What to watch this weekend November 22, 2024: Movie awards contenders
Our top pick this week, “Blitz,” is a serious Oscar contender in many categories, including Best Picture, Best Sound, and Best Supporting Actress for Saoirse Ronan, who could be a double nominee this year for this and “The Outrun.” Steve McQueen — a Best Picture winner for “12 Years a Slave” — directs this World War II drama, his first feature in six years, which follows a boy (Elliott Heffernan) as he tries to reunite with his mother (Ronan) during the Blitz of London.
“Blitz” is a sweeping, old-fashioned British WWII movie — perhaps a little too old-fashioned to be a top-tier modern awards contender, as it’s tracking outside of the top five in many of our predictions categories, including Best Director and Best Original Screenplay. Reviews have been positive but not effusive, especially compared to McQueen’s earlier work. But you can expect it to pick up a few noms. It’s now streaming on Apple TV+.
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Here are some other movies to stream this weekend:
“The Piano Lesson”: Danielle Deadwyler is also likely to get a Best Supporting Actress nomination for her performance as Berenice, a woman in an argument with her brother over whether they should sell their piano, a family heirloom decorated with carvings made by their enslaved great-grandfather. This Netflix drama is based on a Pulitzer Prize-winning play by August Wilson. It is a Washington family affair — produced by Denzel, starring John David, and co-written and directed by Malcolm, the younger brother/son making his directorial debut. It’s a powerful drama about family, legacy, and the purpose of remembering the past.
“Alien: Romulus”: The latest installment in the “Alien” franchise probably won’t get any Oscar nominations, but it is a fun sci-fi horror film that’s arguably the best “Alien” movie since “Aliens,” so it’s still worth watching. It’s about a crew of young scavengers who board a seemingly abandoned spaceship and find something much more dangerous and alive than what they were expecting. And by “something,” we of course mean a vicious, drooling, toothy xenomorph. Rising stars Cailee Spaeny and David Jonsson lead the cast. It’s now on Hulu.
“Joy”: This inspiring and timely historical drama tells the origin story of in vitro fertilization. It follows surgeon Patrick Steptoe (Academy Award nominee Bill Nighy), nurse Jean Purdy (Thomasin McKenzie), and scientist Robert Edwards (James Norton) as they work to try to create this miraculous procedure in 1960s and 1970s England in the face of great opposition. The film, whose screenplay comes from prolific British writer Jack Thorne (“Enola Holmes”), is available to stream on Netflix.
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