Best Pictures #127: 2025 Academy Awards Best Picture Nominee: One Battle After Another

by A.J. 

Best Pictures #127: 2025 Academy Awards Best Picture Nominee

One Battle After Another

“Do the revolution, baby. Go do it.”

At first glance One Battle After Another can seem like an intimidating film. Certain images and plot points seem like they have been ripped from the headlines and reflect current news coverage almost too strongly. The plot is serious but the main character is out of his depth to a comedic but frightening degree. There is also the lengthy runtime of 2hours 42 minutes. Yet, from the first shot to the last, master filmmaker Paul Thomas Anderson has crafted a thoroughly engrossing and captivating one of a kind film. This is an action movie, a satire, a thriller, a family drama, a comedy, a chase movie. It received an impressive 13 Oscar nominations, including Best Picture, Director, and Actor for Leonardo DiCaprio, and is indeed a most Oscar worthy movie. 

The runtime is long but need not be intimidating. The first 30 minutes breeze by like the first 10 minutes of most other movies. This is all the more impressive since so much information is clearly and cleanly delivered without feeling rushed. This steady pace continues throughout the rest of the movie. The Best Editing nomination for Andy Jurgensen is certainly deserved. The shifts in tone may sound jarring–one scene will be serious and tense, another will be slapstick comedy–but they are never abrupt or take you out of the experience. No scene or character feels out of place because this was meant to be a strange movie. 

Plotwise and character-wise there is a lot to unpack, but nothing is ever hard to follow. From what I understand, Anderson’s screenplay is only loosely based on the Thomas Pynchon novel Vineland, about a group of Nixon-era radicals dealing with living in the Reagan-era. Anderson moves the story to a time resembling the present day, even when the story jumps forward 16 years; it’s worth noting that no specific year is ever given. In the world of this movie, the military seems to be the police or the police have been so militarized that there is no difference. The branch of the military that the villain, Col. Stephen J. Lockjaw (Sean Penn, in one of his best performances), belongs to is never stated. He uses all the resources at his disposal, including unnecessary immigrant raids and inciting a riot, to pursue a personal vendetta against the main characters and secure a place in the secret right-wing white supremacist cabal that runs the country and calls themselves the Christmas Adventurers Club. They greet each other by saying “Hail Saint Nick.” Again, this movie is meant to be strange.

Lockjaw’s vendetta stems from his hate and desire for a member of the revolutionary group The French 75 named Perfidia Beverly Hills (Supporting Actress nominee Teyana Taylor in an extremely memorable but brief performance). After she disappears, Lockjaw then pursues her romantic partner, who now goes by Bob (Leonardo DiCaprio) and spends his days getting stoned and watching old movies, and Perfidia’s now teenage daughter, Willa (Chase Infiniti), who thinks her dad’s talk about secret codes and surveillance is just paranoia. Lockjaw swoops in, Willa goes on the run, and Bob has to spring back into action, but the springs are 50 years old and very rusty.  

Leonardo DiCaprio is great at playing a dad, especially the type that thinks they are the “cool dad.” One of the funniest scenes of any movie from last year is Bob grilling Willa’s friends who stop by to take her to the school dance; the way he calls one of them “homie” is comedic gold. I think the one quick moment that best encapsulates his character is when he greets a group of Hispanics not with hello but with a very earnest, “Viva Zapata.” Maybe the biggest hurdle Bob faces is remembering the password to get the location of the rendezvous point from the annoying and obdurate revolutionary hotline operator.  His main ally, and in many ways the secret hero of the movie, is Sensei Sergio (Benicio Del Toro), whose unshakable calmness is a much needed counterpoint to Bob’s franticness and is very funny in its own way. 

For some viewers and critics this movie is too political, for others it is not political enough. There are no didactic scenes or speeches. Anderson’s screenplay makes no attempt to solve the issues and political situations that force the characters into their positions. Such an attempt would be reductive to the real world issues the movie mirrors and come across as foolish, no matter how sincere. The core of the story is a parent trying to protect their child. The main theme, which again is never stated, is that the good fight is never done. These are the things that will give One Battle After Another a lasting resonance beyond the current time.  

The look of the movie is absolutely fantastic with Oscar nominated cinematography by Michael Bauman. Two sequences in particular stand out. The first is the nighttime run across rooftops of Bob and a group of Hispanic teenagers as they are lit by fiery chaos below. The second is the climactic car chase over the sharp hills of a lonely stretch of desert road. This is one of the best photographed scenes of action in years (maybe only Top Gun: Maverick comes close in comparison). 

