If the nominations for the 2023 Academy Awards tell us anything, it’s that the movies are back, baby: After two years of pandemic disruption, and following last year’s ceremony, during which a film released by Apple on its streaming service took home Best Picture, the vast majority of this year’s Oscar nominees played first in theaters. Also telling: For the first time in two years, you actually have to venture out to theaters if you want to see all of the Best Picture nominees in advance of the ceremony on March 12.
A handful of Best Picture nominees—Top Gun: Maverick; Avatar: The Way of Water; Elvis; Everything Everywhere All at Once—were even box office hits, which is more than you can say for the likes of many recent contenders, even before COVID threatened to kill moviegoing forever. It’s anyone’s guess if the excitement over populist favorites will result in stronger ratings for the Oscar ceremony itself, which is coming off of two years of historic lows. If the recent Golden Globes viewership numbers are any indication, I wouldn’t put money on it.
But good ratings or no, I’m personally pretty happy with this year’s slate of nominees—or the ones I’ve seen, anyway; I’ve got some catching up to do before the little gold guys are handed out. If you do too, here’s the skinny on where you can stream all of the major awards contenders (I’ll continue to update this post as more become available).
Where to stream Everything Everywhere All at Once
Number of nominations: 11
If you haven’t yet seen this oddball action movie/family drama/sci-fi romp in which Michelle Yeoh and Ke Huy Quan (Indiana Jones’ Short Round, all grown up) run afoul of a multiverse-traveling villain (Stephanie Hsu), read nothing more about it, skip the trailer, and watch it immediately. If you need more convincing, consider it leads the pack this year with 11 nomination, including for all three aforementioned actors, Jamie Lee Curtis for Best Supporting Actress, Best Original Screenplay and Best Direction for co-masterminds Daniel Kwan & Daniel Scheinert, and Best Picture—and certainly it’s the weirdest movie ever so rapturously received.
Where to stream: Showtime, DirecTV, digital rental ($19.99)
Where to stream All Quiet on the Western Front
Number of nominations: 9
No worries if you haven’t heard of this German war epic, which premiered quietly on Netflix in October and rode a recent wave of awards and critical buzz to nine nominations, including Best Picture, Best International Film, and Best Adapted Screenplay. It’s the second third film adaptation of the 1929 novel by Erich Maria Remarque, which is based on the author’s experience in the German army during the first world war; the 1930 version actually won Best Picture way back when.
Where to stream: Netflix
Where to stream The Banshees of Inisherin
Number of nominations: 9
The latest film from previous Academy Award nominee Martin McDonagh (Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri) reunites Colin Farrell and Brendan Gleeson, the stars of McDonagh’s darkly comic crime thriller In Bruges, for a, uh, darkly comic crime drama about the disastrous dissolution of a lifelong friendship. Nominations include Best Actor for Farrell, Best Supporting Actor for both Gleeson and costar Barry Keoghan, Best Supporting Actress for Kerry Condon, Best Director, and Best Original Screenplay.
Where to stream: HBO Max, digital rental ($3.99)
Where to stream Elvis
Number of nominations: 8
Like Rami Malek before him, Austin Butler heads into the Academy Awards ceremony the odds-on favorite to win Best Actor for playing a legendary musician. And like Malek, who won the Oscar for playing Freddie Mercury in 2018's Bohemian Rhapsody, Butler is also headlining a Best Picture-nominated biopic about a singer who died tragically young. Baz Luhrmann may have missed out on a nomination for his frenetic direction, but Elvis did receive a raft of other nominations, including for previous winner Catherine Martin’s costume design.
Where to stream: HBO Max, digital rental ($5.99)
Where to stream The Fabelmans
Number of nominations: 7
Stephen Spielberg’s latest—a nominee for Best Picture, Best Director, and Best Original Screenplay—was sold as a roman a clef about his childhood love affair with the magic of the movies, but the trailer promises a far different film than the rather somber final product, which is mostly an examination of the lightly fictionalized dissolution of the marriage between the director’s parental stand-ins, played by Paul Dano and Michelle Williams (Oscar-nominated for Best Actress). A massive box office disappointment (not unlike Spielberg’s adaptation of West Side Story last year), it very much deserves a wider audience (and, ironically enough for a movie with a foundational scene about the thrill of sitting in a cinema, it happens to play quite well at home).
