11 Mar 2026 2 min read

Oscars 2026: What to Watch

Hey there! The newsletter returns from its brief hiatus to answer a timely question posed to me by a friend:

“With the Oscars less than a week away, what nominated film should I watch if I only have time for one?”

It’s a great question and I respect that you’re not all sickos willing to methodically check off every new release like it’s your job.

So here's a quick guide. This isn't so much a list of personal favorites, more a primer on which to watch to feel the most in touch with the cultural conversation.

Alright, let’s start off with the easy stuff:

If you haven’t seen any of the 10 Best Picture nominees: watch Sinners.

Sinners deserves every one of its record-breaking 16 nominations. It's a bold, exuberant, genre-bending work that tackles weighty themes but never forgets the point is to put on a good show.

For those turned off because it's labeled a horror movie: I watched this with my horror-averse wife and she had no issues.

If you’ve already seen Sinners: watch One Battle After Another.

It strikes me that I could copy my description of Sinners and it would function just as well for One Battle. What we have in these two films are directors at the height of their craft finding completely novel ways to examine the world around them.

Stylistically an homage to the films of the 1970s, One Battle is Paul Thomas Anderson's way of using humor and genre artifice to hold a lens to the moment we're all experiencing in this country.

Now this turns into a bit of a choose-your-own-adventure.

If you:

Want to ugly cry but end with a glorious moment of catharsis: watch Hamnet
Want to quiet cry but leave with a sense of renewed wonderment about the world: watch Train Dreams
Want to ride a roller coaster for two hours and then spend the next month pondering what it was trying to say about fatherhood, American exceptionalism, class, and ping pong: watch Marty Supreme
Want to feel transported to another time and place, experiencing a textured and nuanced portrayal of 1970s Brazil: watch The Secret Agent
Want a surprisingly optimistic portrait of generational trauma and father-daughter relationships: watch Sentimental Value
Want to watch an absolutely jet black comedy about how we’re all fundamentally broken and doomed as a species: watch Bugonia
Want to watch Brad Pitt drive a very fast and loud car for two hours and pretend that he’s not in fact a 62 year old man: watch F1

Don’t watch Frankenstein.

Hope that helps!

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