With Hard Eight and Punch Drunk Love being the (still superb) exceptions, Paul Thomas Anderson always finds a way to give his movies a sprawling epic feel. No matter the story or the setting, his films do not unfold the way you might expect. Also, no matter the story or setting, he finds humor in the most unlikely scenarios, which goes a long way to making his films approachable and entertaining. I’m not sure where I would rank One Battle After Another in Anderson’s filmography, but among the movies of 2025 it ranks at the top. 

One Battle After Another is available to stream on HBOmax.

Nominees: Adam Somner, Sara Murphy, Paul Thomas Anderson, producers Director: Paul Thomas Anderson Screenplay: Paul Thomas Anderson Cast: Leonardo DiCaprio, Sean Penn, Benicio del Toro, Regina Hall, Teyana Taylor, Chase Infiniti Production Companies: Warner Bros. Pictures, Ghoulardi Film Company Distributor: Warner Bros. Pictures Release Date: September 26th, 2025 Total Nominations: 13, including Best Picture Other Nominations: Actor-Leonardo DiCaprio; Director-Paul Thomas Anderson; Supporting Actor-Benicio Del Toro; Supporting Actor-Sean Penn; Supporting Actress-Teyana Taylor; Adapted Screenplay-Paul Thomas Anderson; Cinematography-Michael Bauman; Production Design Florencia Martin (production designer), Anthony Carlino (set decorator); Editing-Andy Jurgensen; Original Score-Jonny Greenwood; Sound-José Antonio García, Christopher Scarabosio, Tony Villaflor; Casting-Cassandra Kulukundis

Best Pictures #126: 2025 (98th) Academy Awards Best Picture Nominee: Sentimental Value

 by A.J.

Best Pictures #126: 2025 (98th) Academy Awards Best Picture Nominee

Sentimental Value

"But what the house disliked more than noise was silence."

Sentimental Value has all of the ingredients and even the perfect title for an overwrought family melodrama. It certainly is a family drama. The premise is tailor made to incite conflict: Two daughters reconnect with their estranged filmmaker father when he wants one them, an actress, to star in his comeback project, which is about the suicide of his mother and he wants to film it in their family home. This could have been a soap opera, and probably a very interesting one, but in the hands of Norwegian director Joaquim Trier and his longtime co-writer Eskil Vogt (the team behind the acclaimed and very entertaining The Worst Person in the World, and Reprise, one of my favorite movies of the aughts) Sentimental Value is a substantial work.

The estranged filmmaker father is Gustav, played by the incredible Stellan Skarsgård, who is out of touch with his adult daughters, Nora (Renata Reinsve) and Agnes (Inga Ibsdotter Lilleaas), on just about every level. He thinks that the role in his new movie could be Nora’s breakthrough, never mind that she is already a successful theater actress. His conversations with Agnes, who acted in his films as a child, are more cordial but she holds her own resentments in her own ways. A line is crossed when he wants Agnes’s young son to be in the new movie. He’s also out of touch with the new landscape of moviemaking. When asked if his new movie, a Netflix production, will play in theaters, he responds, “Where else?” 

At a film festival he’s approached by Rachel (Elle Fanning), an American movie star who is looking to challenge herself as an actress. Fanning, in one of her best performances, is great at playing an actress who is good, and earnestly wants to be better, but is not right for the role. 

If this movie feels unfocused or episodic that's only because no person's life is only about one thing. Trier and Vogt's Oscar nominated original screenplay aims to capture that. Certain sequences feel like they could be self-contained short films. My favorite of these is Gustav and Rachel on the beach at a film festival. An early scene of Nora having breakdown moments before she has to go on stage is another great self contained sequence. 

Sentimental Value is not afraid of being upfront with its themes and symbolism. A prologue tells us about Nora's 6th grade essay that imagined what the old family house saw and felt. A narrator tells us about a crack running through the house, splitting it. In a surreal moment, reminiscent of Ingmar Bergman's Persona, the faces of Gustav, Nora, and Agnes all blur together. More than one scene of Nora expressing anguish or sadness turns out to be her acting. 

When the confrontations come, they are not big or loud. There are great performances from the whole cast but no one showboats. It’s no surprise that all of the principal performers have received Oscar nominations: Renate Reinsve for Actress; Elle Fanning and Inga Ibsdotter Lilleaas for Supporting Actress; Stellan Skarsgård for Supporting Actor, somehow the first Oscar nomination of his impressive and eclectic career. No matter the combination of characters in a scene, their interactions are unmannered enough to feel realistic and that's what makes them so interesting to watch. These characters are allowed layers and complexities and contradictions. 

