Oppenheimer, an eventual Best Picture Oscar winner, opens in theaters

Oppenheimer Released: July 11, 2023 Studio: Universal Pictures Genre: drama/biopic Box Office (numbers in millions): Domestic: 329.86 Worldwide: 976.80 Adjusted for Inflation: Domestic: -- Worldwide: --

Directing: Christopher Nolan Screenwriting: Christopher Nolan Starring: Cillian Murphy, Emily Blunt, Matt Damon, Robert Downey Jr. Review: Oppenheimer is a biopic about J. Robert Oppenheimer, the American theoretical physicist who led the research effort to develop the first atomic bomb. It is based on Kai Bird and Martin J. Sherwin’s 2005 Pulitzer Prize-winning biography American Prometheus. Even at a three-hour running time, director Christopher Nolan’s “skill in telling the story is such that it never seems to drag.” AT “Nolan has gifted us a truly unique, unflinching, nuanced portrait of the enigmatic, complicated man who spearheaded the Manhattan Project.” AT The bombs developed by the project and dropped on Japan “killed between 100,000 and 200,000 people,” AT an act for which “Oppenheimer never publicly expressed regret for.” AT “As he says in the film, his thinking was that it would be better to make dropping the first nuclear weapon so horrifying that nobody would ever want to use them again.” AT The movie shows Oppenheimer’s early years as a graduate student and college professor and his subsequent role in leading the Manhattan project. However, the movie also shows his downfall when his early Communist connections make him a victim of the McCarthy era. Robert Downey Jr. plays Lewis Strauss who, as the former chair of the Atomic Energy Commission, was instrumental in stripping Oppenheimer of his security clearance. His controversial role in taking down Oppenheimer led to the Senate rejected his nomination for Secretary of Commerce under Eisenhower. Emily Blunt “shines in a relatively small role as Kitty Oppenheimer, who suffered from depression and had a volatile relationship with her philandering husband, but remained fiercely loyal to him.” AT It became both the highest-grossing World War II-related film and highest-grossing biographical film of all time. WK It garnered thirteen Oscar nominations (winning 7), won five Golden Globe Awards, and seven British Academy Film Awards. Sources: AT ArsTechnica.com (8/5/2023). “Review: Oppenheimer is pure visual poetry” by Jennifer Ouellette WK Wikipedia.org

Awards/Honors/Lists: Dave’s Movie Database Lists: Awards: Oscars: Wins: 7: Best Picture, Best Director, Best Actor (Murphy), Best Supporting Actor (Downey Jr.), Best Cinematography, Best Film Editing, Best Original Score Nominations: 13: Best Supporting Actress (Blunt), Best Adapted Screenplay, Best Costume Design, Best Makeup and Hairstyling, Best Production Design, Best Sound First posted 2/26/2025.

CODA premiered at Sundance

CODA Released: January 28, 2021 Studio: Apple Original Films Genre: coming of age Box Office (numbers in millions): Domestic: -- Worldwide: 1.91 Adjusted for Inflation: Domestic: -- Worldwide: --

Directing: Siân Heder Screenwriting: Siân Heder Starring: Emilia Jones, Eugenio Derbez, Troy Kotsur, Ferdia Walsh-Peelo, Daniel Durant, Marlee Matlin Review: CODA is a coming-of-age film written and directed by Siân Heder. It is an English-language remake of the French-Belgian 2014 film La Famille Bélier. Ruby Rossi (Jones) is a child of deaf adults (CODA) who wants to become a singer despite her family’s hope that she help with the family fishing business after she graduates from high school. MadnessBrewing.com says the movie “is a really great film…despite its formulaic nature.” MB “Even though the expected outcome was always the result, it never felt disappointing.” MB “What CODA suffers from in lack of twists, it makes up in character development and relationships.” MB CODA was the first film to premiere at the Sundance Film Festival to go on and win the Oscar for Best Picture. Kotsur was the first male deaf actor to win an Academy Award and a BAFTA Award. All of the deaf characters in the film were portrayed by deaf actors. Sources: MB MadnessBrewing.com review by Jamie Gore WK Wikipedia

Awards/Honors/Lists: Eras: Awards: Oscars: Wins: 3. Best Picture, Best Supporting Actor (Kotsur), Best Adapted Screenplay Nominations: 3 First posted 3/2/2025.

Nomadland, the eventual Best Picture Oscar winner, released

Nomadland Released: September 11, 2020 Studio: Highwayman, Hear/Say Productions, Cor Cordium Productions, Searchlight Pictures Genre: drama Box Office (numbers in millions): Domestic: 3.70 Worldwide: 39.46 Adjusted for Inflation: Domestic: -- Worldwide: --

Directing: Chloé Zhao Screenwriting: Chloé Zhao Starring: Frances McDormand Review: Frances McDormand stars “as a widow who leaves her life in Nevada to travel around the United States in her van as a nomad” WK in this “docu-fictional hybrid” GN based on Jessica Bruder’s 2017 non-fiction book Nomadland: Surviving America in the Twenty-First Century. The movie captures a sad “a new phenomenon: America’s 60- and 70-something generation whose economic future was shattered by the 2008 crash. They are grey-haired middle-class strivers reduced to poverty who can’t afford to retire but can’t afford to work while maintaining a home. So they have become nomads, a new American tribe roaming the country in camper vans in which they sleep, looking for seasonal work.” GN However, the movie also shows “that, along with the hardship and the heartache, there is also serenity in this way of life, even a kind of euphoria – without the burdens of a house and possessions you can have a glorious and very American freedom in the lost tradition of Emerson and Twain.” GN The movie was written, produced, directed, and edited by Chloé Zhao. She became only the second woman to win an Oscar for Best Director and the first Asian woman. She was also the first to be nominated in four categories in a single year. Sources: GN The Guardian movie review by Peter Bradshaw WK Wikipedia

Awards/Honors/Lists: Dave’s Movie Database Lists: Awards: Oscars: Wins: 3. Best Picture, Best Director (Chloé Zhao), Best Actress (McDormand) Nominations: 6. Best Adapted Screenplay, Best Editing, Best Cinematography First posted 3/1/2025.

