Lifestyle
Your guide to Oscar-nominated movies and where to watch them
So many Oscar nominations, so little time! Let us help.
Dean Treml/AFP via Getty Images
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Dean Treml/AFP via Getty Images
So many Oscar nominations, so little time! Let us help.
Dean Treml/AFP via Getty Images
If the Oscar nominations left you with a long to-watch list, we’ve got you covered. Below are details and past coverage of all the films nominated for Best Picture, Best Actor and Actress, Best Supporting Actor and Actress, and Best Director. Dive in!
Jeffrey Wright in American Fiction.
Claire Folger/Orion Releasing LLC
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Claire Folger/Orion Releasing LLC
Jeffrey Wright in American Fiction.
Claire Folger/Orion Releasing LLC
American Fiction
This feature directorial debut of Cord Jefferson follows a Black author who grudgingly writes a novel filled with antiquated stereotypes.
Nominations: Best picture, actor, supporting actor, adapted screenplay, original score
Where to see it: In theaters
Review: Every era has its own American Fiction, but is there anything new to say?
Essay: Advice from a critic: Read Erasure before seeing American Fiction
Director Interview: What does it mean to be Black enough? Cord Jefferson explores this American Fiction
Actor Interviews: NPR spoke with Jeffrey Wright, Sterling K. Brown and Tracee Ellis Ross
Sandra Hüller in Anatomy of a Fall.
NEON
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NEON
Sandra Hüller in Anatomy of a Fall.
NEON
Anatomy of a Fall
Directed by Justine Triet, this French drama follows a wife who becomes the chief suspect when her husband is found dead, and rifts in their marriage are exposed.
Nominations: Best picture, director, actress, original screenplay, editing
Where to see it: In theaters. Rent or buy it on Amazon, Apple TV, Google Play, Vudu or YouTube
Review: Anatomy of a Fall dissects a marriage and, maybe, a murder
Essay: If you love courtroom dramas, this Oscar-nominated film is not to be missed
Director Interview: Justine Triet on her film Anatomy of a Fall
Roundtable: Anatomy of a Fall autopsies a marriage
Margot Robbie in Barbie.
Warner Bros. Pictures
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Warner Bros. Pictures
Margot Robbie in Barbie.
Warner Bros. Pictures
Barbie
Director Greta Gerwig crafts an extremely self-aware vision of Barbie, with commentary on the patriarchy and the unreasonable expectations placed on women in society.
Nominations: Best picture, supporting actor, supporting actress, adapted screenplay, production design, costume design, original song
Where to see it: In theaters. Stream it on Max. Rent or buy it it on Amazon, Apple TV, Google Play, Vudu or YouTube
Review: Is Barbie corporate propaganda or Malibu Metacommentary? Why not both!
Interview: Barbie music producer Mark Ronson opens up about the film’s ‘bespoke’ sound
Report: Barbie receives 8 Oscar nominations, but was that Kenough?
Report: Barbie is the only billion-dollar blockbuster solely directed by a woman
Roundtable: We spoil Barbie
Danielle Brooks and Fantasia Barrino in The Color Purple.
Eli Adé/Warner Bros. Pictures
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Eli Adé/Warner Bros. Pictures
Danielle Brooks and Fantasia Barrino in The Color Purple.
Eli Adé/Warner Bros. Pictures
The Color Purple
Blitz Bazawule’s adaptation of the Broadway musical is based on the Alice Walker novel. It tells the story of Celie, who survives the abuse by the men in her life and longs to be reunited with the sister who was taken from her.
Nominations: Supporting actress
Where to see it: In theaters. Rent or buy it on Amazon, Google Play, Apple TV, Vudu or YouTube
Review: The new Color Purple exudes joy, but dances past some deeper complexities
Director and Actor Interview: ‘Everyone walked away with part of themselves healed’ – The Color Purple reimagined
Actor Interviews: NPR spoke with Taraji P. Henson and Fantasia Barrino
Report: The Color Purple is the biggest Christmas Day opening since 2009
Roundtable: Revisiting The Color Purple wars
Dominic Sessa and Paul Giamatti in The Holdovers.