This certainly has all the markings of an Oscar bait movie. It received a total 9 Oscar nominations, including Best Picture and Best International Picture, so I suppose it is. Yet, this is not necessarily a bad thing. Sentimental Value is also the kind of movie that Hollywood used to make on a semiregular basis and rarely makes now. I don’t care if it comes from Norway or has subtitles; I’m just glad movies like this are still being made somewhere and that people, the Academy included, are taking notice. 

Sentimental Value is available to rent on Amazon Prime Video.

Nominees: Maria Ekerhovd, Andrea Berentsen Ottmar, producers

Director: Joachim Trier

Screenplay: Eskil Vogt & Joachim Trier

Cast: Renate Reinsve, Stellan Skarsgård, Inga Ibsdotter Lilleaas, Elle Fanning

Production Companies: Mer Film, Eye Eye Pictures, MK Productions, et al. 

Distributor: Neon, Mubi

Release Date: December 26th, 2025

Total Nominations: 9, including Best Picture

Other Nominations: International Feature Film; Actress-Renate Reinsve; Director-Joachim Trier; Supporting Actor-Stellan Skarsgård; Supporting Actress-Elle Fanning; Supporting Actress-Inga Ibsdotter Lilleaas; Original Screenplay-Joachim Trier, Eskil Vogt; Editing-Olivier Bugge Coutté 

Best Pictures #125: 2025 (98th) Academy Awards Best Picture Nominee: Train Dreams

 by A.J.

Best Pictures #125: 2025 (98th) Academy Awards Best Picture Nominee

Train Dreams

“The world needs a hermit in the woods as much as a preacher in the pulpit.”

I suppose you could describe Train Dreams as an arthouse film, though that is a loaded term; even my guard goes up when I hear about an arthouse movie. Train Dreams is not conventional; it is not mainstream. There are none of the typical beats that fill an average American movie. Such moments and tropes would ruin a gentle and sensitive movie like this. Sometimes a critic will call a movie they love a gem. Well, this movie is a gem; something to be treasured and appreciated and shared. Each time you look at it from just a slightly different perspective, it reveals something new and wonderful and enchanting. 

The plot, to the extent that there is a plot, is extremely simple. Joel Edgerton plays Robert Grainier, a logger living in the Pacific Northwest during the early decades of the 20th century. That's it. He is a quiet and shy person but on a rare trip to church he meets Gladys (Felicity Jones). Actually she introduces herself to him. Robert does not seem like the type to do such a thing himself. They are a wonderful match and have a daughter, but Robert spends much of his time away on logging jobs. He and Gladys plan to save money to turn their land into a farm, but things do not go as planned.

Joel Edgerton is great as the lowkey Robert. His face shows us that he is a simple man who still has deep thoughts and emotions going on beneath the surface. Robert knows that there is more meaning to life and existence and nature. He also knows that he doesn't know how to make sense of the larger meaning behind everything or how to even start contemplating it. 

Robert is haunted by his inadvertent participation in the murder of a Chinese railroad worker; he asks what the man did and is never given an answer. He asks a fellow logger, the aged Arn Peoples (William H. Macy), whose folksy wisdom likely comes from a lifetime of experiences he probably would rather not have had, if a person can be followed by the bad things he does in his life. Arn says that he's seen bad people be lifted up and good people be brought down but if he had the answer he would be sleeping next to someone better looking than Robert.

William H. Macy is a nice, lively addition as the folksy would-be philosopher Arn. His thoughts, which he is very ready to share, are not esoteric or cryptic. Only when asked about his family does he obfuscate and become cagey; that tells us all we need to know. Gladys risks becoming more of a symbol than a character but Felicity Jones gives her warmth and substance, even with relatively little screen time.

Any screenwriting or film professor will tell you not to use narration, that it is a crutch and you must show, not tell. Of course, there are many examples of good narration that adds to a movie without condescending to the audience or taking away from the performances. This is one such example. The narration here is wonderfully spoken by Will Patton, a character actor so prolific that, yes, you have absolutely seen him before. He also read the audiobook of the novella by Denis Johnson so perhaps him being the narrator is no big surprise, yet it in no way diminishes the great effect of his superb skill at bringing words to life (Patton has also read several other audiobooks and his narration makes them worth listening to). The narration along with the masterful Oscar nominated cinematography by Adolpho Veloso and the ethereal but not out of place score by Bryce Dessner give Train Dreams its poetic qualities. 

