Oscars 2024: Everything you need to know about the Best Picture nominees

Barbenheimer will again go head-to-head at the Oscars 2024; both films are nominated in the Best Picture category. (Image credit: AFP)

The Oscars this year feature a variety of films, from dark satires to beaming biopics and one comedy about this very popular doll. Here are all the films and why you should watch them:

1. Barbie – Greta Gerwig’s film on the world’s most popular doll is nothing short of inspired. It’s easily the most enjoyable film of the year and features a scene-stealing turn by Ryan Gosling playing Ken.

2. Anatomy of a Fall – Sandra Huller anchors a deceptively simple courtroom drama about murder. There are no easy answers, just this lingering sense of suspicion. It’s masterful.

3. Killers of the Flower Moon – Martin Scorcese’s film is perhaps the most political of the slate and is led by towering performances from Lily Gladstone and Leonardo Dicaprio.

4. Maestro – Bradley Cooper is obsessively perfect in this biopic of musician and conductor Leonard Bernstein. It’s easily one of the toughest roles someone has played this year.

5. Poor Things – Yorgos Lanthimos’ steampunk, unspecific sci-fi satire about female agency is nerdy and whack. Emma Stone gives it her all and so does the charming Mark Ruffalo.

6. The Zone of Interest – Set next to a Nazi internment camp, this un-commercial, tailored-down view of evil is so unsettling, it might do things your mind. Also, it features another great Sandra Huller performance.

7. Past Lives – Celine Song’s Past Lives, is a story about separation that is cinematic in every possible sense of the word. It’s probably the most tender film on offer this year.

8. American Fiction – A straightjacket satire about a black author playing to the wider stereotypes of African American people, American Fiction is unusually hilarious and led by a commanding Jeffrey Wright.

9. The Holdovers – Paul Giamatti is grumpy and irksome in this charming, nostalgic trip to a time when festivities and actual bonding meant something.

10. Oppenheimer – The frontrunner for best picture, is a biopic that least looks and feels like a biopic. The most un-Christopher Nolan film that will likely land him the big award. Oppenheimer won multiple awards at BAFTA - including best film and best director - as well as Screen Actors Guild Awards, where Cillian Murphy got best actor and Robert Downey Jr won the best supporting actor award.