Focus Features
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Focus Features
Dominic Sessa and Paul Giamatti in The Holdovers.
Focus Features
The Holdovers
Alexander Payne’s film about a curmudgeonly professor at a prestigious boarding school, who must look after students during Christmas break, and forms a bond with one kid who’s a particular pain in the butt.
Nominations: Best picture, actor, supporting actress, original screenplay, editing
Where to see it: In theaters. Stream it on Peacock. Buy it on Apple TV, Google Play, YouTube, Vudu and Amazon
Review: Alexander Payne keeps real emotion at bay in the coyly comic Holdovers
Actor Interview: Paul Giamatti’s own high school years came in handy in The Holdovers
Roundtable: In The Holdovers, three broken people get schooled
Leonardo DiCaprio and Lily Gladstone in Killers of the Flower Moon.
Apple TV
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Apple TV
Leonardo DiCaprio and Lily Gladstone in Killers of the Flower Moon.
Apple TV
Killers of the Flower Moon
Based on a true story, director Martin Scorsese’s epic film tracks the suspicious murders of members of the Osage Nation in 1920s Oklahoma after they find oil under their tribal land.
Nominations: Best picture, director, actress, supporting actor, production design, costume design, cinematography, editing, original score, original song
Where to see it: In theaters. Stream it on Apple TV+, buy it on Amazon, Vudu, Google Play, YouTube, or Apple TV
Review: Scorsese centers men and their violence once again in Killers of the Flower Moon
Review: ‘You talkin’ to me?’ How Scorsese’s Killers of the Flower Moon gets in your head
Report: How Osage people stepped in to be sure Killers of the Flower Moon got things right
Report: ‘Of course we should be here’: Flower Moon receives a 9-minute ovation at Cannes
Interview: Pressing pause on Killers of the Flower Moon and rethinking Scorsese’s latest
Bradley Cooper and Carey Mulligan in Maestro.
Jason McDonald/Netflix
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Jason McDonald/Netflix
Bradley Cooper and Carey Mulligan in Maestro.
Jason McDonald/Netflix
Maestro
An Old-Hollywood style biopic about the composer and conductor Leonard Bernstein directed and co-written by – and starring Bradley Cooper.
Nominations: Best picture, actor, actress, original screenplay, cinematography, makeup and hairstyling, sound
Where to see it: Stream it on Netflix
Review: Maestro chronicles the brilliant Bernstein — and his disorderly conduct
Review: Bradley Cooper’s Maestro fully captures Bernstein’s charisma and complexity
Director/Actor/Writer Interview: To become the Maestro, Bradley Cooper learned to live the music
Actor Interview: Carey Mulligan on playing the wife of composer Leonard Bernstein in Maestro
Report: Leonard Bernstein’s family defends appearance in Maestro nose flap
Roundtable: Maestro hits some discordant notes
Annette Bening in Nyad.
Liz Parkinson/Liz Parkinson/Netflix
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Liz Parkinson/Liz Parkinson/Netflix
Annette Bening in Nyad.
Liz Parkinson/Liz Parkinson/Netflix
Nyad
Directed by Elizabeth Chai Vasarhelyi and Jimmy Chin, the film tells the true story of a marathon swimmer who attempts to become the first person ever to swim from Cuba to Florida.
Nominations: Best actress, supporting actress
Where to see it: Stream it on Netflix
Director Interview: New film dramatizes Diana Nyad’s 2013 feat: swimming from Cuba to Florida
Cillian Murphy in Oppenheimer.
Universal
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Universal
Cillian Murphy in Oppenheimer.
Universal
Oppenheimer
Christopher Nolan’s film about the brilliant physicist who oversaw the construction of the first atomic bomb at a secret military base in the New Mexico desert.
