Awards Contenders You Can Stream Right Now

Hollywood's annual awards season madness is in full swing — and now that the Academy Award Nominations have been announced, it's about to hit fever pitch. Even as many of this year's biggest winners are still making rounds at your local cineplex, streaming services have already brought a number of "for your consideration" campaigns into the living rooms of film lovers across the globe. Grab some popcorn and study up for your awards season office pools by streaming these contenders right now.

Sometimes even a great movie is just a little too small to be noticed in the chaos of awards season. With its frenzied, hyper-kinetic energy and unflinching realism, the Safdie brothers' gritty, neon-drenched crime drama may be the best little movie of 2017 — and it also happens to feature a towering performance from a nearly unrecognizable Robert Pattinson. The actor's international appeal helped Good Time score big at last year's Cannes Film Fest (where it was nominated for the Palm d'Or and took home the Best Composer statue for Oneohtrix Point Never's propulsive original score).    

Still, with the film's studio, A24, pushing the brilliant Lady Bird and The Florida Project heavily this awards season, Good Time has sadly been lost in the mix. Luckily, there's a place where little movies still have a chance to collect a trophy or two: The Film Independent Spirit Awards, where Good Time is competing in a handful of categories at this years' ceremony, including nominations for Pattinson as Best Male Lead and The Safdies themselves as Best Director.

Of course, Get Out has some serious competition in the Best Picture and Best Director categories this year. High on that list is Christopher Nolan and his narratively audacious WWII drama Dunkirk. Following the incredible true story of the Allied Forces' attempts to escape the German army via the titular beach in France, Dunkirk initially pits itself as a classically drawn war story.

If you've seen the film, then you know there's nothing classic about Nolan's approach. As Dukirk unfolds (by land, sea and air, and over separate timeframes, no less) Nolan turns the concept of a war movie on its head, crafting a visceral, immersive, wholly original experience in the process.

With Dunkirk's impressive eight Oscar nominations, Nolan's army is out to prove their film's "survival is victory" mentality can pay off in awards season. If the Academy has proven anything over the years it's that they're suckers for a good WWII flick. The only question is whether they'll embrace one as unconventional as Nolan's.

Netflix has released a number of acclaimed original features, but 2017 really felt like the streaming giant's breakout year — so it's only appropriate that one of its most well-reviewed releases would garner a little love during awards season. Mudbound has gotten more than a little bit, too: Writer-director Dee Rees' uncompromising tale of two families — one white, one black — struggling to survive in the Jim Crow South has earned the film a trip to every major awards show from the Golden Globes to the SAG Awards.

Still, given Hollywood's overall icy view of Netflix's release model, many wondered whether a trip down Oscar's red carpet would become a reality for Rees and her team, but the film landed four nominations — including nods for Mary J. Blige (Supporting Actor and for Best Original Song), Rees and her Mudbound co-writer Virgil Williams (Best Adapted Screenplay), and Director of Photography Rachel Morrison, who becomes the first woman ever nominated in the Best Cinematography category. Look out, Oscar — Netflix has officially arrived.

Wonder Woman wasn't the only superhero movie released in 2017 to end up chasing awards season glory. After scoring a surprise Best Adapted Screenplay nod from the Writers Guild of America, James Mangold, Scott Frank and Michael Green dropped a few more jaws across Hollywood when the Academy followed suit by nominating their screenplay for Logan in the Best Adapted Screenplay category.

Seems that after years of all but ignoring the superhero set while handing out serious awards, the establishment has finally acknowledged that there's a bit more going on in the genre than just silly costumes and big-budget bombast, and it's hard to argue that Mangold and Co.'s soulful, brutal goodbye to The Wolverine isn't worthy of the attention. That Oscar nomination makes Logan — the first superhero film ever nominated for its screenplay — worthy of a place in history as well.  

After its early 2016 festival debut, indie comedy The Big Sick was lauded as one of the best films at that year's Sundance Film Festival, and its writers — real-life couple Kumail Nanjiani and Emily V. Gordon — were hailed as breakout stars. That sort of attention typically either vaults a film into the national spotlight or pegs it as a cult classic. After dropping a reported $12 million for distribution rights, Amazon Studios had no intention of letting The Big Sick waste away in the latter category, promoting the film heavily and ensuring it got in front of as many eyes as possible.

The Big Sick did not disappoint. The film — based on Nanjiani's and Gordon's complicated and hilarious courtship — might boast more drama, romance and laugh-out-loud comedy than any other film released in 2017. It also scored raves from critics and audiences alike.

Fittingly, it ended up being a continual presence on the awards circuit, with the film's pitch-perfect screenplay and Holly Hunter's scene-stealing performance landing it invites to almost every major awards show. That includes a trip to the Academy Awards, where Nanjiani and Gordon's script competed in the Best Original Screenplay category.

Of all the films on this list, Dan Gilroy's Roman J. Israel, Esq. is the one that came and went with the least fanfare in its theatrical run. Considering the film stars perennial awards fave Denzel Washington, we're not quite sure why. It's possible that the title failed to inspire intrigue in audiences, or that a lukewarm critical reception and tepid word of mouth spoiled the film's big-screen run. Either way, not many people actually saw this film in theaters.

That's a shame, because even if Gilroy's tale of an idealistic defense attorney struggling to maintain his ethical core amid the overcrowded Los Angeles court system never quite finds its legs as a thriller, it features yet another powerful performance from Washington — one that put him in the mix for virtually every major acting prize, including the Golden Globes, the Screen Actors Guild, and a staggering ninth Oscar nomination.

The thing about awards season is that the actual awards almost never go the the "best" anything in any given year. The winners tend to be forgotten by the time the next year's awards are presented. Meanwhile, it's the barely recognized and overlooked films that often stick in our collective consciousness.  

Sean Baker's acutely observed tearjerker The Florida Project didn't make a major immediate mark on the 2017 awards circuit, though the film was recognized (mostly for Willem Dafoe's magnificent supporting turn) by virtually every ceremony, including a Best Supporting Actor Oscar nomination. The gorgeously filmed indie seemed a far more natural fit, however, for the Independent Spirit Awards.

In another five years you may not remember which 2017 movie won "best this" or "best that," but if you spend some time in The Florida Project's colorful, tragi-magical little world, you won't forget it — and no amount of awards season praise will change that.