While many of this year's Oscar winners and nominated films are now available to watch in the UAE, some are yet to get a screening.
These include No Other Land, the Palestinian-Israeli production that won Best Documentary on Sunday. The documentary, which depicts the struggles faced by Palestinian journalist Basel Adra as he attempts to protect his West Bank village Masafer Yatta from Israeli settlers, is the first Palestinian film to win an Oscar.
Other big winners of the night, including Best Picture Anora and The Brutalist, which won Adrien Brody his second Best Actor Oscar, are also yet to release in the UAE.
But there's still lot to catch up online and at the cinemas, including the blockbuster musical Wicked, which won two Oscars, and Best Live Action Short Film winner The Bad Robot.
A Complete Unknown
Number of nominations: 8, including Best Picture
Where to watch: Cinemas
From the director of Walk the Line, which earned Reese Witherspoon her first Oscar, comes a film about Bob Dylan, considered one of the greatest songwriters of all time. Based on the book Dylan Goes Electric!, it centres around Dylan's early days as a folk musician and his experimentations with electric instruments.
It's one of the year's most nominated films, including Best Actor nod for Timothee Chalamet, for his portrayal of Dylan; Best Supporting Actor for Edward Norton, who plays musician and friend Pete Seeger; and Best Supporting Actress for Monica Barbaro, who plays musician Joan Baez.
Wicked
Number of nominations: 7, including Best Picture
Where to watch: Cinemas
This film adaptation of the hit Broadway musical is one of the most popular films of 2024, and has earned top nominations including Best Picture and Best Actor for Cynthia Erivo and Best Supporting Actress for Ariana Grande.
Split into two parts, with the second one planned for release this year, this film covers the musical's first act, serving as an origin story for the Wicked Witch of the West, one of the characters in the classic children's novel The Wonderful Wizard of Oz.
Read The National's review here.
Dune: Part Two
Number of nominations: 5, including Best Picture
Where to watch: OSN+
Acclaimed director Denis Villeneuve's follow-up to his 2021 blockbuster was a critical and commercial success, earning more than $700 million globally, according to Box Office Mojo.
Picking up where the first film trailed off, Dune: Part Two follows Paul Atreides (Chalamet) as he rallies the Fremen tribe to retake the desert planet Arrakis from the Harkonnens, who launched a bloody assault against the House Atreides for the planet’s control.
Read The National's review here.
Emilia Perez
Number of nominations: 13, including Best Picture
Where to watch: OSN+
This year's most nominated film is an unusual one. A musical crime drama mostly in Spanish, featuring some top Hollywood stars and directed by French filmmaker Jacques Audiard, it centres around a Mexican drug lord who enlists the help of a lawyer to help her disappear.
The most-nominated non-English film in Oscar history, nominations include Best Picture, Best Director for Audiard, Best Actress for Karla Sofia Gascon and Best Supporting Actress for Zoe Saldana. Pop star and actress Selena Gomez also stars in this film.
The Substance
Number of nominations: 5, including Best Picture
Where to watch: OSN+
Already an awards season favourite, this horror film's original take on societal pressures on women's bodies and aging has struck a chord with critics and audiences.
Demi Moore plays a faded Hollywood star who experiments with “The Substance”, a black market serum that promises a younger, more perfect version of herself. But when her current self and new self begin to fight for dominance, it leads to deadly consequences.
Moore recently won a Golden Globe for her performance.
Sugarcane
Number of nominations: 1, for Best Documentary Feature
Where to watch: Disney+
A National Geographic film, this distressing documentary looks at the history of the Canadian Indian residential school system, a network of boarding schools used to isolate Indigenous children from their families and culture in the 1800s so they could “assimilate better” into the dominant Euro-centric society.
Oscar-nominee Lily Gladstone, known for her role in Killers of the Flower Moon, serves as executive producer.
The Wild Robot
Number of nominations: 3, including Best Animated Feature
Where to watch: Apple TV
DreamWorks's sci-fi animated film features a cast of A-list voice actors, including Oscar-winner Lupita Nyong'o. She voices the lead, a robot named Roz, who, after being abandoned on an uninhabited island, befriends the resident animals and sets off on a life-changing adventure with them.