50 years ago: The Apartment, Best Picture Oscar winner, released

The Apartment Released: June 15, 1960 Studio: United Artists Genre: comedy/drama/romance Box Office (numbers in millions): Domestic: 18.60 Worldwide: ? Adjusted for Inflation: Domestic: 232.10 Worldwide: ?

Directing: Billy Wilder Screenwriting: I.A.L. Diamond, Billy Wilder Starring: Jack Lemmon, Shirley MacLaine, Fred MacMurray, Jack Kruschen Review: The Apartment is “a classic, caustically-witty, satirically cynical, melodramatic comedy” FS Its “wry take on corporate America skewers the climb through the bedroom to the boardroom.” A07 Reportedly, director/screenwriter Billy Wilder’s inspiration for The Apartment came from a scene in Brief Encounter in which a man lets a friend use his apartment for an affair. MSN In this movie, it is C.C. Baxter (Lemmon), “an ambitious, lowly, misguided and young insurance clerk,” FS who is loaning out his apartment, but to his “company’s higher-up, philandering executives.” FS This includes “his callous married boss J. D. Sheldrake (MacMurray).” FS However, Baxter’s plan falls apart when he develops a crush on Fran Kubelik, the building’s melancholy elevator operator. She turns out to be “the boss’ flighty and fragile girlfriend.” A98 After she attempts suicide in the apartment, Baxter is convinced by his “next-door, philosophizing doctor/neighbor Dr. Dreyfuss (Kruschen)” FS that it is time to “confront the craven ethics of his superiors – and he wins the affections of Fran.” FS Sources: A98 American Film Institute (1998). “AFI’s 100 Years, 100 Movies” A07 American Film Institute (2007). “AFI’s 100 Years…100 Movies – 10th Anniversary Edition” FS Filmsite.org “100 Greatest Films” MSN MSN Entertainment (7/19/2018). “100 Best Movies” by Shahnaz Mahmud

Awards/Honors/Lists: Dave’s Movie Database Lists: Dave’s Movie Database Genre Lists: Oscars: Wins: 5 – Best Picture, Best Director, Best Story and Screenplay, Best B/W Art Direction/Set Decoration, Best Film Editing Nominations: 10 – including Best Actor (Lemmon), Best Actress (MacLaine), Best Supporting Actor (Kruschen), Best B/W Cinematography, Best Sound. Other Awards: Other Lists/Honors: Critics’ Picks: Roger Ebert Francis Ford Coppola First posted 5/30/2023.

 

The Hurt Locker wins the Oscar for Best Picture

The Hurt Locker Released: June 26, 2009 Studio: Voltage Pictures, First Light, Kingsgate Films, Summit Entertainment Genre: war drama Box Office (numbers in millions): Domestic: 17.02 Worldwide: 49.26 Adjusted for Inflation: Domestic: -- Worldwide: --

Directing: Kathryn Bigelow Screenwriting: Mark Boal Starring: Jeremy Renner, Anthony Mackie, Brian Geraghty, Evangeline Lilly, Ralph Fiennes, David Morse, Guy Pearce Review: The Hurt Locker is a war drama set during the second year of the Iraq War. The story follows an Explosive Ordnance Disposal team who try to destroy an explosive device, but “are targeted by insurgents and shows their psychological reactions to the stress of combat.” WK The screenwriter, Mark Boal, drew on his own experience as a war journalist. The term “hurt locker” “basically means Shell Shock 2.0. It refers to the physical trauma of being in close proximity, time after time, to the deafening blast of an explosion, controlled or otherwise.” GN Conflict develops between Staff Sergeant William James (Renner) and Sergeant J.T. Sanborn (Mackie), who is disturbed by “James’s redneck recklessness.” GN The third member of their squad is Owen Eldridge (Geraghty), a “young soldier, visibly unravelling.” GN James’s behavior forces the viewer to ask if he is “becoming unhinged, driven over the edge” GN or “that the danger of war is deeply exciting and James wants to mainline it directly into his vein?” GN Director Kathryn Bigelow focuses on “a single location – Baghdad – and wants to find out what is going on inside the US combatants’ hearts and minds.” GN She “adroitly shows how Sanborn and Eldridge resent and yet sympathize with their gung-ho commanding officer. They are scared by him, and yet they are excited and even inspired by him.” GN The Guardian’s Peter Bradshaw praised the film as “the best and most insightful anti-war film about Iraq.” GN “Debating the purpose and origins of the conflict is not the point.” GN “The Hurt Locker is about the long, painful endgame in Iraq, the asymmetric nightmare in which the military cannot engage the enemy in any meaningful sense.” GN Sources: GN The Guardian review by Peter Bradshaw WK Wikipedia

Awards/Honors/Lists: Dave’s Movie Database Lists: Genre Lists: Eras: Awards: Oscars: Wins: 6: Best Picture, Best Director, Best Original Screenplay, Best Film Editing, Best Sound Mixing, Best Sound Editing Nominations: 9: Best Actor (Renner), Best Cinematography, Best Original Score Hall of Fames: Lists: Experts’ Picks: First posted 3/5/2025.