Where to watch the 2022 Oscar nominees: What's in theaters and what's streaming?
The 2022 Oscar nominations are in. And once again, a number of the nominated films are available on streaming platforms, as well as in cinemas, as the theater industry continues to weather the COVID-19 pandemic.
The nominations for the 94th Academy Awards were announced Tuesday morning by "Black-ish" star Tracee Ellis Ross and "Will & Grace" actor Leslie Jordan on the Oscars website, "Good Morning America" and elsewhere. Netflix’s Western drama “The Power of the Dog” and the sci-fi epic "Dune" led the nominees with 12 and 10 nominations apiece, respectively.
A number of this year's nominees are accessible on a variety of subscription and pay-per-view streaming services — from Netflix to Disney+ — while a few remain exclusively in theaters.
Here's a complete guide to where you can find all the feature-length nominees ahead of the Oscars ceremony, as well as what our film critics had to say about them. You can access the landing pages of each movie by clicking on the streaming service links below.
This year's Academy Awards ceremony will take place March 27 at Hollywood's Dolby Theatre and will be broadcast live on ABC.
'Ascension'
Where to watch: Paramount+
Nominated for: Documentary feature
What we said: "By the time 'Ascension' ends at a European-style dinner held by the very rich people the inhabitants of the documentary’s preceding two segments are theoretically working to please, [director Jessica] Kingdon has made her point about the yawning gap between the workers who know struggle and the wealthy who don’t."
'Attica'
Where to watch: Showtime
Nominated for: Documentary feature
What we said: "It will rattle and upset viewers, and it should. 'Attica' is an insightful, provocative work that contextualizes how those operating the facility not only enable but encourage racism and dehumanization, have done so for decades and continue to do so today."
'Being the Ricardos'
Where to watch: Amazon
Nominated for: Supporting actor, lead actor, lead actress
What we said: "While 'Being the Ricardos' is many things — a eulogy for a doomed showbiz marriage, a mixed bag of actorly impersonations, a chance to hear [Javier] Bardem sing 'Babalú' — it is, first and foremost, the latest hyper-articulate history lesson written and directed by Aaron Sorkin. Which means, of course, that it’s no more interested in sticking to the truth than Lucy is in staying out of Ricky’s nightclub act."
'Belfast'
Where to watch: Video on demand (VOD) and in theaters
Nominated for: Supporting actress, sound, original screenplay, supporting actor, original song, director, best picture
What we said: "Personalities don’t have to leap off the screen for a story to hold your attention; sometimes a filmmaker’s mise-en-scène or attention to details will be evocative enough to bring you fully into their world. If that doesn’t work, they can always fall back on tear-jerking bathos and sentimental clichés. 'Belfast,' to its partial credit and ultimate detriment, seems reluctant to embrace any of these possibilities."
'CODA'
Where to watch: Apple TV+
Nominated for: Adapted screenplay, supporting actor, best picture
What we said: "'CODA' warrants at least half a dozen sobbing emojis, followed by a dozen hearts and a couple of bouquets of flowers and, I don’t know, maybe a peach and an eggplant (or whatever the kids use these days) for the number of times the movie emphasizes the parents’ spectacularly healthy sex life."
'Coming 2 America'
Where to watch: Amazon
Nominated for: Makeup & hairstyling
What we said: "'Coming 2 America' would appear to be the victim of spectacularly wretched timing, having waited 33 years to be born only to see its original theatrical distributor, Paramount Pictures, turn it over to Amazon Studios for a princely sum due to the COVID-19 pandemic. Perhaps some of this movie’s jokes would kill on the big screen rather than simply expiring as they did on my laptop."
'Cruella'
Where to watch: Disney+
Nominated for: Costume design, makeup & hairstyling
What we said: "['Cruella'] isn’t a prequel or an origin story so much as the product of an alternate timeline. By movie’s end, this Cruella seems as likely to skin a dog as she is to wear a T-shirt to the Met Gala. Puppycidal maniacs don’t make sympathetic protagonists — and 'Cruella,' above all, wants you to sympathize."
'Cyrano'
Where to watch: In theaters Feb. 25
Nominated for: Costume design
What we said: "Although the results aren’t quite as wire-to-wire impressive, Joe Wright’s elaborately staged 'Cyrano,' adapted by Erica Schmidt from her own musical adaptation of the 1897 Edmond Rostand play, boasts enough virtuoso flourishes to feel like more than just an unadorned showcase for Peter Dinklage’s central performance."