Where to stream: Digital rental ($19.99)
Where to stream Top Gun: Maverick
Number of nominations: 6
A year ago, no one expected the long-gestating sequel to the dated and, I’ll say it, actually pretty bad ‘80s blockbuster Top Gun would become an Oscar favorite, and yet here we are: The movie came out, kicked ass, and became a huge movie-theater-saving box office success. Tom Cruise missed out on the Best Actor nomination costar Jennifer Connelly was calling for, but the movie did snag Best Picture and Best Adapted Screenplay nominations, plus the expected nods in the technical categories—plus one for Lady Gaga’s end credits ballad “Hold My Hand.”
Where to stream: Paramount+, digital rental ($3.99)
Where to stream Tàr
Number of nominations: 6
Writer/director Todd Field has stayed under the radar in Hollywood since the release of his three-time Oscar-nominated adaptation of the Tom Perrotta novel Little Children in 2006, but lost none of his edge in the intervening years. Followup Tàr, about a celebrated composer and conductor (an all-consuming Cate Blanchett) who runs afoul of cancel culture, earned even more potential laurels, including nominations for Best Picture, Best Actress for Blanchett, Best Director, and Best Original Screenplay.
Where to stream: Digital rental ($5.99), or on Peacock starting Jan. 27
Where to stream Black Panther: Wakanda Forever
Number of nominations: 5
Though not quite as culturally significant nor as critically beloved as the first Black Panther, Wakanda Forever still managed to garner outsized awards attention for a Marvel movie with five total nominations—and Best Supporting Actress nominee Angela Bassett, a recent victor at the Golden Globes, has a real shot at taking home the first acting award for a comic book movie for someone not slathered in the Joker’s greasepaint. (If trailers could earn Oscars, I’d hand it to this one’s teaser, which is better than the movie.)
Where to stream: On Disney+ Jan. 31
Where to stream Avatar: The Way of Water
Number of nominations: 4
James Cameron didn’t get a Best Director nod for his 13-years-in-the-making sequel to the biggest movie of all time. He’ll have to settle for a third consecutive Best Picture nomination (alongside a trio of technical nods), not to mention that $2 billion in box office.
Where to stream: It’ll show up on Disney+ as soon as it has stopped making boatloads of money at the box office (but do try to see it on the big screen)
Where to stream Babylon
Number of nominations: 3
Director Damien Chazelle’s latest behind-the-scenes Hollywood epic is no La La Land, failing at the box office, drawing a mixed reception from critics, and landing only three below-the-line Oscar nominations—but one of them is for Justin Hurwitz’s score, and it’s an absolute banger, and it will probably win.
Where to stream: Digital rental ($19.99)
Where to stream The Batman
Number of nominations: 3
Within the comic book genre, movies about the Caped Crusader continue to receive outsized attention from the Oscars. Minus the latest revisionary take on the Joker, though, director Matt Reeves’ 2022 entry The Batman had to settle for nods for visual effects, makeup and hair, and sound.
Where to stream: HBO Max, digital rental ($3.99)
Where to stream Triangle of Sadness
Number of nominations: 3
A bunch of disgustingly rich people endure a truly horrific not-so-pleasurable pleasure cruise in this satire, winner of the Palm d’Or at the 2022 Cannes Film Festival, which earned three nominations, including Best Picture and both Best Director and Best Original Screenplay for Swedish filmmaker Ruben Östlund. (Sadly there is no category for “Best Extended Vomiting Sequence.”)
Where to stream: Digital rental ($5.99), on Hulu March 3
Where to stream The Whale
Number of nominations: 3
The latest from director Darren Aronofsky (Black Swan) has courted controversy for its screenplay (based on the acclaimed play by Samuel D. Hunter), which some have called out for its fatphobia, as well as for sticking lead actor Brendan Fraser in a fat suit instead of casting an actual fat person. But few have claimed the actor isn’t revelatory in the role; his nomination was a foregone conclusion in the wake of the film’s premiere at the Venice International Film Festival in September. And controversy aside, that fat suit also earned the film a Best Makeup nod; Hong Chau is also nominated for Best Supporting Actress for playing the caregiver to Fraser’s character.
Where to stream: Digital rental ($19.99)
Where to stream Women Talking
Number of nominations: 2
Actress-turned filmmaker Sarah Polley’s latest is a hushed but fiery feminist drama set among the female members of a restrictive religious community as they meet to discuss abuses committed against them. Though it missed out on major acting nominations for the women in the cast, Polley herself earned a Best Adapted Screenplay nod for her take on Miriam Toews’ novel, and the film snagged a coveted Best Picture slot.
Where to stream: Digital rental ($19.99)
Where to stream Living
Number of nominations: 2
This under-the-radar drama about a British public works employee (Best Actor nominee Bill Nighy) facing a fatal illness also earned a nomination for Best Adapted Screenplay, which is unsurprising if you know it is based on the celebrated 1952 Japanese film Ikiru, from master filmmaker Ikira Kurosawa, and was penned by Nobel Prize-winner Kazuo Ishiguro.
