Oscar nominations will be announced this Thursday, January 22.

Where can you see this year’s most critically acclaimed films?

Hamnet, Marty Supreme, and The Secret Agent are still only in theatres as is the blockbuster Avatar: Fire and Ash.

Hamnet, directed by Chloe Zhao (Nomadland, is based on the acclaimed novel about Shakespeare’s son whose early death inspired him to write Hamlet. Jessie Buckley is Shakespeare’s wife Anne Hathaway, called Agnes in the film. Paul Mescal is Shakespeare and Jacobi Jupe is Hamnet. His brother Noah Jupe (A Quiet Place) is the actor who plays Hamlet in the stage production that ends the film.

Marty Supreme, directed by Josh Safdie, stars Timothée Chalamet as a frenetic ping pong player who stops at nothing in his pursuit of becoming the world’s greatest ping pong player. Chalamet, who is in practically every scene, gives the performance of his still young career. He is ably supported by Odessa A’zion, Gwyneth Paltrow, and Kevin Oleary among others.

The Secret Agent, directed by Kleber Mendonca Filho, is the acclaimed Brazilian film starring Wagner Moura who plays three generations of the film’s central character and two other family members. The film is a major contender for Best International Film as well as Best Picture and Actor for Golden Globe winner Moura.

Avatar: Fire and Ash, directed by James Cameron, is the third installment in the director’s semi-animated adventure series that began with 2009’s Avatar and continued with 2022’s Avatar: The Way of Water featuring much of the same cast led by Sam Worthington and Zoe Saldana who won last year’s Best Supporting Actress Oscar for Emilia Perez.

Sentimental Value and Nuremberg are currently available on pay-per-view.

Sentimental Value, directed by Joachim Trier., swept this year’s European Film Awards for Best Picture, Director, Actor (Stellan Skarsgard), and Actress (Renate Reisnve). Veteran actor Skarsgard plays a renowned Swedish film director and absent father to daughters Resinve and Inga Ibsdotter Lilleaas, who returns to the family after the death of his former wife. He plans to make a film about a father and daughter but casts American actress Elle Fanning in the film rather than his own daughter (Reisnve) who is an acclaimed Swedish actress.

Nuremberg, directed by James Vanderbilt, is not another remake of Stanley Kramr’s 1961 classic, Judgment at Nuremberg, but a film about how the trials came about and the cat-and-mouse gme played between Nazi Hermann Goring (Russell Crowe) and an American psychiatrist (Rami Malek).

FrankensteinWake Up Dead Man, and Train Dreams had limited theatrical releases before streaming exclusively on Netflix.

Frankenstein, directed by Guillermo del Toro (The Shape of Water), is del Toro’s version of Mary Shelley’s classic, the best interpretation since James Whale’s immortal 1931 film version starring Colin Clive as the titled scientist and Boris Karloff as his man-made monster. Oscar Isaac and Jacob Elordi have those roles in del Toro’s version for which Elordi has already won several major awards.

Wake Up Dead Man, directed by Rian Johnson, is the third installment in the director’s Knives Out Mystery series. Daniel Craig is top billed as the private detective brought in to investigate the murder of a monsignor for which his deacon priest (John O’Connor) is the prime suspect. Much better than the series’ previous installments, O’Connor and Glenn Close as the church’s bookkeeper are the best of a stellar group of players.

Train Dreams, directed by Clint Bentley, is a beautifully photographed film about the life of a turn of the 20th century lumberjack based on Denis Johnson’s novella. Joel Edgerton gives a career high performance as the lumberjack whose life is a mix of sorrow and joy. William H, Macy stands out as fellow lumberjack in the film’s huge supporting cast.

Sinners and Weapons have been out on home video for a while now, and Bugonia and If I had Legs I’d Kick You have recently been released.

Sinners, directed by Ryan Coogler, stars Coogler’s frequent collaborator, Michael B. Jordan as twin brothers in 1930s Mississippi is an action-adventure film, which is also something of a musical and finally, a horror movie. Standouts, beside Jordan, include Wunmi Mosaku, Miles Caton, Delroy Lindo, Hailee Steinfield, and Jack O’Connell in its very impressive cast.

Weapons, directed by Zach Gregger, is an out-and-out horror movie about children in one class who vanish in the middle of the night, leaving behind one boy who could be the key to the mystery. Julia Garner, Josh Brolin, Alden Ehrenreich, Benedict Wong, and Jason Turner are part of the ensemble cast, the best of which is Amy Madigan as “Aunt Gladys”, an aged witch.

Begonia, directed by Lorgos Lanthimos, is the director’s latest concoction, a combination comedy, drama, and science-fiction film. It stars two-time Oscar winner Emma Stone and Oscar nominee Jesse Plemons (The Power of the Dog) in a cat-and-mouse game of one-upmanship as we are torn believing Plemons’ conspiracy theory and Stone’s human vs. alien persona.

If I Had Legs I’d Kick You, directed by Mary Bronstein, provides Rose Byne with a tour-de-force portrayal of a woman going through a mental breakdown as she deals with her daughter’s illness, absent husband, and psychiatrist. Currently only available on DVD, although a Blu-ray release may be forthcoming.

Paul Thomas Anderson’sOne Battle After Another, John M. Chu’s Wicked: For Good, and Scott Cooper’s Springsteen: Deliver Me from Nowhere are being released today.

Happy viewing.