'Don't Look Up'
Where to watch: Netflix
Nominated for: Original score, original screenplay, editing, best picture
What we said: "Nothing about the foolishness and outrageousness of what the movie shows us — no matter how virtuosically sliced and diced by [director Adam] McKay’s characteristically jittery editor, Hank Corwin — can really compete with the horrors of our real-world American idiocracy. (But speaking of which: Would it have killed the movie to define the world as something bigger than the U.S. of A.?)"
'Drive My Car'
Where to watch: In theaters
Nominated for: Adapted screenplay, international feature, director, best picture
What we said: "'Drive My Car' moves with ... stealthy grace. It’s composed from maybe a thousand banal details — schedules and appointments, arrivals and departures — and yet it glides by like a dream. ... It’s a seamless work, but crucially, it isn’t airbrushed or sanitized."
'Dune'
Where to watch: VOD and in theaters
Nominated for: Costume design, sound, original score, adapted screenplay, editing, makeup & hairstyling, visual effects, cinematography, production design, best picture
What we said: "With methodical poise and seat-rattling spectacle, the French Canadian filmmaker Denis Villeneuve ... draws you into an astonishingly vivid, sometimes plausibly unnerving vision of the future. If those cursed earlier stabs at 'Dune' were examples of what the French call a 'film maudit,' this imposing new vision aspires to be the opposite."
'Encanto'
Where to watch: Disney+ and in theaters
Nominated for: Original score, animated feature, original song
What we said: "The animation is a vibrantly hued and energetic swirl of almost nonstop motion, and [Lin-Manuel] Miranda’s songs skip from genre to genre ... There are times where you wish everything would slow down for a moment to allow time to get to know some of the supporting characters better, but the story of 'Encanto' is refreshingly, and satisfyingly, swift and contained."
'The Eyes of Tammy Faye'
Where to watch: HBO Max
Nominated for: Makeup & hairstyling, lead actress
What we said: "The more alienated she is from the Christian media that spawned her, the more poignant [Jessica] Chastain’s Tammy Faye becomes. We follow her through her failed attempts at a Hollywood reinvention, undertaken with her usual chipper optimism, but also an undertow of melancholy and perhaps a slow-dawning awareness of her own delusion."
'Flee'
Where to watch: Hulu and in theaters
Nominated for: Animated feature, documentary feature, international feature
What we said: "'Flee' is a work of great empathy for the refugee experience, bringing audiences close up to the fears of violence and repression that drove [Amin] Nawabi’s family from their home and the abuse and apathy he describes that they faced once they left. More poignantly it illustrates how deeply the invisible scars can remain etched in those violently fractured from family, home and the promise of safety, even long after the journey is complete."
'Four Good Days'
Where to watch: Hulu
Nominated for: Original song
What we said: “'Four Good Days' is a portrait of addiction that wants to dive into the ugliest parts: the detox, the physical deterioration, the flop houses, the things Molly did for drugs. But, despite [Mila] Kunis’ haggard appearance, 'Four Good Days' only flirts with ugly, pulling away from the most vile details in the last moments."
'Free Guy'
Where to watch: Disney+ starting Feb. 23 and VOD
Nominated for: Visual effects
What we said: "The whole film remains a bit too glib and smug ... Even with romance powering its emotional core, the conflict of 'Free Guy' is about intellectual property rights, which comes across especially like 'Hollywood problems.' That cynicism is underscored by some truly awkward moments of ret-conned Disney IP that feel as if they were shoved in after Disney acquired Fox and all its content."
'The Hand of God'
Where to watch: Netflix
Nominated for: International feature
What we said: "Coming-of-age movies can be about the One Lesson or the many. [Director Paolo] Sorrentino, however, would prefer you take in the ’80s-era journey of distracted adolescent Fabietto Schisa (Filippo Scotti), a scrawny kid in a big family, as a gliding, swerving travelogue of humor and heartache, visions and sounds, minus any overriding moral instruction in how anyone is supposed to grow up."
'House of Gucci'
Where to watch: VOD and in theaters
Nominated for: Makeup & hairstyling
What we said: "There’s something fitting, even respectful, about the sheer number of movie stars that have been pressed into service here. Throwing subtlety to the wind with wild gesticulations and exaggerated Italian accents, they may flirt with and sometimes tumble headlong into stereotype, but they do so with a verve and commitment that, for the better part of 2½ hours, disarms judgment and suspends disbelief."
