Awards Season

The nominations are in! Always an exciting time of the year for moviegoers, we’re now in the midst of the 2021 awards season with both the BAFTA and Oscar nominations announced. It’s a time of the year when you try and catch up on the films you’ve missed and look forward to some late releases to the ‘awards corridor’, as studios try and generate that all important buzz for their nominees.

We’ve compiled a list below of this awards season’s most notable and under-the-radar titles for you to enjoy, which we’ll be adding to as more of the nominated films are released in the run up to this year’s Oscars on Sunday 25 April – so you better get watching!

Promising Young Woman (15)

★★★★ – Telegraph. The first solo female winner in the Original Screenplay category since Diablo Cody for Juno, BAFTA-winning writer-director Emerald Fennell’s timely and wickedly funny revenge comedy pulls no punches. In a society she views as apathetic towards unchecked male sexual desire, Cassie gives up her once promising future to enact revenge upon any and all predatory men who cross her path.

Nominated for 6 Oscars, including Best Film and Best Actress in a Leading Role.

Streaming on Amazon Prime from Fri 16 Apr

Minari (12A)

★★★★ – moving and modest coming-of-age Sundance hit” – Guardian. Inspired by director Lee Isaac Chung’s own upbringing, Minari tells the moving story of a Korean American family’s struggle to make their ‘American Dream’ a reality in 1980s Arkansas, as seen through the innocent eyes of seven-year-old David. Bored and mischievous, when seven-year-old David’s grandmother arrives from Korea he finds an unexpected kindred spirit.

Nominated for 6 Oscars and 6 BAFTAs, including Best Film and Best Director.

Streaming now

Sound of Metal (15)

“★★★★★ – Riz Ahmed gives a career-best performance in an astonishing drama” – Mark Kermode, The Observer. Winner of Best Sound and Best Editing at last weekend’s BAFTAs, Sound of Metal is a truly immersive experience, thrusting the viewer into the shoes of recovering addict and punk-metal drummer Ruben (Ahmed) as his hearing fails – threatening both his career and his identity.

Nominated for 6 Oscars, including Best Film and Best Actor in a Leading Role.

Streaming now on Amazon Prime

JUDAS AND THE BLACK MESSIAH (15)

“★★★★ – Daniel Kaluuya is transcendent in this thrilling picture” –The Irish Times. The true story of an FBI informant infiltrating the Black Panther party, Judas and the Black Messiah matches hard-hitting drama with electrifying tension and features standout performances from Daniel Kaluuya and LaKeith Stanfield – both of whom are rightly Oscar-nominated – in the kind of roles Al Pacino made his name with in the 1970s.

Nominated for 6 Oscars and 4 BAFTAs, including Best Film.

Available on BFI Player

QUO VADIS AIDA? (15)

★★★★★ – Guardian. 25 years on, director Jasmila Žbanić revisits the Srebrenica massacre in this stark, powerful drama. Set in 1995 during the Bosnian War, events unfold from the point of view of Aida, a Bosnian translator for the UN, and her family – ordinary people who, like thousands of others, seek refuge at a UN camp only to find themselves caught up in an act of genocide.

Nominated for 1 Oscar and 2 BAFTAs, including Best International Film.

Streaming on Curzon Home Cinema

AMMONITE (15)

★★★★ – Guardian. With sell-out previews at Phoenix last October, this heartfelt love story set in 1840s Lyme Regis now enjoys a virtual release. Self-taught paleontologist Mary Anning (Kate Winslet) works alone, hunting for fossils to sell to wealthy tourists. When she is introduced to Charlotte Murchison (Saoirse Ronan) their lives are changed forever. A powerful study of gender, class and society, Ammonite is a vivid portrait of a woman unappreciated in her own time.

Nominated for Best Costume Design at the 2021 BAFTA Film Awards.

Available on BFI Player and other platforms from 26 Mar

MANK (12A)

★★★★★ –  Empire. David Fincher (Fight Club, Gone Girl) takes us on a journey through Golden Age Hollywood as he charts the writing of the greatest film ever made, Citizen Kane –  buckle up, it’s a wild ride. Herman J Mankiewicz (Gary Oldman) is the boozy, but brilliant playwright hired by Orson Welles to write his magnum opus in this charming, seductive piece of pure cinema.

