Examining recent Academy Award Best Picture winners

As the March 15 Academy Awards ceremony approaches, many will be speculating about which film might win what is widely regarded as its most prestigious accolade, that for Best Picture. In case the past proves to be predictive, following, in chronological order, are capsule reviews of the winning movies of the past five years.

Unless otherwise noted, the OSV News classification of each is A-III — adults and their Motion Picture Association rating is R — restricted. Under 17 requires accompanying parent or adult guardian.

“Nomadland” (2020)

A sense of loneliness pervades this poignant drama in which Frances McDormand gives a bravura performance as a working-class widow from a failed factory town who takes to the road in search of seasonal employment, becoming part of a subculture of marginalized nomads who move from one trailer park to the next in their struggle to evade economic ruin. Though she forms friendships along the way, including with a few real-life sojourners playing themselves, she resists possible romance with another fellow migrant (David Strathairn) and a couple of opportunities to abandon her travels and settle down in one place. Drawing on journalist Jessica Bruder’s 2017 book, writer-director Chloe Zhao highlights how momentary encounters and emotional connection help to relieve the cycle of menial labor and anxiety for the future her vulnerable but resilient protagonist endures. She also emphasizes the spiritual lineage all her travelers share with the pioneers of old. Parents will have to weigh whether delicately handled elements that would normally bar younger viewership should be overlooked in the case of mature teens. Brief full and partial female nudity in nonsexual contexts, mature themes, including suicide and euthanasia, fleeting scatological material, at least one profanity and a milder oath, a single crude and a couple of crass terms.

“CODA” (2021)

The challenges of being the only hearing member of a close-knit family are movingly explored in this drama, the title of which is an acronym for child of deaf adults. That phrase describes the situation of the film’s main character (Emilia Jones), the 17-year-old scion of a working-class fishing clan (rounded out by parents Marlee Matlin and Troy Kotsur and older brother Daniel Durant) in Gloucester, Massachusetts. Her love of singing prompts her to join her school choir (led by Eugenio Derbez) and leaves her struggling to decide whether she should try to get into a prestigious music college or stay at home where she has always served as her relatives’ interpreter. She receives sympathetic support via her burgeoning romance with a fellow vocalist (Ferdia Walsh-Peelo) on whom she has long had a crush. Unfortunately, the salty quality of some of the silent banter that gets tossed around in the protagonist’s loving household, together with other mature elements, makes this high-quality coming-of-age story inappropriate for kids, although the insight it provides into the culture it so authentically depicts may prompt the parents of at least some older teens to overlook these lapses. Brief physical violence, drug use, a sequence involving mostly off-screen marital lovemaking, frequent crude and crass language, occasional innuendo, some scatological humor. The Motion Picture Association rating is PG-13 — parents strongly cautioned. Some material may be inappropriate for children under 13.

“Everything Everywhere All at Once” (2022)

Surreal fantasy in which a harried Chinese American laundromat owner (Michelle Yeoh) discovers that there are innumerable parallel universes, each of which contains a different version of herself. Traveling among these worlds under the guidance of an iteration of her sweet-natured husband (Ke Huy Quan), she battles a cosmic villain who takes the shape of her grown daughter (Stephanie Hsu). As the protagonist uses her wild experiences to work through her feelings about her spouse and her offspring as well as her sense of unfulfilled potential, co-writers and directors Daniel Kwan and Daniel Scheinert blend comedy and drama while promoting mostly sound values. Yet their narrative outlook is more in line with the Absurdist stripe of Existentialist philosophy than Christian faith and the inclusion of a duo of lesbian relationships makes the film inappropriate for young people. Much violence, some of it gory, mature themes, including homosexuality, strong sexual imagery, a same-sex kiss, about a dozen mild oaths, several uses each of rough and crude language.

“Oppenheimer” (2023)

Impressive but uneven portrait of the famed theoretical physicist of the title (Cillian Murphy in a complex portrayal) who died in 1967, aged 62. Writer-director Christopher Nolan compellingly depicts both the scientist’s collaboration with a hard-driving Army general (Matt Damon) in the race to develop the atomic bomb during World War II and his far more complicated relationship with a former patron-turned-critic (Robert Downey Jr.) whose eventual opposition contributed to the travails the left-leaning theorist faced once anti-Communist sentiment became prevalent during the early stages of the Cold War. Chapters of the three hour-long film devoted to his early career and murky personal life (Emily Blunt plays his feisty biologist wife, Florence Pugh his troubled psychiatrist girlfriend) are less intriguing. Offsetting its potential educational value as an absorbing retrospective, and the subtlety of its approach to the morality of war, is the inclusion of needlessly frank scenes of the protagonist’s womanizing that even mature viewers may wish to avoid. Strong sexual content, including graphic activity and recurring upper female nudity, an adultery theme, brief gruesome sights, about a half-dozen profanities, a couple of milder oaths, several rough terms, occasional crude and crass language.

“Anora” (2024)

Seamy blend of comedy and drama about a stripper and prostitute (Mikey Madison) who gets more than she bargained for when the son (Mark Eydelshteyn) of a Russian oligarch first becomes her client and then proposes marriage. After his parents learn of the match, they dispatch a fixer (Karren Karagulian) and two henchmen (Yura Borisov and Vache Tovmasyan) to compel an annulment but the groom disappears and a prolonged search for him ensues. Alternatively pornographic and boring, writer-director Sean Baker’s film carries a Great Gatsby-like lesson about the dangers of mixing with the reckless rich but its visual and verbal excesses preclude recommendation for any audience. Excessive sexual content, including graphic scenes of prostitution and frequent nudity, drug use, a couple of instances each of profanity and milder swearing, relentless rough and crude language. The OSV News classification is O — morally offensive.

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