The influence of the films of Terrence Malick (Badlands and especially Days of Heaven) can be seen and felt in Train Dreams. However, and this may be heresy to some, I feel that director and co-writer Clint Bentley surpasses Malick (at least the recent films) in that Train Dreams is more than a philosophical exploration of existence and meaning. This film ponders these things too of course, but it hits on a subtle but no less affecting emotional and almost spiritual level. Train Dreams might seem like a slight movie since it is about the life of a rather ordinary, obscure man but that does not mean that his life or the film are not something special. Train Dreams is one of the best movies I have seen in quite some time. I can’t wait to see it again. 

Train Dreams is available to stream on Netflix.

Nominees: Marissa McMahon, Teddy Schwarzman, Will Janowitz, Ashley Schlaifer, Michael Heimler, producers

Director: Clint Bentley

Screenplay: Clint Bentley & Greg Kwedar; based on the novel by Denis Johnson

Cast: Joel Edgerton, Felicity Jones, Kerry Condon, William H. Macy

Production Companies: Black Bear, Kamala Films

Distributor: Netflix

Release Date: November 7th, 2025

Total Nominations: 4, including Best Picture

Other Nominations: Adapted Screenplay-Clint Bentley, Greg Kwedar; Cinematography-Adolpho Veloso; Original Song-"Train Dreams", Music by Nick Cave and Bryce Dessner, Lyric by Nick Cave

Best Pictures #124: 2025 (98th) Academy Awards Best Picture Nominee: Sinners

by A.J.

Best Pictures #124: 2025 (98th) Academy Awards Best Picture Nominee

Sinners

"A sinner like me, I can't ask for more than that."

I used to say that a genuinely good horror movie only comes along every 5 years or so. Thankfully, the last few years have proven me wrong. 2025 was a good year for horror movies, but the clear stand out was writer-director Ryan Coogler's Sinners. It was a box office and critical hit, a rare combination for a horror movie. It is also rare for the Academy Awards to recognize a movie released in the first half of the year. It is even rarer for the Academy to recognize horror movies. So, it is very remarkable and exciting that Sinners not only received Oscar nominations, but received 16 nominations including Best Picture, the most of any film in Academy history. This is fitting because Sinners is a most remarkable and special film. 

In his 5th collaboration with Ryan Coogler (after Creed and the Black Panther movies to name a few), Michael B. Jordan plays gangster twins Smoke and Stack in 1932 Mississippi. After 7 years in Chicago they return to their hometown loaded with cash, Irish beer, Italian wine, and a secret trunk to set up a juke joint, have a good time, and watch the money flow in. They reconnect with friends and lovers, not all of whom are excited to see Smoke and Stack return. They also take in their teenage cousin, Sammie (Miles Caton), nicknamed Preacherboy, who is supremely gifted at the guitar and playing the blues, which sets him at odds with his stern preacher father. 

There are two halves to Sinners and any film with this kind of structure, especially one where the tone and even genre shift drastically, risks being uneven or a letdown in one way or another. From Dusk Til Dawn is a perfect example of this: the general consensus is that the first half of the movie with the gangster brothers is superior to the vampire action second half. The two halves are so distinct that they seemingly have little to do with each other and many people wished the whole movie was just about the gangster brothers. Sinners does not suffer from this problem. It does not feel uneven or disjointed. All of the character work and relationships of the first half of the movie are not thrown out for the second half. The actions and fates of the characters are informed by everything that has come before. Coogler’s Oscar nominated original screenplay never goes on autopilot. 

The marketing was secretive about just what specific type of horror faced the characters. Yet, it was never meant to be a secret, and certainly isn’t now, that this is a vampire movie. The film itself only speaks of evil and devil in vague terms at first. Aside from some quick imagery at the beginning, nothing supernatural happens for the first 40 minutes, but Sinners is not hiding that it is a horror movie. It takes its time getting to the horror but it does not waste that time. 

A prologue tells us how there can be people so gifted at making music that it conjures spirits of the past and the future and it can also attract evil. Sammie “Preacherboy” is such a person. The film's signature sequence of has Preacherboy’s music fulfilling the promise of the prologue in a dazzling and transcendent scene that should not work, that would be silly and pretentious in a lesser movie, but all of the right notes are hit in just the right way and the result is movie magic. 

