Fifteen feature films are preparing to do battle on Sunday evening at the 94th Academy Awards.
Best Film, Best Original and Adapted Screenplays, Best Male and Female Performances, … The majority of Hollywood's coveted golden statuettes will be distributed to a host of critically acclaimed feature films scrutinized at festivals and film awards.
Ahead of the most anticipated evening in American cinema,
Le Figaro
recaps the most important films to watch at the 2022 Oscars.
To discover
Discover the “Best of the Goncourt Prize” collection
Read alsoOscars 2022: the complete list of films in competition
Belfast
by Kenneth Branagh
9 nominations. 1h37. Currently in cinema.
Buddy, a 9-year-old boy, grew up in Belfast when the violent period of unrest between the English Protestant population and the Irish Catholics broke out from 1969.
This autobiographical fiction, produced in black and white by Kenneth Brannagh, is notably nominated in the categories of best film and best director.
In the poster, Ciarán Hinds and Judi Dench are also in the running for the statuette of best actor and actress in a supporting role.
The Oscars for best sound and best original song could also go to him.
Read alsoOur review of
Belfast
: love as religion
Coda
by Sian Heder
3 nominations. 1h51. Available on AppleTV+.
Ruby, an American high school student and budding singer, learns to juggle the beginnings of a promising career and the expectations of her family.
The problem?
His parents and brothers are all deaf.
Aries Family
remake
,
Coda
last week brought home the Producers Guild of America (PGA) Best Picture of the Year award, usually a good indicator of Best Picture Oscar honors.
The film can also claim to win the award for best adapted screenplay.
Hearing-impaired actor Troy Kotsur is nominated for Best Supporting Actor.
Read also
Coda
: the Hollywood fairy tale of the remake of
The Bélier Family
Don't Look Up
by Adam McKay
4 nominations. 2h25. Available on Netflix.
A rapidly approaching comet is heading straight for Earth and threatens the blue planet with a cataclysm not seen since the extinction of the dinosaurs.
Good news: scientists realize this in time.
Bad news: the political-media class doesn't give a damn.
A satirical and scathing comedy, this cinematic metaphor for the fight against climate change joined the various candidates for the title of best picture, in addition to being nominated for the Oscars for best music, best adapted screenplay and best editing.
Read also
Don't Look Up: cosmic denial
, the end of the world laughing on Netflix
Tick, Tick… Boom!
, by Lin Manuel Miranda
2 nominations. 1h55. Available on Netflix.
If Andrew Garfield wins the Best Actor category, it won't be for his surprise performance in
Spider-Man: No Way Home
, but for his first role in a musical.
A performance that also earned him the Golden Globe for best actor in a musical film.
With
Tick, Tick... Boom!
, Andrew Garfield is trying his hand at the biopic genre for the second time, the first dating back to 2010. For
The Social Network
, director David Fincher entrusted him with the role of Eduardo Saverin, co-founder of Facebook.
The Oscars give Andrew Garfield the opportunity to win twice in the best actor category, coveted by Benedict Cumberbatch, Javier Bardem, Denzel Washington and Will Smith.
Drive My Car
by Ruysuke Yamaguchi
4 nominations. 2h57. Available on AppleTV+, DVD and Blu-ray.
A Japanese director must go to Hiroshima, where he will prepare a new adaptation
of Chekhov's
Uncle Vanya .
He is driven there by a not very talkative driver.
The two characters will get to know each other along the way.
Screenplay prize at the Cannes Film Festival 2021 and best foreign language film at the Bafta 2022, this
road movie
by Ryusuke Hamaguchi is notably one of the feature films in competition for the statuette of the best international film - in addition to the double ticket for the Oscars for the best film and best director.
Adapted from a Japanese short story by Haruki Murakami,
Drive My Car
is also nominated in the category of Best Adapted Screenplay.
Read also
Drive my car
: accompanied driving
Dune
, by Denis Villeneuve
10 nominations. On VOD, DVD and Blu-ray.
Paul Atreides accompanies his family and his house to the planet Arrakis, the only known point in the galaxy where Spice is found, a powerful hallucinogen, necessary for space travel.
New adaptation of the eponymous science fiction novel by Frank Herbert, the
Dune
directed by Denis Villeneuve is named in a myriad of technical categories, where Hollywood blockbusters usually rub shoulders.
Ten nominations in all, which will make it the second most cited film of the evening behind
The Power of the Dog
.
He will naturally try his luck for the Oscar for best film and for best adapted screenplay.
Read also
Dune
by Denis Villeneuve: a fair return to origins
Julie (in 12 chapters)
, by Joachim Trier
2 nominations. 2:08. Currently in theaters. Available on DVD, Blu-ray and VOD.