Nominations: Best picture, director, actor, supporting actor, supporting actress, adapted screenplay, production design, costume design, cinematography, editing, makeup and hairstyling, sound, original score
Where to see it: In theaters. Rent or buy it on Amazon, Apple TV, Google Play, Vudu or YouTube
Director Interview: ‘Like it or not, we live in Oppenheimer’s world,’ says director Christopher Nolan
Review: Nolan’s thriller Oppenheimer is a monument to science and the arrogance of genius
Report: What Oppenheimer left out: the atomic bomb’s fallout in New Mexico
Report: Oppenheimer will screen in Japan in 2024, distributors say
Roundtable: Oppenheimer looks at the building of the bomb, and the lingering fallout
Composer Interview: Composer Ludwig Göransson on Oppenheimer
Interview: Oppenheimer is everywhere. Here’s the science behind the atomic bomb
Teo Yoo and Greta Lee in Past Lives.
A24
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A24
Teo Yoo and Greta Lee in Past Lives.
A24
Past Lives
Celine Song’s film about a woman, played by Greta Lee, who reconnects with her childhood sweetheart and tries to understand both the path she took and the many paths she didn’t.
Nominations: Best picture, original screenplay
Where to see it: In theaters. Rent or buy it on Amazon, Apple TV, Google Play, Vudu or YouTube
Actor Interview: As a kid, Greta Lee identified with Val Kilmer — now, she imagines Past Lives
Review: Across continents and decades, Past Lives is the most affecting love story in ages
Roundtable: Past Lives is a story about love and choices
Director Interview: Past Lives is inspired by filmmaker Celine Song’s own experience with a childhood friend
Emma Stone in Poor Things.
Atsushi Nishijima/Searchlight Pictures
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Atsushi Nishijima/Searchlight Pictures
Emma Stone in Poor Things.
Atsushi Nishijima/Searchlight Pictures
Poor Things
Director Yorgos Lanthimos’ dark comedy about a young woman in Victorian London, who is found and experimented upon by a twisted scientist.
Nominations: Best picture, actress, supporting actor, director, adapted screenplay, original score, cinematography, costume design, film editing, production design, makeup and hairstyling.
Where to see it: In theaters
Review: Unhinged yet uplifting, Poor Things is an un-family-friendly Barbie
Essay: Oscars, take note: ‘Poor Things’ built its weird, unforgettable world from scratch
Director and Actor Interview: In Poor Things, Emma Stone plays a woman exploring the world, learning to be human
Roundtable: Emma Stone comes alive in the imaginative Poor Things
Colman Domingo in Rustin.
Netflix
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Netflix
Colman Domingo in Rustin.
Netflix
Rustin
George C. Wolfe’s film about Bayard Rustin, an advisor to Martin Luther King Jr., who faces discrimination as an openly gay Black man during the Civil Rights movement.
Nominations: Best actor
Where to see it: Stream it on Netflix
Actor Interview: He organized the March on Washington. Why don’t more people know about Bayard Rustin?
Review: ‘Rustin’ tells the story of the man who helped make the March on Washington possible
History: Remembering Bayard Rustin: The Man Behind the March on Washington
Sandra Hüller in The Zone of Interest.
A24
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A24
Sandra Hüller in The Zone of Interest.
A24
The Zone of Interest
Jonathan Glazer’s film about the commandant of Auschwitz, and his wife and children, who live in an idyllic house and garden next to the concentration camp.
Nominations: Best picture, director, international feature, adapted screenplay, sound
Where to see it: In theaters
Review: Chilling Zone of Interest imagines life next door to a death camp
Director Interview: Zone of Interest follows the family life of the Nazi commander at Auschwitz
Roundtable: In The Zone of Interest evil lies just over the garden wall
Want to catch up on last year? Here’s what NPR critics picked as the best movies and TV of 2023.
