Where to Watch All the Major Oscar-Nominated Movies Right Now

The Life Ahead

Nominated for: Best Original Song

Working with her director son, Edoardo Ponti, Sophia Loren is arresting at 86, playing a heartwarming Holocaust survivor and caregiver for streetwalkers’ children. But only the original song, “Io Sì (Seen),” is nominated.

Watch it: The Life Ahead, on Netflix

Ma Rainey's Black Bottom

Nominated for: Best Actress, Actor, Production Design, Costume Design, Makeup and Hairstyling

Resplendent with ostrich feathers and gold teeth, Viola Davis growlingly summons the indomitable spirit of America's first professional blues singer. She's up for best actress and the late Chadwick Boseman for best actor as Ma's genius sideman. The evocative film is also up for a number of design nods.

Watch it: Ma Rainey's Black Bottom, on Netflix

Mank

Nominated for: Best Actor, Supporting Actress, Picture, Director, Original Score, Cinematography, Production Design, Costume Design, Makeup and Hairstyling, Sound

The film's investigation of screenwriter Herman J. Mankiewicz's creative impact on Orson Welles's masterpiece Citizen Kane is a portrait of Hollywood in its morally tarnished golden age. Oscars do love movies about movie history, so it's up for 10 Oscars, including best picture, director, actor (Gary Oldman) and supporting actress (Amanda Seyfried, who's even better than Oldman).

Watch it: Mank, on Netflix

The Midnight Sky

Nominated for: Best Visual Effects

AARP Movies for Grownups Career Achievement winner George Clooney's eye-popping Antarctic spaceship drama is justly up for best visual effects.

Watch it: The Midnight Sky, on Netflix

Minari

Nominated for: Best Actor, Supporting Actress, Picture, Director, Original Screenplay, Original Score

A Korean American family chases the American dream from California to a farm in the Ozarks — a trip to the heartland in more ways than one. It's up for six Oscars, including best picture, but we're hoping for Steven Yeun as best actor and Youn Yuh-jung, the Korean Meryl Streep, as supporting actress. She'd be great in a movie pitting her against Glenn Close's Hillbilly Elegy grandma.

Watch it: Minari, on Google Play

The Mole Agent

Nominated for: Best Documentary

In this superb film, a Chilean detective hires an octogenarian widower to sleuth out who's taking advantage of a woman in an assisted-living facility.

Watch it: The Mole Agent, on Amazon Prime

Mulan

Nominated for: Best Costume Design, Visual Effects

Disney's hit live-action remake of the animated classic about China's woman warrior deservedly earned nominations for costume design and visual effects.

Watch it: Mulan, on Disney+

My Octopus Teacher

Nominated for: Best Documentary

The most heartrending love story of the year is a true one about the filmmaker's relationship with a wild octopus in a South African kelp forest. Spoiler: Octopuses live only one year, and the death scene may make you cry.

Watch it: My Octopus Teacher, on Netflix

News of the World

Nominated for: Best Cinematography, Original Score, Production Design, Sound

In a good, old-fashioned western with True Grit-like gravitas, Tom Hanks plays a Civil War veteran who roams Texas to read newspapers aloud to illiterate townsfolk and rescues a girl caught between white and Native American cultures.

Watch it: News of the World, on Amazon Prime

Nomadland

Nominated for: Best Actress, Picture, Director, Adapted Screenplay, Cinematography, Editing

As a bold soul in her 60s who loses husband, house and livelihood, best actress nominee Frances McDormand strikes a noble blow here for those who are dispossessed but not downtrodden in a fact-based story nominated for best picture and director, among other honors.

Watch it: Nomadland, on Hulu

One Night in Miami

Nominated for: Best Supporting Actor, Original Song

A knockout film about Muhammad Ali's actual 1964 championship bout — witnessed by Malcolm X, Sam Cooke and Jim Brown — and the debate they have about the responsibilities of success. Leslie Odom, Jr., who plays Cooke, is up for both original song and best supporting actor.

Watch it: One Night in Miami, on Amazon Prime

Pieces of a Woman

Nominated for: Best Actress

It's too bad that Ellen Burstyn, 88, who plays a Holocaust survivor whose tough love combats the grief of her daughter's (Vanessa Kirby) over losing a child, didn't become the oldest-ever Oscar nominee in an acting category. But Kirby got a deserved nomination for best actress.

Watch it: Pieces of a Woman, on Netflix

Pinocchio

Nominated for: Best Costume Design, Makeup and Hairstyling

Life is Beautiful Oscar winner Roberto Benigni plays Geppetto in a live-action version of the tale about the puppet boy who goes from the Land of Toys to the Field of Miracles.

Watch it: Pinocchio, on Fandango Now

Promising Young Woman

Nominated for: Best Actress, Picture, Director, Original Screenplay, Film Editing

Some of filmdom's finest actors anchor a darkly comic revenge fantasy with emotional authenticity, with Carey Mulligan earning a best actress nomination among the film's other honors.

Watch it: Promising Young Woman, on YouTube

Soul

Nominated for: Best Animated Feature

Pete Docter broke the record for best animated feature nominations (four) with this exuberant tale of a middle-school band teacher (Jamie Foxx) who beats a midlife crisis and discovers what it means to have a soul. A rare animated feature good for grownups.

Watch it: Soul, on Disney+

Sound of Metal

Nominated for: Best Actor, Supporting Actor, Picture, Original Screenplay, Sound, Film Editing

Best actor nominee Riz Ahmed plays a punk musician losing his hearing, with best supporting actor nominee Paul Raci (in real life a recovering addict whose parents were deaf) as his addiction program director.

Watch it: Sound of Metal, on Amazon Prime

Tenet

Nominated for: Best Production Design, Visual Effects

Christopher Nolan's latest, wildest sci-fi head-scratcher is nominated for best production design as well as visual effects, which makes sense. The plot makes zero sense, but if you want to find out what happened, read this explanation before (and maybe after) you watch.

Watch it: Tenet, on Apple TV+

The Trial of the Chicago 7

Nominated for: Best Picture, Original Screenplay, Cinematography, Editing, Original Song

Aaron Sorkin's vivid dramatization of the real trial of Chicago's 1968 convention demonstrators turns what was a chaotic circus into a thoughtful spotlight on a schism in society.

Watch it: The Trial of the Chicago 7, on Netflix

The United States vs. Billie Holiday

Nominated for: Best Actress

A jazzy biopic that centers on the FBI's undercover setup of jazz immortal Holiday. Andra Day's moving voice may break your heart, make you forget about Diana Ross in Lady Sings the Blues, and win her best actress.

Watch it: The United States vs. Billie Holiday, on Hulu

The White Tiger

Nominated for: Best Adapted Screenplay

If you liked Slumdog Millionaire, you must see this darker movie about class and ambition in India. Its nominated screenplay is based on the Booker Prize-winning best seller about an ambitious, impoverished young man who becomes a rich man's driver, is betrayed, and ruthlessly triumphs against a rigged system.

Watch it: The White Tiger, on Netflix

Tim Appelo is AARP’s film and TV critic. Previously, he was Amazon’s entertainment editor, Entertainment Weekly’s video critic, and a writer for The Hollywood Reporter, People, MTV, LA Weekly and The Village Voice.