Two of this year’s Oscar nominees for Best Picture have been newly released on Video on Demand (VOD), the successor to Pay-Per-View for theatrical releases prior to streaming and/or home video.

Chloé Zhao’s Hamnet from Maggie O’Farrell’s 2020 novel about the courtship and early marriage of Agnes and William Shakespeare and their grief over the death of their 11-year-old son in 1596.

Shakespeare was born on April 23, 1564, and died on his 52nd birthday in 1616. In 1582 at the age of 18, he married 26-year-old Agnes with whom he had three children, Susanna in 1583 and twins Hamnet and Judith in 1585. He was originally a glovemaker who spent his spare time writing and became part of the London theatre scene in 1592.

Will is immediately attracted to Agnes when he observes her working with her trained hawk and attempts to get to know her by making a glove for her to use in handling the hawk which she rejects. Nevertheless, their courtship is short and their marriage quick. The children come quickly thereafter, as well. His struggles at becoming a writer take longer and lead to long separations even after he is accepted into London’s theatre scene because Agnes refuses to move to London with its foul air. Eventually, he buys a house in Stratford, north of London, which she agrees to move to at some point in the future.

The historical record gives no indication of what Hamnet died of but O’Farrell’s novel and the screenplay she co-wrote with Zhao blame it on the plague. In the film’s narrative, Hamnet’s physically weak twin, Judith, has been infected and is dying but her healthy brother will have none of it. He covers his shivering sister with his body and prays to God to take him instead of her and dies in agony as she recovers.

The centerpiece of the film is Agnes’ grief and her annoyance at Will’s seemingly taking the loss of their son in stride. Unbeknownst to her, he has written a play about grief which he calls Hamlet, the discovery of which brings them back together in the film’s haunting concluding chapter.

Jessie Buckley’s portrayal of Agnes is the single greatest acting achievement of the year. Her piercing scream at the death of her son is like nothing that has ever been done on screen before. Paul Mescal as Will is equally brilliant in his quiet way, and Jacobi Jupe is unforgettable as their son. Others making an impression are Emily Watson as Will’s stoic mother, Joe Alwyn as Agnes’ brother, Batholomew, both Olivia Lynes as Judith and Brodhi Ray Breathnatch as Susanna, and Jacobi’s brother, former child actor Noah Jupe as the actor playing Hamlet in the play.

Kleber Mendonca Filho’s The Secret Agent is one of two films nominated this year for both Best Picture and Best International Feature Film.

The Brazilian film takes place primarily in 1977 during Brazil’s military rule that began in 1964.

Wagner Moura stars as a technology expert who returns to his hometown of Recife in the southern region of the country after losing both his wife to cancer and his job due to a conflict with a well-connected evil man. He soon learns that there is a death threat hanging over his head as he feverishly works with the Brazilian underground to obtain fake passports for himself and his son being raised by his late wife’s parents, so that they can get out of the country before it’s too late.

Last year’s Oscar winner for Best International Feature Film, I’m Still Here, took place in the same era but it is a different kind of film. In that one, disappearances were shocks that were deeply felt by those who were left behind. In The Secret Agent they are met with a shrug from the casually newspaper covered corpse at the gas station in the opening sequence to the heartbreaking “people say but I don’t remember” speech in the film’s concluding passage.

Maura’s performance is lowkey but quietly forceful. It’s no wonder he is winning Best Actor awards over the more hyped performances of his competition.

Standouts in the supporting cast include Tania Maria as Moura’s landlady, Carlos Francisco as his movie projectionist father-in-law, and Alice Carvalho as his late wife in flashbacks.

Director Mendocna Filho is also a film critic with his own website, CinemaScopia, which is also worth checking out.

Criterion has released a combination Blu-ray and 4K UHD upgrade of John Huston’s 1987 film, The Dead.

Huston’s last film is a beautifully rendered expansion of James Joyce’s short story from his 2014 collection, The Dubliners which takes place on the Eve of Epiphany in 2004.

Huston, who was himself dying, wanted to make The Dead in Ireland but could no longer travel so instead had most of the cast who were members of Dublin’s Abbey Theatre flown to California where the film was made in a warehouse in Valencia, north of Los Angeles.

The bulk of the film takes place in the townhouse of old ladies Helena Carroll and Cathleen Delany, as they host their annual Christmastime dinner. Their favorite nephew, Donal McCann and his wife, played by Anjelica Huston, are among the guests which also include sourpuss Marie Kean (Ryan O’Neal’s mother in Barry Lyndon), Donal Donelly (The Knack) as Marie’s alcoholic son, and several other well-known players including Dan O’Herlihy (Oscar-nominated star of 1954’s Robinson Crusoe), Sean McClory (Maureen O’Hara’s brother in The Long Gray Line), and Kate O’Toole’s (daughter of Peter O’Toole and Sian Phillips).

The unforgettable ending is a word-for-word recitation of the end of the short story when snow was general all over Ireland, covering the living and the dead in equal measure.

Extras on the Blu-ray include a restored version of the 1987 documentary on the making of the film, John Huston and the Dubliners; Anjelica Huston’s 2014 remembrance of the making of the film; and a newly filmed interview with Colum McCann on the short story and the film.

Happy viewing.