Between Captain Marvel, Spider-Man: Far From Home, and Avengers: Endgame’s record-setting $2.8 billion worldwide haul, superhero movies—and Marvel Cinematic Universe films in particular—continued to dominate the box office in 2019. But in the wake of Alfonso Cuarón’s Oscar-winning Roma (2018), several of the year’s most critically acclaimed films opted to forgo a wide or prolonged theatrical release in favor of streaming on Netflix. Which means that many of this year’s Oscar-nominated movies are already waiting to be watched on a Wi-Fi–ready device near you.
With less than two weeks to go before the 92nd Academy Awards ceremony takes place on February 9, you’ve got plenty of time to catch up on this year’s nominated films from the comfort of your own home (though you’ll have to cough up a fee for a few titles). Here are 19 of them.
The Irishman (2019)
Martin Scorsese seemed to be a magnet for controversy in 2019—first because of his decision to partner with Netflix to release The Irishman, then again when he declared that Marvel movies were “not cinema.” Regardless of where you stand on either matter, it’s hard to deny that his adaptation of I Heard You Paint Houses—former homicide prosecutor Charles Brandt’s retelling of the life of Frank Sheeran (Robert De Niro), a Philadelphia truck driver turned hit man for crime boss Russell Bufalino (Joe Pesci), and the part they played in the murder/disappearance of Jimmy Hoffa (played with typical gusto by Al Pacino)—was worth the decade of development hell it took to complete. Though much was made of the film’s de-aging process, the fact that the technology allowed Scorsese to maximize the screen time of his three main stars makes some of the film’s soft edges a non-issue. Especially in the case of Pesci, who came out of retirement after turning Scorsese down a reported 40 times before agreeing to play Russell Bufalino in a quietly menacing albeit uncharacteristically subtle performance that ranks right up there with Goodfellas and Raging Bull as one of his best.
Where to stream it: Netflix
Marriage Story (2019)
Noah Baumbach came into his own with 2005’s The Squid and the Whale, a largely autobiographical and emotionally draining examination of a Brooklyn couple’s divorce and the impact it has on their two young sons, which earned Baumbach a Best Original Screenplay Oscar nomination. Marriage Story plays into many of the same themes, but examines the unique particularities of a marriage that is irreparably broken despite both its participants still loving each other. The film earned a six Oscar nominations, including nods for Best Picture, Best Original Screenplay, and Best Actor and Actress for Adam Driver and Scarlett Johansson, who both successfully sidestep melodrama and deliver painfully raw performances to which anyone who has ever been in a relationship—married or not, happy or otherwise—can relate.
