhound

Nominations: Sound

Synopsis: Several months after the U.S. entry into World War II, an inexperienced U.S. Navy commander must lead an Allied convoy being stalked by a German submarine wolf pack.

Where to watch: Apple TV+

Over the Moon

Nominations: Animated Feature

Synopsis: In this animated musical, a girl builds a rocket ship and blasts off, hoping to meet a mythical moon goddess.

Where to watch: Netflix

The United States vs. Billie Holiday

Nominations: Lead Actress

Synopsis: Follows Billie Holiday (Andra Day) during her career as she is targeted by the Federal Department of Narcotics with an undercover sting operation led by black Federal Agent Jimmy Fletcher (Trevante Rhodes), with whom she had a tumultuous affair.

Where to watch: Hulu

The White Tiger

Nominations: Adapted Screenplay

Synopsis: An ambitious Indian driver uses his wit and cunning to escape from poverty and rise to the top. An epic journey based on the New York Times bestseller.

Where to watch: Netflix

Quo Vadis, Aida?

Nominations: International Feature

Synopsis: 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.

Where to watch: Hulu

The One and Only Ivan

Nominations: Visual Effects

Synopsis: A gorilla named Ivan tries to piece together his past with the help of an elephant named Ruby as they hatch a plan to escape from captivity.

Where to watch: Disney+

A Shaun the Sheep Movie: Farmageddon

Nominations: Animated Feature

Synopsis: 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.

Where to watch: Netflix

Pinocchio

Nominations: Makeup and Hairstyling and Costume Design

Synopsis: Old woodcarver Geppetto’s puppet creation, Pinocchio, magically comes to life with dreams of becoming a real boy. .

Where to watch: VOD (YouTube, Google Play, Apple TV, etc.)

The Mole Agent

Nominations: Documentary Feature

Synopsis: 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.

Where to watch: Hulu

The Life Ahead

Nominations: Original Song

Synopsis: In seaside Italy, a Holocaust survivor with a daycare business takes in a 12-year-old street kid who recently robbed her.

Where to watch: Netflix

Time

Nominations: Documentary Feature

Synopsis: Fox Rich fights for the release of her husband, Rob, who is serving a 60-year sentence in prison.

Where to watch: Amazon Prime Video

If Anything Happens I Love You

Nominations: Animated Short

Synopsis: In the aftermath of tragedy, two grieving parents journey through an emotional void as they mourn the loss of a child.

Where to watch: Netflix

Better Days

Nominations: International Feature

Synopsis: A bullied teenage girl forms an unlikely friendship with a mysterious young man who protects her from her assailants, all while she copes with the pressures of her final examinations.

Where to watch: Hulu

The Man Who Sold His Skin

Nominations: International Feature

Synopsis: His own body turned into a living work of art and promptly exhibited in a museum, Sam, a Syrian refugee, will soon realize to have sold away more than just his skin.

Where to watch: Hulu

Crip Camp

Nominations: Documentary Feature

Synopsis: 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.

Where to watch: Netflix

The Present

Nominations: Live Action Short

Synopsis: Yusef and his young daughter set out in the West Bank, Palastine to buy his wife a gift on their wedding anniversary.

Where to watch: Netflix

Feeling Through

Nominations: Live Action Short

Synopsis: A homeless teen meets a deaf-blind man at a bus stop who changes his life forever.

Where to watch: YouTube

The Letter Room

Nominations: Live Action Short

Synopsis: An empathetic corrections officer played by Oscar Issac, gets transferred to the prison’s letter room, where he finds escape in the deeply personal letters written to an inmate on death row.

Where to watch: Topic

Two Distant Strangers

Nominations: Live Action Short

Synopsis: A man trying to get home to his dog gets stuck in a time loop that forces him to relive a deadly run-in with a cop.

Where to watch: Netflix

White Eye

Nominations: Live Action Short

Synopsis: A man finds his stolen bicycle, which now belongs to a stranger. While attempting to retrieve it, he struggles to remain human.

Where to watch: ShortsTV

Opera

Nominations: Animated Short

Synopsis: A retelling of society and history’s stories.

Where to watch: ShortsTV with ticketed viewing

Genius Loci

Nominations: Animated Short

Synopsis: One night, Reine, a young loner, sees the urban chaos as a mystical oneness that seems alive, like some sort of guide.

Where to watch: Vimeo

Burrow

Nominations: Animated Short

Synopsis: A young rabbit embarks on a journey to dig the burrow of her dreams, despite not having a clue what she’s doing. 

Where to watch: Disney+

Yes-People

Nominations: Animated Short

Synopsis: One morning an eclectic mix of people faces the everyday battle – such as work, school and dish-washing. 

Where to watch: Vimeo

Colette

Nominations: Documentary Short

Synopsis: Nazi occupied France. Resistance took courage. Seventy-five years later, Facing one’s ghosts may take even more.

Where to watch: YouTube

A Concerto is a Conversation

Nominations: Documentary Short

Synopsis: Director Kris Bowers’s conversations with his grandfather about personal and family history.

Where to watch: YouTube

Do Not Split

Nominations: Documentary Short

Synopsis: The story of the 2019 Hong Kong protests, told through a series of demonstrations by local protesters that escalate into conflict when highly armed police appear on the scene.

Where to watch: Vimeo and YouTube

Hunger Ward

Nominations: Documentary Short

Synopsis: Two female health care workers fight to save the lives of hunger-stricken children within a population on the brink of famine.

Where to watch: Pluto TV

A Love Song for Latasha

Nominations: Documentary Short

Synopsis: A reimagined narrative of Latasha Harlins, a girl shot and killed at a convenience store in 1991, through intimate memories shared by her cousin and best friend.

Where to watch: Netflix

The Final Award Winners of 2021:

Follow writer Yasmine Kandil on Twitter: @byebyebucky

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