4 Oscar-winning movies you can watch on Netflix or Prime Video

Year in, year out, the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences awards show is equal parts controversy, heartbreak, charm and honor. Capturing the world’s attention since May 16, 1929, and initiating the social transformations that define human nature itself—almost all gradual, slow, yet not particularly methodical, as if there were very limited margin left for structural change in the time frame that understand —, the Oscars continue to be a thermometer of what people around the world yearn for in terms of the inclusion of women; the needs of people on the periphery of the globe; conservation of nature and regional cultures; the preservation of peace and the struggle for equality; to the urgency of the dream, pure, alive in artistic manifestations as cinema, the very incarnation of the best that man can be.

The most loved, most hated, most talked about and most neglected ceremony in world cinema goes through ups and downs, and it is from these ups and downs – more precisely in the low points – that Oscar draws the strength to resist for another year. This was a happy season for the appreciation of the grumpy old men who make up the judging panel for the hundreds of productions evaluated by the academy at each Oscar edition, a grand millionaire spectacle that is still appreciated today by viewers from more than two hundred countries, not to mention who follows the celebration through social networks and platforms such as YouTube and Twitch. It goes without saying that Oscar, despite his many bad phases, has never stopped moving billions of dollars in transactions that far exceed image rights and the transfer of journalists from all over the planet to the vicinity of the Dolby Theater, the old Kodak . , who for the first time abandoned blood red and allowed themselves to be covered in a damask color – a sign of the times, but who cares? There are gowns extravagant enough to limit the field of vision of the poor guy who can’t get a good seat, indiscreet glimpses that serve as untrustworthy for heretofore secret courtship, generous comments from veteran directors to colleagues who still have plenty of editing room floors to cover , and all this becomes capital, which means profit.

The year 2023 was a sweet year for this angelic being, one step closer to its centenary. Without having to make visibly artificial concessions – which only happens and will continue to happen for centuries after centuries – this Oscar was able to please a large number of those who dedicated time, money and, of course, passion to follow the premieres, if not all of them, many of the productions that won the place in the last twelve months, and also exhorts the unique artistic essence of the films under the microscope. Here at Bula, we have repeatedly talked about four of them from different points of view, and of course we start with the big winner of the night. “Everything and Everywhere at Once,” by Daniel Kwan and Daniel Scheinert, put Michelle Yeoh back on Hollywood’s radar. Yeoh, the first Asian to win the best actress award, paved the way for Daniels’ film starring her to take Dolby’s most coveted little golden man. In the most complex role of her dynamic career, Yeoh embodies a housewife with tasks she never manages to solve; a micro-entrepreneur one step away from bankruptcy; a stern and scornful mother; an exemplary daughter who does not know what to do to please her father; a wife who experiences her husband’s contempt and poisons herself with her own bitterness; the descendant of immigrants who cannot find her place in the land that should also be hers; the warrior of the lost battle against himself. And so many others.

In addition to “Everything everywhere at the same time”, we have Guillermo del Toro’s version of “Pinocchio”, the fable of the Italian journalist and writer Carlo Collodi (1826-1890), signed with Mark Gustafson, Oscar winner. Best Animation; the re-reading by the German Edward Berger of the book by Erich Maria Remarque (1898-1970), the director’s compatriot, about the hardships of a regiment of frightened boys who just wanted to survive the horrors of the First World War (1914- 1918), best international film ; and his waiter’s favorite, “How to Take Care of a Baby Elephant,” by Indian artist Kartiki Gonsalves. No one bet anything on the victory of a Hindu documentary – and a short film – a doubly cursed genre amid all the glamor that was so natural at the Oscars (in fact, the film was even solemnly ignored). I saw him from our first contact, on January 25, merits in form, crowned by the photograph of the team led by Karan Thapliyal, which only makes the story even more energetic, about two caretakers of elephants from an ecological reserve in southern India. How lucky for me! How lucky for us!

The films are of course all from 2022, are listed in order of the importance of the awards they were awarded, and are available in the Netflix catalog with the exception of “Everything in Every Place at the Same Time”. by the Amazon Prime Video subscriber. This one is over, but next year there’s more, and between one and the other we’ll continue together, ranking and weaving commentary on the endless stories sure to steal our hearts. Long live the Oscars! Long live the cinema!

All New on the Front by Edward Berger

Reiner Bajo / Netflix

Films about the First World War (1914-1918) are not exactly rare. The guess, wrongly, is due to the fact that many of these productions go back to almost forgotten times, given for dead, but that, due to the erratic and senseless behavior of the human race, they come back to the fore from time to time. , bringing with it the need to reflect on the paths that nations must take in this hallucinatory and hallucinatory 21st century, stigmatized from the beginning as an era of extremes, violence and fear. “Nada de Novo no Front” (2022) is, with the permitted pun, nothing new. The latest adaptation of the novel of the same name by the German Erich Maria Remarque (1898-1970), the film by Edward Berger, the author’s compatriot, goes again in a long march, which began in January 1929 and with a frightened boy in the main role, driven to to mature in the midst of the barbarism so characteristic of a war.

Pinocchio by Guillermo del Toro, by Guillermo del Toro and Mark Gustafson

Disclosure / Netflix

Guillermo del Toro is a master at shaking up the security of those who revere his work. In a career of almost forty years, the Mexican climbed the Olympus of the great directors of modern cinema with grace, without belittling the competition, but very sure of his talent and what he wanted to represent. Today, when we talk about Del Toro, we think incontinently of those stories full of wonderful ugliness that immediately try to reduce to dust the hypocrisy and stupidity of those who boast to the four winds of their justice, their good intentions, their good manners. , all these mere layers of a sloppy veneer which barely hide the perversion of calculated emotion. With his version of “The Adventures of Pinocchio”, a novel by the Florentine journalist and writer Carlo Collodi (1826-1890), written in 1881 and published two years later, the director confirms his intention to continue undermining the illusions of his large audience , provide new questions instead of the easy answers that many crave.

How to Care for a Baby Elephant by Kartiki Gonsalves

Disclosure / Netflix

Even in a sparse (but overwhelming) work of forty minutes, Kartiki Gonsalves stands out for his serenity, delicacy and sweetness in “How to Take Care of a Baby Elephant”, an affective record of vocations by people like Bomman and Bellie, natives of the Kattunayakan ethnic group, since always used to dealing with elephants. Much more than a job, taking care of animals is a fortune and, under certain circumstances, a blessing for the Kattunayakan. The life of deprivation and uncertainty, surrounded by the tyrannical gigantism of the Nilguiris, yields in its austerity only when Ganesha decides from time to time to bless the Kattunayakan, placing creatures like Raghu, the Asiatic elephant referred to in the title, on their way off the film. Over 140 years of history, few have had the chance to dedicate themselves to raising a baby who embodies the Hindu god of abundance and intellect. Bomman and Bellie did it.