The Apprentice
Number of nominations: 2, including Best Actor
Where to watch: Apple TV
It's the film Donald Trump didn't want the world to see. Focusing on the early rise of the US President as a businessman in 1980s New York, when he worked for his father's real estate firm, the biopic earned an eight-minute standing ovation when it premiered at the Cannes Film Festival.
Directed by Iranian-Danish filmmaker Ali Abbasi, the film stars Sebastian Stan – who's earned a Best Actor nomination – as Trump, while Jeremy Strong, who plays lawyer Roy Cohn, is also nominated for Best Supporting Actor.
Read The National's review here.
Kingdom of the Planet of the Apes
Number of nominations: 1, for Best Visual Effects
Where to watch: Apple TV
The fourth instalment in the Planet of the Apes reboot film series picks up centuries later, where memories of the great leader Caesar, an ape raised by humans, are all but forgotten. The Earth has reverted to forest and jungle, and apes are primarily in tribe-based societies, living in harmony with the land and each other. But when a violent new ape leader claims Caesar's legacy, other peaceful apes work with humans to restore balance.
Read The National's review here.
Alien: Romulus
Number of nominations: 1, for Best Visual Effects
Where to watch: Disney+
Set between the events of Alien (1979) and Aliens (1986), Alien: Romulus follows a group of indentured servants who attempt to escape their labour colony by hijacking an abandoned ship, only to find out they may not be the only ones on board. The film has been described as a loving ode to the entire franchise.
Gladiator II
Number of nominations: 1, for Best Costume Design
Where to watch: Apple TV
Ridley Scott's revival of his 2000 classic finds Paul Mescal filling the sandals of Russell Crowe. Mescal plays Lucius Verus Aurelius, an exiled Prince of Rome, who becomes an enslaved gladiator for a man secretly plotting to overthrow the Roman emperors.
Better Man
Number of nominations: 1, for Best Visual Effects
Where to watch: Apple TV
Robbie Williams, but make it monkey? This biopic of the British pop star features him portrayed as a CGI monkey, brought to the big screen by director Michael Gracey of The Greatest Showman fame.
The Six Triple Eight
Number of nominations: 1, for Best Original Song
Where to watch: Netflix
Tyler Perry's war drama tells the story of the 6888, an all-black, all-female battalion, who, during the Second World War, played an important role in maintaining the morale of American soldiers. The women faced not just the dangers of war but also discrimination while doing their jobs.
The film is nominated in the Best Original Song category for The Journey by HER, a performance songwriter Diane Warren has described as “Whitney level”.
Maria
Number of nominations: 1, for Best Cinematography
Where to watch: Netflix
Angelina Jolie plays renowned American-Greek opera singer Maria Callas in this biopic, which focuses on her final days as she reckons with her identity and life after a glamorous and tumultuous life in the public eye.
Cinematographer Edward Lachman is nominated for Best Cinematography.
Wallace & Gromit: Vengeance Most Fowl
Number of nominations: 1, for Best Animated Feature
Where to watch: Netflix
The sixth film in the hit British animation series follows top dog Gromit, who races against time to save his master Wallace after his high-tech invention goes rogue and he's framed for a series of crimes.
The claymation film holds a 100 per cent rating on review aggregator Rotten Tomatoes.
Anuja
Number of nominations: 1, for Best Live Action Short Film
Where to watch: Netflix
Produced by Priyanka Chopra and Mindy Kaling, this 22-minute film follows Anuja, 9, who works in a sweatshop along with her sister Palak. One day, Anuja gets offered the chance of a lifetime to attend a boarding school, and she must make a decision which will affect her and her sister's life forever.
Nickel Boys
Number of nominations: 2, including Best Picture
Where to watch: Prime Video
Adapted from the Pulitzer Prize-winning novel of the same name, Nickel Boys chronicles the friendship between two black boys, Elwood (Ethan Cole Sharp) and Turner (Brandon Wilson), who meet in a reform school during the racist Jim Crow era of the sixties in Florida. Despite their friendship, the pair have opposing views – Elwood believes in non-violent and democratic ideals, while Turner is cynical and expects only mistreatment from white society.
In the 2010s, investigations into the atrocities committed at the controversial Nickel Academy begin and a grown Elwood (Daveed Diggs), now a businessman, confronts a dark past.