Where to stream: Nowhere yet
Where to stream RRR
Number of nominations: 1
For a brief, shining moment, it seemed like this wacky, three-hour Bollywood action epic had a shot at a Best Picture (or at least Best International Feature Film) nomination, but it had to settle for a single nod for Best Original song for “Naatu Naatu.” Ah well, it’s a pretty great song.
Where to stream: Netflix
Where to stream Aftersun
Number of nominations: 1
I follow a ton of film critics on Twitter, and they all seemed to be huge fans of this British drama about a young girl (Frankie Corio) on vacation with her troubled father (Paul Mescal). They are all celebrating Mescal’s somewhat unexpected nomination for Best Actor. As a Film Twitter hanger-on, I am very happy for them.
Where to stream: Digital rental ($3.99)
Where to stream Blonde
Number of nominations: 1
Consider this something of a pity nod (if not a wholly deserved one) for Ana de Armas, nominated for Best Actress for playing a very nearly literally tortured Marilyn Monroe in writer/director Andrew Dominik’s reviled Hollywood biopic, which I still can’t quite bring myself to watch.
Where to stream: Netflix
Where to stream To Leslie
Number of nominations: 1
After a strong social media push, Andrea Riseborough earned a surprise Best Actress nomination for playing a working class woman who wins the lottery, squanders the money, and tries to pick up the pieces in the debut feature from director Michael Morris.
Where to stream: Digital rental ($6.99)
Where to stream Causeway
Number of nominations: 1
Apple TV+ won Best Picture for last year’s CODA, but this year, the streamer nabbed only a single nomination, for Atlanta star Brian Tyree Henry’s supporting performance in this Jennifer Lawrence-starring drama about a veteran soldier dealing with a traumatic brain injury.
Where to stream: Apple TV+
Where to stream Empire of Light
Number of nominations: 1
The third of the year’s big three meditations on the power of movies (after The Fabelmans and Babylon), and the least nominated, earning only one award for Roger Deakins’ cinematography. At one point it looked like Empire of Light would notch lead Olivia Coleman her fourth Oscar nomination (for playing a widowed theater owner who embarks on a tentative, later-in-life romance) and bring director Same Mendes (American Beauty, 1917) back into the awards conversation. Not so much, but at least it looks real pretty.
Where to stream: Arriving on HBO Max Feb. 7
Where to Stream Bardo, False Chronicle of a Handful of Truths
Number of nominations: 1
The Oscar buzz for the latest Netflix-supported film from two-time Best Director Oscar winner Alejandro G. Iñárritu (The Revenant, Birdman), which, come to think of it, is also about a filmmaker navel-gazing, died pretty much the second it finished its premiere screening at the Venice International Film Festival. My primary reaction to the trailer: That looks like it would be fun to watch while high. Maybe that’s how it still managed to eke out a single nod for Darius Khondji’s cinematography.
Where to stream: Netflix
Where to stream Glass Onion: A Knives Out Mystery
Number of nominations: 1
For a minute it looked like Rian Johnson’s followup to Knives Out would be a major Oscar contender, but in the end, it mirrored its predecessor, garnering only a nomination for Best Original Screenplay. Johnson will no doubt cry himself to sleep atop the pile of money Netflix paid him for the rights to the franchise.
Where to stream: Netflix
Where to stream the 2023 Best International Feature Film nominees
All Quiet on the Western Front (Germany): Netflix
Argentina, 1985 (Argentina): Prime Video
The Quiet Girl (Ireland): Nowhere yet
Where to stream the 2023 Best Animated Feature Film nominees
Guillermo del Toro’s Pinocchio: Netflix
Marcel the Shell with Shoes On: Digital rental ($3.99)
Puss in Boots: The Last Wish: Digital rental ($22.99)
The Sea Beast: Netflix
Turning Red: Disney+
Where to stream the 2023 Best Documentary Feature Film nominees
All That Breathes: HBO Max
All the Beauty and the Bloodshed: Arriving on HBO Max March 19
Fire of Love: Disney+
A House Made of Splinters: Digital rental ($6.99), digital purchase ($3.99)
Navalny: HBO Max
Updated Jan. 31 to add streaming info for Babylon, All That Breathes, and Empire of Light. Updated Feb. 23 to add streaming info for The Whale, EO, and A House Made of Splinters. Updated Feb. 28 to update streaming info for Triangle of Sadness.