Nominated for 10 Oscars and 6 BAFTAs, including Best Film and Leading Actor.

Available on Netflix

ROCKS (12A)

“★★★★★ – It’s so simple and so wrenching — why can’t all films be this good?” – The Times. Abandoned by their mum, London schoolgirl Rocks takes responsibility for looking after her younger brother – relying on her friends for help as she tries to avoid well-meaning teachers and social workers. Sarah Gavron’s (Suffragette) latest is a deeply moving but also joyful story of female friendship and determination, brilliantly performed by the largely non-professional cast.

Nominated for 7 BAFTAs, including Outstanding British Film and Best Director.

Available on Netflix

TRIAL OF THE CHICAGO 7 (15)

“★★★★ – A fiery condemnation of the police state and government overreach, this is both timely and timeless” – Empire. Featuring an all-star cast, Aaron Sorkin’s (The West Wing) gripping new film  is based on the real-life case of the Chicago 7, a group of anti-Vietnam War protesters charged with conspiracy and inciting riots during the 1968 Democratic National Convention.

Nominated for 6 Oscars and 3 BAFTAs, including Best Film.

Available on Netflix

SAINT MAUD (15)

★★★★★ – Independent. Generating a wave of critical praise, this deeply unnerving horror film features an incredible central performance from Morfydd Clark. Whilst caring for a former dancer, reclusive nurse Maud finds herself overcome with religious fervour. Convinced she must save her patient’s soul, Maud’s behaviour becomes increasingly alarming.

Nominated for 2 BAFTAs, including Outstanding British Film.

Available on BFI Player and other platforms

HIS HOUSE (15)

“★★★★ – One of the best British horror debuts in years” – Empire.  Recent refugees to the UK from war-torn South Sudan, Bol and Rial are placed in the asylum system and housed in a small English town while they await the outcome of their application. But their fragile new life turns into a nightmare when a presence begins to manifest itself in their home, feeding on the traumas of their past.

Nominated for 3 BAFTAs, including Outstanding British Film and Leading Actress.

Available on Netflix

MOGUL MOWGLI (15)

“★★★★ – Riz Ahmed’s electric performance is hard to forget” – Little White Lies. On the eve of a career-making tour, British rapper Zed (Riz Ahmed, The Sisters Brothers) is struck down with a mystery illness. Moving back home and relying on his parents for help, Zed finds his new life clashing with his family’s past – an internal war of culture, identity and colonialism that threatens his future.

Nominated for 1 BAFTA for Outstanding British Film of the Year.

Available on BFI Player

CALM WITH HORSES (15)

★★★★ – The Times. Two of cinema’s most impressive young acting talents, Barry Keoghan (The Killing of a Sacred Deer) and Cosmo Jarvis (Lady Macbeth), go head-to-head in this Scorsese-esque Irish thriller. Ex-boxer Douglas “Arm” Armstrong is desperate to escape his life of crime for the sake of his young son, but he finds that leaving the employment of the drug-dealing Devers family is far from easy.

Nominated for 4 BAFTAs, including Outstanding British Film.

Available on Netflix

MA RAINEY'S BLACK BOTTOM (15)

★★★★ – Guardian. Adapted from Pulitzer Prize winner August Wilson’s play, Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom is the story of a recording session by the legendary Ma “Mother of the Blues” Rainey during which the fiery singer and an ambitious session musician challenge the authority of her white management. Featuring stunning central performances from Chadwick Boseman and Viola Davis, this is a compelling, passionate affair.

Nominated for 5 Oscars and 3 BAFTAs, including Leading Actress and Leading Actor.

Available on Netflix

THE WHITE TIGER (15)

★★★★ – Empire. Director Ramin Bahrani’s (99 Homes) terrific new thriller is based on Aravind Adiga’s 2008 Booker Prize-winning novel. Balram is an ambitious driver determined to escape his life of poverty. Employed by a young wealthy couple, he inveigles himself into their lives and, after a tragic accident, sees his opportunity to break free from servitude.

Nominated for 1 Oscar and 2 BAFTAs, including Best Adapted Screenplay and Leading Actor.

Available on Netflix