'King Richard'
Where to watch: VOD and in theaters
Nominated for: Supporting actress, original screenplay, editing, original song, lead actor, best picture
What we said: "What we see on-screen is both rewardingly jagged and uncommonly thoughtful, an engrossing family drama that doubles as a sharp rethink of how a family operates within the overlapping, often overbearing spheres of race, class, sports and celebrity. It climaxes, as it must, with a hell of a match, but the movie’s most furious volleys are rhetorical, psychological and, finally, emotional."
'Licorice Pizza'
Where to watch: In theaters
Nominated for: Original screenplay, director, best picture
What we said: "A valentine is ... an apt description of what this movie is, namely the most ardent love letter from a filmmaker to an actor in recent memory. But 'Licorice Pizza' is also more than that: a quasi-romantic comedy and a shaggy-dog epic, a rise-and-fall portrait of a waterbed empire, a string of Hollywood tall tales, a peek inside the chambers of political power and — not to be redundant — a roundelay of men behaving badly."
'The Lost Daughter'
Where to watch: Netflix
Nominated for: Supporting actress, adapted screenplay, lead actress
What we said: "For a film that contains no explicit violence or violations, 'The Lost Daughter' nonetheless feels quiveringly, exhilaratingly close to something taboo. It’s a rare film that dares to question the supposedly inviolable value of motherhood — a phenomenon typically held up as so sacred that any women who don’t feel attuned to it are encouraged to doubt themselves."
'Luca'
Where to watch: Disney+
Nominated for: Animated feature
What we said: "'Luca' the movie may look slight or modest compared with its more extravagant Pixar forebears; certainly it lacks the grand metaphysical ambitions of the Oscar-winning 'Soul' ... But that may explain why it ultimately feels like the defter, more surefooted film, and one whose subtle depths and lingering emotions belie the diminished platform to which it’s essentially been relegated."
'Lunana: A Yak in the Classroom'
Where to watch: VOD starting Feb. 11
Nominated for: International feature
What we said: "Opening the doors to a land and people most Westerners know little about, the director crafts a crowd-pleaser in stunning, mostly unseen locations whose charms weather even its most idealistically patriotic and overly saccharine notes."
'The Mitchells vs. the Machines'
Where to watch: Netflix
Nominated for: Animated feature
What we said: "Like our mothers and fathers, 'The Mitchells vs. the Machines' doesn’t always get it right — at one point the filmmakers jarringly use a cop’s story as a metaphorical entry point to rebond father and daughter — but the film always tries its best."
'Nightmare Alley'
Where to watch: HBO Max, Hulu and in theaters
Nominated for: Costume design, cinematography, production design, best picture
What we said: "'Nightmare Alley' ... opens up a fresh lane in the director’s genre scholarship. It’s a film noir in much the same way that 'Crimson Peak' was a horror movie: Feverishly and often magnificently overwrought, it treats its genre less as a template to be followed than a lavish funhouse in which to run amok."
'No Time to Die'
Where to watch: VOD
Nominated for: Sound, original song, visual effects
What we said: "'No Time to Die' is more about aging and creeping obsolescence as about Aston Martins with headlamp-mounted machine guns doing doughnuts on an Italian piazza, though it has those too. It’s about the old guard making way for the new and about the past resurfacing to scare the living daylights out of the present — all of this before a tomorrow, which as we know, never dies."
'Parallel Mothers'
Where to watch: In theaters
Nominated for: Original score, lead actress
What we said: "You may have a sense of where 'Parallel Mothers' is headed early on, though you’d be hard-pressed to guess what’s in store once it arrives. Suffice to say that while fate and coincidence play as potent a role as ever in [director Pedro] Almodóvar’s work, it’s how his characters handle the surprises they’re dealt, more so than the surprises themselves, that gives this story its shattering emotional force."
'The Power of the Dog'
Where to watch: Netflix
Nominated for: Supporting actress, sound, original score, adapted screenplay, supporting actor (x2), editing, cinematography, production design, lead actor, director, best picture
What we said: "'The Power of the Dog' is a psychological thriller in the guise of a western, and possibly a love story in the guise of a psychological thriller. Everything about it, from the spare, enveloping details of Grant Major’s production design to the nerve-shredding dissonances of Jonny Greenwood’s score, directs our focus inward."
