Best awards contender movies to stream this weekend Feb. 14, 2025

We have some suggestions if you’re looking for an awards contender to watch on streaming or video on demand this weekend. Our list of movies includes a Best Picture nominee top pick that recently became available for home viewing; two other Oscar-nominated new releases, one on streaming and one on VOD; a movie that wasn’t nominated for an Oscar but could have been; and a past Oscar nominee that would make for a nice double feature with the top pick.

Top pick: Nickel Boys

Director RaMell Ross’ adaptation of Colson Whitehead’s Pulitzer Prize-winning novel is nominated for Best Picture and Best Adapted Screenplay for Ross and co-writer Joslyn Barnes. It’s a coming-of-age story about two Black adolescents, Elwood (Ethan Herisse) and Turner (Brandon Wilson), at an abusive reform school in 1960s Florida, and what they do to get by and get out. It’s shot from a first-person perspective, where the camera sees what the character sees. “I don’t know if I could have told the story any other way,” Ross told Gold Derby. It’s Ross’ debut narrative feature (more on his debut documentary feature later), and it announces the arrival of an important filmmaker. Nickel Boys is available to buy on VOD platforms like Amazon.

Other picks: Flow

Flow is the first Latvian film ever nominated for an Academy Award, and it’s up for two: Best Animated Feature and Best International Feature. Director-writer-producer-editor-composer Gints Zilbalodis’ dialogue-free adventure follows a cat that gets swept away by a tsunami and links up with other animals (a dog, a bird, a lemur, a capybara) on a sailboat to try and return home. It’s sad, funny, and inventive, and it can be streamed on Max.

Better Man

There’s no way around it; Robbie Williams‘ musical biopic Better Man was a massive theatrical flop, grossing just short of $20 million worldwide against a $110 million budget. Director Michael Gracey’s gambit of making Williams a chimpanzee to get people interested in a movie about a singer who is famously not famous in America didn’t pay off. But it’s genuinely not for a lack of effort; the film got strong reviews and was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Visual Effects. Williams’ chimpization is really good. See for yourself on VOD.

Hard Truths

If more people had seen acclaimed writer-director Mike Leigh’s latest keenly observed kitchen sink drama, it may have earned Academy Award nominations for Best Original Screenplay and Best Actress for Marianne Jean-Baptiste. Jean-Baptiste won NYFCC, LAFCA, and NSFC awards for her performance and was nominated for a BAFTA. She gives a bravura performance as a woman whose anxiety and depression manifest as anger and toxicity that makes her unbearable to be around, and she and Leigh find compassion for the character that will make you weep. Hard Truths is available to rent or buy on VOD platforms like Amazon.  

After you watch Nickel Boys, watch this: Hale County This Morning, This Evening

Before he made Nickel Boys, RaMell Ross made one documentary feature, 2018’s Hale County This Morning, This Evening, a lyrical, impressionistic portrait of life in a rural, majority Black county in Alabama. It’s one of the artiest films ever nominated for the Academy Award for Best Documentary Feature. To underline the point: Ross has made two films, and they’ve both been nominated for the highest Oscars for which they’re eligible. He’s announced himself as a major filmmaker. Hale County This Morning, This Evening is available to stream on the cinephile speciality services Criterion Channel and Metrograph at Home and can be rented or bought on VOD services like Amazon.