Clockwise from top left: Mission: Impossible — Dead Reckoning Part One, Passages, Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse, Four Daughters, Only Murders in the Building, Hijack
Paramount Pictures; MUBI; Sony Pictures; Jour2Fête; Hulu; Apple TV+
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Paramount Pictures; MUBI; Sony Pictures; Jour2Fête; Hulu; Apple TV+
Clockwise from top left: Mission: Impossible — Dead Reckoning Part One, Passages, Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse, Four Daughters, Only Murders in the Building, Hijack
Paramount Pictures; MUBI; Sony Pictures; Jour2Fête; Hulu; Apple TV+
Web page produced by Beth Novey.
There’s a three-story house in Baltimore that looks a bit imposing. You walk up the stone steps before even getting up to the porch, and then you enter the door and you’re greeted with a glass case of literary awards. It’s The Clifton House, formerly home of Lucille Clifton.
The National Book Award-winning poet lived there with her husband, Fred, starting in 1967 until the bank foreclosed on the house in 1980. Clifton’s daughter, Sidney Clifton, has since revived the house and turned it into a cultural hub, hosting artists, readings, workshops and more. But even during a February visit, in the mid-afternoon with no organized events on, the house feels full.
The corner of Lucille Clifton’s bedroom, where she would wake up and write in the mornings
Andrew Limbong/NPR
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Andrew Limbong/NPR
“There’s a presence here,” Clifton House Executive Director Joël Díaz told me. “There’s a presence here that sits at attention.”
Sometimes, rooms where famous writers worked can be places of ineffable magic. Other times, they can just be rooms.
Princeton University Press
Katie da Cunha Lewin is the author of the new book, The Writer’s Room: The Hidden Worlds That Shape the Books We Love, which explores the appeal of these rooms. Lewin is a big Virginia Woolf fan, and the very first place Lewin visited working on the book was Monk’s House — Woolf’s summer home in Sussex, England. On the way there, there were dreams of seeing Woolf’s desk, of retracing Woolf’s steps and imagining what her creative process would feel like. It turned out to be a bit of a disappointment for Lewin — everything interesting was behind glass, she said. Still, in the book Lewin writes about how she took a picture of the room and saved it on her phone, going back to check it and re-check it, “in the hope it would allow me some of its magic.”
Let’s be real, writing is a little boring. Unlike a band on fire in the recording studio, or a painter possessed in their studio, the visual image of a writer sitting at a desk click-clacking away at a keyboard or scribbling on a piece of paper isn’t particularly exciting. And yet, the myth of the writer’s room continues to enrapture us. You can head to Massachusetts to see where Louisa May Alcott wrote Little Women. Or go down to Florida to visit the home of Zora Neale Hurston. Or book a stay at the Scott & Zelda Fitzgerald Museum in Alabama, where the famous couple lived for a time. But what, exactly, is the draw?
Lewin said in an interview that whenever she was at a book event or an author reading, an audience question about the writer’s writing space came up. And yes, some of this is basic fan-driven curiosity. But also “it started to occur to me that it was a central mystery about writing, as if writing is a magic thing that just happens rather than actually labor,” she said.
In a lot of ways, the book is a debunking of the myths we’re presented about writers in their rooms. She writes about the types of writers who couldn’t lock themselves in an office for hours on end, and instead had to find moments in-between to work on their art. She covers the writers who make a big show of their rooms, as a way to seem more writerly. She writes about writers who have had their homes and rooms preserved, versus the ones whose rooms have been lost to time and new real estate developments. The central argument of the book is that there is no magic formula to writing — that there is no daily to-do list to follow, no just-right office chair to buy in order to become a writer. You just have to write.
Bruce Johnston
I’m Riding My Last Wave With The Beach Boys
Published
Bruce Johnston is riding off into the California sunset … at least for now.
The Beach Boys legend announced Wednesday he’s stepping away from touring after six decades with the iconic band. The 83-year-old revealed in a statement to Rolling Stone he’s hanging up his touring hat to focus on what he calls part three of his long music career.
“It’s time for Part Three of my lengthy musical career!” Johnston said. “I can write songs forever, and wait until you hear what’s coming!!! As my major talent beyond singing is songwriting, now is the time to get serious again.”