'Raya and the Last Dragon'
Where to watch: Disney+
Nominated for: Animated feature
What we said: "The question at the heart of the movie is whether people at odds can ever learn to trust one another, let alone lay down their lives for one another, and submit to the realization that their fates are ultimately entwined. There are certainly worse lessons a movie could impart under present circumstances, and the filmmakers ponder it here with disarming sincerity and seriousness."
'Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings'
Where to watch: Disney+
Nominated for: Visual effects
What we said: "Although tailored to the usual Marvel specifications — apocalyptic stakes, bloodless casualties — this endgame also has a distinctly personal undercurrent that seems to transcend the parameters of this particular story. ... 'Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings' may be far from perfect, but it knows that sometimes it takes a god to play one."
'Spencer'
Where to watch: Hulu
Nominated for: Lead actress
What we said: "Why consign a heroine of [Princess] Diana’s iconic stature and expressive power to one genre? The royal family’s travails have long been likened to those of a soap opera, but 'Spencer,' even as it achieves the emotional extravagance of a first-rate melodrama, refuses to be hemmed in. It’s a historical fantasia, a claustrophobic thriller and a dark comedy of manners, all poised on a knife’s edge between tabloid trash and high art."
'Spider-Man: No Way Home'
Where to watch: In theaters
Nominated for: Visual effects
What we said: "'No Way Home,' directed by Jon Watts ... does strive to pull off something memorable, and largely succeeds. It’s rare to see such surreally elaborate narrative gymnastics arise from what is basically a long-running game of corporate tug-of-war."
'Summer of Soul'
Where to watch: Hulu
Nominated for: Documentary feature
What we said: "['Summer of Soul'] offers glorious proof, showcasing the music, offering a thought-provoking history lesson about the Black cultural and political transformation taking place outside the festival, and presenting a rejoinder to anyone still oblivious to the ways that history celebrates certain achievements while roundly ignoring other equally important stories."
'Tick, Tick ... Boom!'
Where to watch: Netflix
Nominated for: Editing, lead actor
What we said: "The movie should, by rights, be insufferable. Instead, 'Tick, Tick … Boom!' feels refreshingly intimate and specific, idealistic but rarely naive, and grounded in a way that gives an unexpected lift to its flights of fancy. It doesn’t just write what it knows; it’s the work of someone who knows the theater intimately and delights in guiding us through the agonies and the ecstasies of the creative process."
'The Tragedy of Macbeth'
Where to watch: Apple TV+ and in theaters
Nominated for: Cinematography, production design, lead actor
What we said: "There are moments when you want to linger, to let this world and all its darkly conjured magic — as well as its lessons on the horrors of tyranny in any era — sink ever deeper into your bones. But instead [director Joel] Coen keeps accelerating, and the drama’s final reckonings — Macbeth’s embrace of his dark fate, Lady Macbeth’s remorseful unraveling — feel less like the tragic operations of fate than the workings of an impeccably tooled machine."
'West Side Story'
Where to watch: Disney+ starting March 2 and in theaters
Nominated for: Supporting actress, costume design, sound, cinematography, production design, director, best picture
What we said: "Directing a musical — and a version of a musical he’s loved since childhood — has shaken something loose in [Steven] Spielberg. Why 'West Side Story,' why now? To watch this movie is to see and hear the answer."
'The Worst Person in the World'
Where to watch: In theaters
Nominated for: Original screenplay, international feature
What we said: "Nobody here actually calls Julie the worst person in the world (that insult is reserved for another character entirely), but you can imagine her thinking it about herself as she considers the mistakes she’s made and the people she’s hurt. But over the course of this charming, wistful, ineffably tender movie, you also see her learn to embrace the possibility of good in herself and in every precious, unhurried moment. It’s time well spent."
'Writing With Fire'
Where to watch: VOD starting March 1
Nominated for: Documentary feature
What we said: "A vital, stimulating dispatch from the frontlines of consequential citizen journalism, 'Writing With Fire' makes powerfully clear how underserved communities everywhere need reporters like the women of [Khabar Lahariya]: resourceful and unafraid. Because for every noteworthy outcome of their coverage — a new road, overdue medical services, a revitalized investigation into a rape case, a woman energized to join their mission — there are forces against progress just as resourceful and unafraid."
Times film editor Geoff Berkshire contributed to this report.
This story originally appeared in Los Angeles Times.
