Home Video: The Oscars Best Picture Nominees and where to Buy, Rent, or Stream them

The 2022 Oscar nominees have been announced! Whether you agree that these are the ten best films of 2022, many of them are already available to buy, rent, or stream. So, with just under six weeks before the March 27th, 2022 ceremony, here is where you can do that with each of the ten Best Picture nominees and hopefully get caught up!

Note: Not all of the films on this list are available to stream at the time of writing, but our JustWatch widget updates as these films availabilities update, so when they are available, the links will show up here.

Belfast

Kenneth Branagh’s semi-autobiographical black and white period set drama about a young boy living through the troubles in Ireland is a crowd-pleaser. It features excellent performances from Jamie Dornan, Catriona Balfe, Ciaran Hinds, Judi Dench, and newcomer Jude Hill. It certainly checks a lot of the boxes that the Academy loves for best picture nominees.


CODA

One of the films that I need to catch up on, CODA, is the first film from AppleTV+ to be nominated in the category. By all accounts, it’s a heartwarming coming of age story with an excellent central performance from Emilia Jones.


Don't Look Up

Don’t Look Up

Of all the films on this list, only one baffles me as a nomination for best picture of the year, and that film is Don’t Look Up. I am sure the filmmakers had the best intentions; however, this film is mad at the audience instead of for the audience, and last time I checked, films billed as satires –even pitch black ones– are supposed to be funny. Anyway, it’s on Netflix.


Drive My Car

Probably my biggest blind spot at the moment, Drive My Car is a favourite of many this year. It is meant to be an artistic and heartfelt meditation on love and loss, and I can’t wait to see it.

Drive My Car will be released on-demand on March 1st 2022.


Dune

When I first saw Dune I didn’t connect with it. It’s gorgeous and ambitious, but I felt it lacked an emotional core. Since then, I’ve watched it multiple times, and it has become one of my favourites from last year. Weirdly, I think that the 3D cinema experience worked against it, but that’s a discussion for a later time.


King Richard

It’s certainly a choice to make Venus and Serena Williams supporting characters in what would typically be their own story, but King Richard is the story of a driven father who did everything for his daughters. Will Smith gives one of the best performances of his career, and by the end, you’ll have a much better understanding of the two greatest tennis players of all time.


Licorice Pizza

Another blind spot for me. What cinephile could resist the combination of Paul Thomas Anderson and the debut of Philip Seymour Hoffman’s son Cooper Hoffman telling a nostalgia-filled period-set love story?

Licorice Pizza will be released on-demand on March 1st 2022.


Nightmare Alley

In the year twenty twenty-one, I could not go to the cinemas as much as I wanted. The raging global pandemic has kept me from seeing a lot of films on time, but of all of them, Nightmare Alley might be the one that I wanted to see most*. Guillermo del Toro? Period-set thriller mystery? Sumptuous production design? Count me in.

* I mean, yes, Spider-Man too, but also this.

Nightmare Alley is already available streaming in the US and has an on-demand date in March 2022.


THE POWER OF THE DOG

The Power of the Dog

We shouldn’t count our chickens before they’re hatched, but it really does feel like this year’s Best Picture statue is The Power of the Dog‘s to lose. Powerhouse performances from all four of the main cast, plus stunning direction from Jane Campion and cinematography from Ari Wegner, along with a story about love, grief, jealousy, resentment, and what it means to be a man, make it the odds on favourite for a good reason.


West Side Story

West Side Story

Why remake a classic? That’s the question that most seem to be asking and that many attribute to West Side Story’s failure at the box office (despite also arriving at the beginning of the third wave of a raging global pandemic).

The answer is pretty simple, though: Steven Spielberg has been thinking about remaking it for ages, and it was finally time to do it. The updated screenplay updates give the themes more current weight, the recasting is a good step forward for representation (and I low key love that none of the Spanish is subtitled), and Spielberg’s style feels so perfectly suited to making a musical it’s shocking he didn’t do so sooner.

West Side Story will be released on Disney+ on March 2nd


So these are your ten nominees for best picture at the 94th Academy Awards. I hope this helps you catch up before the show!


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