From She Said to Devotion: this season’s ignored Oscarbait movies - The Guardian

Photograph: Moviestore Collection Ltd/AlamyModeled as if it were an Oscar contender from decades prior (Gladiator and Braveheart were both confirmed influences), Gina Prince-Bythewood’s rousing action adventure The Woman King was an instant crowd-pleaser at both its Toronto film festival premiere and upon wide release soon after.

It was the rare historical epic to centre Black women with Oscar winner Viola Davis leading the charge, the actor seen as a likely best actress contender and those doing top-tier work behind-the-scenes (on a budget lower than films of this scale usually receive) also predicted to get recognition.

After the surprise success of devastating dementia drama The Father, playwright turned screenwriter-director Florian Zeller decided to adapt another one of his tough family plays, The Son, an acclaimed hit on stage (the Guardian’s Michael Billington called it “remarkable”).

But Till, from Chinonye Chukwu who directed 2019’s powerful drama Clemency (star Alfre Woodard was a stinging Oscar snub that year), was a thoughtful and poignant film that avoided uneasy tropes and allowed Danielle Deadwyler the chance to shine in her first major lead role.

With period caper Amsterdam, he threw it all at the wall, including the starriest cast of the year (Christian Bale, Margot Robbie, John David Washington, Robert De Niro, Anya Taylor-Joy, Zoe Saldana, Rami Malek, Chris Rock, Mike Myers, Taylor Swift) but it sank both commercially and critically.

The recent best actor Oscar winner received a 10-year ban from the academy that would prevent him from attending any events but not from being nominated and months later, Apple announced that his collaboration with director Antoine Fuqua, telling the story of a slave fleeing a plantation, would get a late-in-the-season release.