Preacherboy is also the lynchpin between the story of the brothers and their nightclub and the assault of vampires who are drawn by his music. The mysterious party crashers are led by Remmick (Jack O'Connell), who also plays and enjoys music and speaks about equality and unity, about relieving pain and saving people. The best villains never see themselves as villains but Remmick only barely conceals his sinister and monstrous nature. More than victims and blood, he seeks to consume an entire person and their gifts and background and culture. The vampires have a collective mind, but it is clear that Remmick’s clan is not a round table.

Michael B. Jordan makes playing twins seem easy. It helps that they are dressed similarly but distinctly (Smoke wears blue; Stack wears red) and after their introduction they spend time apart allowing their personalities to grow. Jordan’s performance is what distinguishes the twins. It is no surprise he has earned a Best Actor Oscar nomination. It is also no surprise that the other standout performance comes from Delroy Lindo as Delta Slim, a drunken blues musician whose drunkenness and weary face show the pain and tribulations he has endured. Lindo has earned a Supporting Actor nomination, surprisingly the first of his long and impressive career. 

Sinners fits nicely under the pretentious term “elevated horror” that gets applied to arthouse horror films that receive awards and are liked by serious, scholarly critics. This is an “elevated horror” movie in the same way that Leonard Maltin describes the Astaire/Rogers musicals of the 1930’s as escapism that elevates the soul. The truth is that Sinners is a great movie whether you want to analyze it for themes and subtext or want to watch a tense, bloody vampire movie. Ryan Coogler made a horror movie that exceeds all expectations, as a horror fan I can’t ask for more than that. 

Sinners is streaming on HBOmax.

Nominees: Zinzi Coogler, Sev Ohanian, Ryan Coogler

Director: Ryan Coogler Screenplay: Ryan Coogler Cast: Michael B. Jordan, Hailee Steinfeld, Miles Caton, Jack O'Connell, Wunmi Mosaku, Delroy Lindo Production Company: Proximity Media Distributor: Warner Bros. Pictures Release Date: April 18th, 2025 Total Nominations: 16, including Best Picture Other Nominations: Actor-Michael B. Jordan; Director-Ryan Coogler; Original Screenplay-Ryan Coogler; Supporting Actor-Delroy Lindo; Supporting Actress-Wunmi Mosaku; Cinematography-Autumn Durald Arkapaw; Production Design-Hannah Beachler (production designer), Monique Champagne (set decorator); Costume Design-Ruth E. Carter; Editing-Michael P. Shawver; Makeup and Hairstyling-Ken Diaz, Michael Fontaine, Shunika Terry; Original Score-Ludwig Göransson; Original Song-"I Lied to You", music and lyrics by-Ludwig Göransson, Raphael Saadiq; Sound-Chris Welcker, Benjamin A. Burtt, Felipe Pacheco, Brandon Proctor, Steve Boeddeker; Visual Effects-Michael Ralla, Espen Nordahl, Guido Wolter, Donnie Dean; Casting-Francine Maisler

Best Pictures #123: 2025 (98th) Academy Awards Best Picture Nominee: Hamnet

 by A.J.

Best Pictures #123: 2025 (98th) Academy Awards Best Picture Nominee

Hamnet

"These but the trappings and suits of woe."

Hamnet begins with a note explaining that the names Hamnet and Hamlet were interchangeable. It gives no such note about the names Anne and Agnes, which it seems were interchangeable as well: Anne Hathaway, later Anne Shakespeare, was referred to in her father's will as Agnes; the film refers to her only as Agnes (pronounced Ayn-yes). I suppose it does not matter whether she was Anne or Agnes because we do not really get to know this character or her husband, Will. This is really too bad because the point of the movie is to make the audience share in their grief over their son Hamnet, who died at the age of 10. This film, and the novel it is based on by Maggie O'Farrell, who co-wrote the screenplay with director Chloe Zhao, suggest that out of that grief Shakespeare was inspired to write his most famous play, Hamlet.

Jessie Buckley plays Agnes, whose mother was rumored to be a forest witch (more of a slander than, at the time, a serious legal accusation) and who herself is deeply connected to the natural world. The opening shot of the movie is of her barefoot and asleep nestled in the root of a gargantuan and ancient tree. To give birth to her first child, a girl, Susanna, she hobbles out to the woods alone. She is unable to do so for the birth of the twins, Judith and Hamnet. 