Johnston famously stepped in for co-founder Brian Wilson in 1965 for live performances, becoming a staple of the Beach Boys’ touring lineup ever since. Now, he says he’s shifting gears toward songwriting and even some speaking engagements … with occasional touring member John Stamos helping him craft what he’ll talk about onstage.
“I might even sing ‘Disney Girls’ & ‘I Write The Songs!!’” he teased.
But don’t call it a full-on farewell tour just yet. Johnston made it clear he’s not shutting the door completely, saying he’s excited to reunite with the band for special occasions, including their upcoming July 2-4 shows at the Hollywood Bowl as part of the Beach Boys’ 2026 tour. The run celebrates both the 60th anniversary of “Pet Sounds” and America’s 250th birthday.
“This isn’t goodbye, it’s see you soon,” he wrote. “I am forever grateful to be a part of the Beach Boys musical legacy.”
In 1982, Jean Muenchrath was injured in a mountaineering accident and on the brink of death when a stranger and his family went out of their way to save her life.
Jean Muenchrath
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Jean Muenchrath
In early May 1982, Jean Muenchrath and her boyfriend set out on a mountaineering trip in the Sierra Nevada, a mountain range in California. They had done many backcountry trips in the area before, so the terrain was somewhat familiar to both of them. But after they reached one of the summits, a violent storm swept in. It began to snow heavily, and soon the pair was engulfed in a blizzard, with thunder and lightning reverberating around them.
“Getting struck and killed by lightning was a real possibility since we were the highest thing around for miles and lightning was striking all around us,” Muenchrath said.
To reach safer ground, they decided to abandon their plan of taking a trail back. Instead, using their ice axes, they climbed down the face of the mountain through steep and icy snow chutes.
They were both skilled at this type of descent, but at one particularly difficult part of the route, Muenchrath slipped and tumbled over 100 feet down the rocky mountain face. She barely survived the fall and suffered life-threatening injuries.
This was before cellular or satellite phones, so calling for help wasn’t an option. The couple was forced to hike through deep snow back to the trailhead. Once they arrived, Muenchrath collapsed in the parking lot. It had been five days since she’d fallen.
”My clothes were bloody. I had multiple fractures in my spine and pelvis, a head injury and gangrene from a deep wound,” Muenchrath said.
Not long after they reached the trailhead parking lot, a car pulled in. A man was driving, with his wife in the passenger seat and their baby in the back. As soon as the man saw Muenchrath’s condition, he ran over to help.
”He gently stroked my head, and he held my face [and] reassured me by saying something like, ‘You’re going to be OK now. I’ll be right back to get you,’” Muenchrath remembered.
For the first time in days, her panic began to lift.
“My unsung hero gave me hope that I’d reach a hospital and I’d survive. He took away my fears.”
Within a few minutes, the man had unpacked his car. His wife agreed to stay back in the parking lot with their baby in order to make room for Muenchrath, her boyfriend and their backpacks.
The man drove them to a nearby town so that the couple could get medical treatment.
“I remember looking into the eyes of my unsung hero as he carried me into the emergency room in Lone Pine, California. I was so weak, I couldn’t find the words to express the gratitude I felt in my heart.”
The gratitude she felt that day only grew. Now, nearly 45 years later, she still thinks about the man and his family.
”He gave me the gift of allowing me to live my life and my dreams,” Muenchrath said.
At some point along the way, the man gave Muenchrath his contact information. But in the chaos of the day, she lost it and has never been able to find him.
”If I knew where my unsung hero was today, I would fly across the country to meet him again. I’d hug him, buy him a meal and tell him how much he continues to mean to me by saving my life. Wherever you are, I say thank you from the depths of my being.”
My Unsung Hero is also a podcast — new episodes are released every Tuesday. To share the story of your unsung hero with the Hidden Brain team, record a voice memo on your phone and send it to myunsunghero@hiddenbrain.org.
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