The Holdovers, Oppenheimer, Zone Of Interest... where to see the Oscar-nominated films in Ireland
The Holdovers, Killers Of The Flower Moon, Maestro, and Oppenheimer are among the best picture nominees at the Oscars.
Great character actor Jeffrey Wright takes leading-man status in this clever and funny satire. He’s excellent in Cord Jefferson’s dramedy about a black author who resists writing about the racial tropes expected of him by publishers.
When authors who do so eclipse him, he takes a fit of pique and writes an outlandish tale about the black experience, donning a fake name and pretending the author is a fugitive from police.
To his dismay but also joy at his proven point, the book becomes the subject of a bidding war between publishers. A secondary tale about the author’s family life knits well into the storyline.
French filmmaker Justine Triet’s crime thriller centres on a couple and their son who live in a chalet in a remote town in the French Alps.
When one day the father is found dead in the snow beneath the chalet, an investigation begins as to whether he took his own life or something more sinister should be suspected.
The film, told in French, also stars a French border collie named Messi, who was the centre of attention among his Hollywood co-stars at this year’s Oscars luncheon.
Life in plastic is fantastic in filmmaker Greta Gerwig’s biggest girl-power offering yet.
By far the most successful film ever at the Irish box office, Barbie sees Margot Robbie stepping into the stilettos of the world’s most-iconic doll, and taking a few knowing looks at how society views beauty in the process.
Joining her is the hilariously permatanned and clingy Ken, in a performance milked for all its comic worth by Ryan Gosling.
Paul Giamatti is reunited with Alexander Payne, who directed him in Sideways, in a 1970s-set story about a teacher landed with a nightmare job.
Giamatti goes full curmudgeon as the teacher of a posh but strict boarding school for boys, tasked with looking after a small group who have to remain at the school over Christmas.
Friction is guaranteed and managed by the school’s head cook (a wonderful Da’Vine Joy Randolph) who is struggling with the loss of her son in Vietnam. Payne’s film has lots to say about privilege and life stuff - often in very funny and moving ways.
Iconic filmmaker Martin Scorsese turns his lens to a dark period in Native American history in this film based on true historical accounts.
Based on the bestseller by David Grann, the film is set in 1920s Oklahoma and tells the story of the oil-wealthy Osage Nation and a series of brutal crimes committed against them.
Lily Gladstone’s Mollie serves as a counterpoint to the amorality her people face in what became known as the Reign of Terror.
Following the success of A Star Is Born, Bradley Cooper again turns director as well as star of the story of musical genius Leonard Bernstein.
This is not the standard music biopic and specifically, the film focuses not just on Bernstein’s most-prolific successes as a composer but on his relationship with his wife Felicia Montealegre (a very good Carey Mulligan).
Shot in both black and white and in colour, and spanning several decades of their lives, it's a story that’s both big and intimate in its telling of a relationship that’s deeply complicated.
Cillian Murphy is Oscar-nominated for playing J Robert Oppenheimer in Christopher Nolan’s large-scale historical tale.
Murphy gives the performance of his career as the gifted physicist, tasked with overseeing the top-secret and controversial Manhattan Project that would lead to the use of the world’s first-ever atomic bombs in Hiroshima and Nagasaki.
Nolan’s film focuses on both the build-up to the development of the bomb and its aftermath years later, as he comes under investigation in a series of 1954 hearings.
Oppenheimer is the biggest player in this year’s Oscars with thirteen nominations - more than any other film in contention.
A wonderful exploration not only of a ‘what-if’ romance but the very nature of identity, Past Lives is a sparkling debut from filmmaker Celine Song.
Told in English and Korean, it centres around two close Korean friends who are reunited after decades apart.
The teenagers are friends since childhood - and may be in the first flushes of a romance.
But both of their lives are upended when her family moves to the US and she grows up in a completely different environment to the one she was born into.
Many years after they were separated, an old friend gets in touch.
Ireland’s Element Pictures have landed a hugely impressive 11 nominations - including for Irish producers Ed Guiney and Andrew Lowe and cinematographer Robbie Ryan - for their latest collaboration with Yorgos Lanthimos (The Lobster).
Emma Stone is favourite to win Best Actress for her gutsy performance in this wild feminist Frankenstein tale.
She plays Bella Baxter, a woman brought back to life in a strange experiment from an unorthodox scientist (Willem Defoe) in Victorian times.
She’s the ultimate free spirit, refusing to defer to the men who want to control her. It’s when Bella discovers both her sexuality and the outside world she’s been sheltered from that the real chaos begins.
The latest film from Jonathan Glazer (Under the Skin) is adapted from the book by Martin Amis and based on the true story of Nazi Commandant Rudolf Hoss, who worked at Auschwitz for three years.
During this time Hoss and his wife Hedwig strived to build an ideal life and home for themselves right next to the mass death camp.
Regarded as responsible for the deaths of millions, Hoss and his wife resided in the place she described as “paradise”.
- The Academy Awards take place on March 10