Between charming escapade in Oslo and Scandinavian melancholy, this feature film follows several sequences of the life of a Norwegian woman in her thirties and mischievous (Renate Reinsve, prize for female interpretation at the Cannes festival 2021).
Directed by Joachim Trier, the film (titled
The Worst Person in the World,
in its English version) could win in the category of best original screenplay.
And shine in that of the best foreign language film.
Read also
Julie (in 12 chapters)
, woman of the 2020s
The Williams Method,
by Reinaldo Marcus Green
6 nominations. 2h25. Available on DVD and Blu-ray April 6.
An ambivalent patriarch devotes himself wholeheartedly to the sports education of his two young daughters, aspiring tennis players.
Their names are Venus and Serena Williams.
Entitled
King Richard
in the United States, the biography of the Williams family could in particular win Will Smith his first Oscar, in the category of Best Actor, after two unfortunate past nominations (for
Ali
and
The Pursuit of Happiness
).
Nominated in the categories best film, best original screenplay, best editing and best original song, the film also allows Aunjanue Ellis
to be in competition for the statuette of best actress in a supporting role.
Read also
The Williams method
, with Will Smith: a perfect plan
Licorice Pizza
by Paul Thomas Anderson
3 nominations. 2:13. Currently in cinema.
An old teenager and a young adult fall in love with each other, between California and New York in the mid-1970s. An innocent and inspired fable about the first loves of youth in the past, the film by Paul Thomas Anderson is competing for the two coveted Best Picture and Best Direction awards.
It could also snatch the Best Original Screenplay statuette from big favorite
Belfast
.
Read also
Licorice pizza
: to us the little Californians
Guillermo del Toro's
Nightmare Alley
4 nominations. 2h31min. Currently in cinema.
After his Oscars for Best Picture and Best Director won in 2018 with
The Shape of Water
, Guillermo del Toro returns to attack Hollywood's most prestigious award with a new story with deep fantastic accents, staged in America in 1939. No aquatic monsters here, but contortionists and freaks.
Not favorite for the supreme Oscar, the feature film could capitalize at least on its sets, its costumes or even on its photography.
Read alsoOur review of
Nightmare Alley
, by Guillermo del Toro: a superb nightmare
The Lost Daughter
by Maggie Gyllenhaal
3 nominations. 2h02min. Available on Netflix.
A somewhat lost 40-year-old leaves to recharge her batteries in Greece.
She meets on a beach a young mother exhausted by her child and who reminds her of her own maternal wanderings.
The first film directed by actress Maggie Gyllenhaal, this adaptation of a novel by Elena Ferrante (nominated in the category of best adapted screenplay) puts Olivia Colman and Jessie Buckley in a very good position for the Oscars for best actress and best actress in a supporting role.
Read also
The Lost Daughter
on Netflix: Olivia Colman has mother sickness
The Power of the Dog
by Jane Campion
12 nominations. 2:06. Available on Netflix.
Deep in Montana, 1925, a brutal cowboy (Benedict Cumberbatch) rages against his brother's alcoholic wife and effeminate son.
A way to purge the painful secret he keeps inside him.
Deconstruction of the virile myths of the American West, Jane Campion's intimate western is the favorite feature film of this 94th edition of the Oscars.
It has accumulated no less than twelve nominations, including the coveted categories of best film and best director.
Read also
The Power Of The Dog
on Netflix: Jane Campion's western lesson
Steven Spielberg's
West Side Story
7 nominations. 2h 37min. Available on DVD and Blu-ray.
New York, 1957. The Jets gang rivals that of the Puerto Rican Jets.
That doesn't stop little hitter Tony (Ansel Elgort) from falling in love with graceful Maria (Rachel Zegler), against all odds.
Signed Steven Spielberg, this faithful remake of the 1961 musical, the film garnered ten nominations, including those for Best Picture and Best Direction.
Revelation of the film, Ariana DeBose has her chances for the Oscar for best actress in a supporting role.
Encanto
,
by Byron Howard, Jared Bush, and Charise Castro Smith
3 nominations. 1h43. Currently in theaters.
Nestled in the Colombian mountains, the Madrigal family lives in an enchanted house in a city full of life, called Encanto.
Each member has a magic power, with the exception of Mirabel, living in frustration.
The teenager realizes her importance when her family is exposed to imminent danger.
Crowned with the best animated film at the Golden Globes and then at the BAFTAs, the 60th animated classic from Disney studios can hope for the winning triplet at the Oscars.
Read alsoThe real story behind the animated film
Encanto