In today’s edition, the three movies to watch, with only three nights left before Sunday’s Oscars. And then, how Amelia Dimoldenberg sets her guests on edge. Plus:
Justin Chang Chang is a film critic and has been writing for The New Yorker since 2024.
You’re undoubtedly eager to catch up on Oscar-nominated movies that are likely to win big on Sunday. Tough. This list is devoted to Oscar-nominated movies that have little chance of winning on Sunday, but are no less worthy of your attention.
“Nickel Boys”In theatres, streaming on MGM+, and available to rent online
This year’s nail-biter of a Best Picture race is a death match between “Anora” and “Conclave,” though I have colleagues who haven’t counted out “The Brutalist,” “A Complete Unknown,” and even “Wicked.” What does it say that “Nickel Boys,” easily the best of the ten nominees—and the best American film I saw in 2024—has no shot at winning? Only that there’s no accounting for taste. Oscar or no Oscar, RaMell Ross’s adaptation of Colson Whitehead’s 2019 novel remains a tender, shimmering tour de force. It’s already streaming, but try to catch it in a theatre, where the cinematographer Jomo Fray’s magnificent images belong. Read our review »
“The Seed of the Sacred Fig”In theatres and available to rent online
In the weeks since controversy tanked the campaign of “Emilia Pérez,” once a front-runner for Best International Feature Film, many have speculated that that prize will now go to “I’m Still Here,” Walter Salles’s drama about a family being terrorized by Brazil’s military dictatorship. It’s a moving, well-acted film, and it’s based on a true story. But “The Seed of the Sacred Fig,” from the Iranian director Mohammad Rasoulof, is a more politically and psychologically incisive tale of how authoritarianism can destroy an ordinary household from within. Read our review »
“A Different Man”Streaming on Max
Aaron Schimberg’s dazzlingly inventive comic fantasia has a wholly deserved nomination for Best Makeup and Hairstyling. But, in a different world, it would be a serious contender in multiple categories: Best Picture, Best Original Screenplay, and Best Actor for Sebastian Stan, whose Oscar-nominated performance as Donald J. Trump in “The Apprentice” barely prepares you for the bravura physical and psychological juggling act he pulls off here. Read our review »
“My character is equal parts desperate and uninterested,” Amelia Dimoldenberg, the host of the popular YouTube show “Chicken Shop Date,” told Rebecca Mead, when they met in London. Neither seem like very charming qualities, and yet there’s a kind of off-kilter, comedic surreality to the show that has proved enduringly appealing: it has been running for more than ten years, and nearly three million people subscribe to the channel. Each episode is supposed to be a first date, set in various unflatteringly lit fast-food outlets around the city, complete with the sizzle of fry oil and the clatter of an active kitchen. And each date—with a celebrity such as Andrew Garfield, Ed Sheeran, Keke Palmer, or Billie Eilish—is “freighted hopelessly with the longing for enduring love,” Mead writes, in a piece about Dimoldenberg for this week’s issue.
As a host, Dimoldenberg is charismatic and disconcerting, putting her guests on edge with a deadpan bit of flirting or an awkwardly timed pivot—and frequently generating genuine chemistry. She hasn’t found love yet, but she hasn’t ruled it out. As she tells Mead, “I don’t know why I wouldn’t be able to meet someone on the show—like, that’s how we meet, right?”
Read the story »
P.S. Elizabeth Taylor, who was born on this day in 1932, performed with “an admixture of a kind of improbable naturalism and fantastic disregard for the discipline of acting (but not of being),” Hilton Als once wrote. Read his piece on the inimitable star »
Hannah Jocelyn contributed to today’s edition.
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