What are the Top Rated Movies Oscar and BAFTA Voters Can Watch Over Thanksgiving?

The long Thanksgiving weekend provides an opportunity for awards voters to get through the first pile of screeners — or in the case of the Academy Awards and BAFTA groups, scroll through their streaming room platforms. In multiple discussions with awards voters, it’s been interesting to note how few movies they’ve seen at this point in the year. Perhaps it’s related to the pandemic, and many of them returning to work and under the gun of deadlines, or maybe not hearing about anything that’s drummed up enough passion for them to seek it out.

The in-person awards screenings in Los Angeles have been brimming especially for films like Denis Villeneuve’s “Dune” and most recently, Paul Schrader’s “The Card Counter,”Both with Oscar Isaac, the star of the film, in attendance. Will each film be able to get enough attention in the first year that DVDs can’t be sent to Oscar or Bafta voters?

The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences is two weeks away. They will open the shortlist voting. Ten branches will narrow down their selections to 10 to 15 films. The categories are international feature, documentary feature, makeup and hairstyling, visual effects, animated short, documentary short, live action short, original score, original song, and for the first time, best sound, which will be cut down to 10.

The branch received 238 documentaries last year, breaking the 2017 record of 170. Last Friday’s upload count was 128. The Academy promises more films will be uploaded by Wednesday. So we shouldn’t expect the total number of entrants to surpass last year’s number, but it could be somewhat in the vicinity of the hefty 2017 number.

It’s worth nothing that there are 10 months of submissions this year, versus the standard 12, due to the pandemic.

Currently, there are 93 features available in the Academy Streaming Room for best picture. This award is decided by the entire Academy. The pandemic year of 2020 produced 366 total films vying for the top category, the highest since 1970, and that’s a number we could see again by the end of the year.

In the international feature race, there’s no official number as the Academy won’t release that until a later date, but at the moment, it looks as though there are 93 countries in play, the same number as last year. Somalia is not submitting to AMPAS. “The Gravedigger’s Wife,” while three others are resubmitting after being disqualified last year — Algeria’s “Héliopolis,” Bhutan’s “Lunana: A Yak in the Classroom” and Uzbekistan’s “2000 Songs of Farida.”

It’s also unknown how many of the 10,000 members of the Academy opted in to vote on the shortlist, which will shrink down to 15 before the official list being voted on once more for the nominations, which will be announced on Feb. 8, with the other general categories.

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BAFTA’s View online streaming platform is sporting a whole new aesthetic and user navigation. With an ability to sort through the library by categories, film types and tags relating to the gender of the director or an underrepresented group, members can also track what they’ve watched and record notes on the film.

Today, there are 127 films competing for the EE British Academy Film Awards. There will be many more. It all began with Kelly Reichardt’s “First Cow”From A24: The first film uploaded to be considered in categories like best movie, leading actor (John Magaro), or supporting actor(Orion Lee). The documentary was the most recent upload. “Phil Lynott: Songs for While I’m Away”Emer Reynolds.

Contrary to the Academy’s submission criteria, BAFTA has a different submission process for best film that is not in English. This makes it difficult to compare the Oscar category to BAFTA. With 26 films so far, voters from across the pond can watch Japan’s “Drive My Car” or Iceland’s “Lamb”During the holiday. They can also take in selections such as Pedro Almodóvar’s “Parallel Mothers” from Spain or Audrey Diwan’s “Happening”France

Threety-nine films are seeking love in the exceptional British film category, which includes the musical. “Everybody’s Talking About Jamie”Amazon Studios “Mothering Sunday”Sony Pictures Classics. There are also a few unexpected contenders like Craig Gillespie’s “Cruella” from Walt Disney Pictures, Cate Shortland’s “Black Widow” from Marvel Studios and Rebecca Hall’s “Passing”Netflix Roger Michell’s final film “The Duke,”This film, which premiered at Telluride Film Festival in October, is also seeking posthumous attention to honor the late filmmaker.

Forty-six documentaries include Liz Garbus’ “Becoming Cousteau” (National Geographic), Edgar Wright’s “The Sparks Brothers” (Focus Features) and Todd Haynes’ “The Velvet Underground”(Apple Original Films).

A couple of crossovers from the last awards season could still eke their way into a lineup or two, such as IFC’s “The Nest” with Carrie Coon and Jude Law and Monument Releasing’s “The Surrogate”Jasmine Batchelor

You can also watch other high-profile films on the platform. “A Quiet Place Part II” (Paramount Pictures), “Pig” (Neon), “In the Heights” (Warner Bros), “The Harder They Fall” (Netflix), “Luca” (Pixar), “The Last Duel”(20th Century Studios). “Zola” (A24), “Stillwater” (Focus Features), “Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings” (Marvel), “The Eyes of Tammy Faye” (Searchlight Pictures), “Dear Evan Hansen” (Universal Pictures), “Annette”(Amazon Studios) “Respect”(MGM/United Artists Releasing).

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