Paul Mescal plays Will, a mediocre glovemaker, part time tutor, and aspiring poet and writer. The movie goes to great pains to avoid the names William and Shakespeare. When we finally do hear the name “William Shakespeare” it is played as though the full identity of Anne/Agnes’s husband is a great revelation or even a twist. This would make sense and be acceptable if Hamnet was really meant to tell the story of an average Renaissance era woman and did not depend, moreover require, you to know, if only vaguely, who Shakespeare was and that his most famous play is Hamlet in order to have any pathos at all. 

It seems that Buckley and Mescal were not meant to play people so much as vessels for grief and woe. Agnes is not presented as especially witchy, but she does have a vision that at her deathbed only two children will be at her side. So, when the newborn girl seems stillborn then finally breathes, Agnes believes that Judith is marked for death. However, we the audience know that Hamnet is the child fated to die (because that is the premise of the movie), so it is only a shock to Agnes, not the audience, and plays like a cruel joke only meant to increase her pain and suffering. It does not enhance the drama of the movie. Jessie Buckley is almost certain to win the Best Actress Oscar, but I never felt that Agnes was a full character, much less a person that really lived. A scene of Will in London consumed by grief as he stands at the edge of the Thames River and speaks the “To be or not to be” soliloquy made my eyes nearly roll out of my head.

The pacing never felt slow and very few scenes felt extraneous, yet afterwards I wondered how this movie took up 2hours and 5 minutes. Until Hamnet’s death from the plague, the movie is scenes of day to day life in a rural Renaissance era English village, specifically around one cottage. The romance between Agnes and Will is sweet and passionate; both feel like outsiders in their families and their community. Agnes encourages Will’s move to London because she believes he is meant for more. However, we do not get any hint of his potential greatness; at least a sonnet would have helped. All we get is a scene of him so frustrated with writer’s block that he wakes their baby. 

The most exciting part of Hamnet is the performance of Hamlet at the Globe theater. This is meant to be the great catharsis of the movie for both Will and Agnes, but it does not work. Agnes behaves as though she is an alien just arrived on earth and has no idea what the hell a play is. She shouts at the actor playing Hamlet. She frantically and confusedly speaks to her brother and the stage itself so loudly that even the groundlings, notorious for their rowdiness, shush her. We know from a scene earlier in the movie, where the children act out what would become the Weird Sisters/Witches opening scene of MacBeth, that Agnes is familiar with the idea of a performance and of people pretending. I applaud Buckley for playing this straight but that is far from the same as saying she should be nominated or win the Best Actress Oscar. 

Hamnet is absolutely not how Shakespeare came up with Hamlet. Of course Shakespeare in Love is absolutely not how he came up with Romeo and Juliet either, but that film behaves as though it knows everything it is showing you is made up. Hamnet takes itself too far too seriously without giving you anything, aside from the premise, to stand on. Shakespeare left no diaries or letters for later generations to know what he thought and how he felt. This is a gift to modern storytellers who want to make Shakespeare into whatever they will. This one falls flat. Every high school student has the same reaction when they find out that Shakespeare’s son was named Hamnet and his most famous play is Hamlet–at least currently, as Shakespeare’s most popular play changes with whatever the era. This story would have you believe that Hamnet's death and the production of Hamlet happened one after the other. In reality four years passed between Hamnet’s death and the first performance of Hamlet. Shakespeare was much more likely cashing in on the trend of “revenge plays” like The Spanish Tragedy by Thomas Kyd. Shakespeare wrote plays about fathers and sons before Hamlet and did so after. His last sole authored play, The Tempest, is about a father and daughter; Shakespeare’s daughters have little purpose in this movie. A much more moving and affecting version of everything Hamnet is striving for has already been put on screen in Kenneth Branagh's All is True (2018)–a movie I assure you exists–which has all the insight and pathos that Hamnet lacks.

Hamnet is streaming on Peacock.

Nominees: Liza Marshall, Pippa Harris, Nicolas Gonda, Steven Spielberg, Sam Mendes, producers

Director: Chloé Zhao

Screenplay: Chloé Zhao & Maggie O'Farrell; based on the novel by Maggie O'Farrell

Cast: Jessie Buckley, Paul Mescal, Emily Watson

Production Companies: Hera Pictures, Neal Street Productions, Amblin Entertainment, Book of Shadows

Distributor: Focus Features

Release Date: November 26th, 2025

Total Nominations: 8, including Best Picture

Other Nominations: Actress-Jessie Buckley; Director-Chloé Zhao; Adapted Screenplay-Maggie O'Farrell, Chloé Zhao; Production Design-Fiona Crombie (production designer), Alice Felton (set decorator);  Costume Design-Malgosia Turzanska; Original Score-Max Richter; Casting-Nina Gold