'Outstanding' Oscar nominated movie has been quietly added to Amazon Prime

Nickel Boys, released in August, 2024, has raked in two nominations at this year’s Academy Awards – and has been tipped to win big on Sunday night.

RaMell Ross’ movie is set in Florida in the 1960s, and follows two African-American boys, Elwood (Ethan Herisse) and Turner (Brandon Wilson), as they are sent to a brutal reform school.

The pair strike up a friendship as they try to survive the abusive facility, while also attempting to draw attention to the treatment they are subjected to.

The film, an adaptation of Colson Whitehead’s 2019 novel of the same name, also starred Aunjanue Ellis-Taylor, Jimmie Fails, Daveed Diggs, Luke Tennie and Hamish Linklater.

For film fans who haven’t been able to catch Nickel Boys yet – or just want to watch it again – thankfully it has been added to the Amazon Prime Video slate just in time for the ceremony.

It currently commands a huge 91% critics score on Rotten Tomatoes, compared to a 75% audience ranking.

Peter Bradshaw of the Guardian praised: ‘There are outstanding performances here from Ellis-Taylor, Herisse and Wilson, and Jomo Fray’s cinematography and Nora Mendis’s production design are exceptional too.

‘This is a survivor’s coming of age: tough, disillusioned, brilliant.’

‘Nickel Boys is a fragmented film, so much so that it can be difficult to grasp it,’ Maureen Lee Lennker from Entertainment Weekly shared.

‘But at a certain point, it turns around and grabs you instead, refusing to let go until you’re left sitting in a startling and stunned silence.’

‘The film sidles up to the narrative’s wrenching twists rather than heavily foreshadowing them, and is all the more gutting for it,’ The Daily Telegraph’s Tim Robey penned.

As Ross Bonaime of Collider added: ‘Ross creates a work of art that brilliantly adapts Whitehead’s book, while also finding his own ingenious way to film this story, and in doing so, creates easily one of the best films of 2024.’

Nickel Boys is up for two trophies at the Oscars on Sunday, including the coveted best picture gong, alongside I’m Still Here, Conclave, The Brutalist, Anora, Emilia Perez, Dune: Part Two, Wicked, A Complete Unknown and the Substance.

It has also earned a nod for best adapted screenplay, battling it out with A Complete Unknown, Conclave, Emilia Perez and Sing Sing.

Nickel Boys is available to stream on Amazon Prime Video now.