Doctor Zhivago in 4K

Natalie Portman was nominated for her uncanny performance as Jacqueline Bouvier Kennedy in this unusual biopic directed by Pablo Larraín (Maria, 2024). The screenplay by Noah Oppenheim is structured around an interview by a magazine journalist (Billy Crudup) and focuses on key events in the First Lady’s life, especially the assassination of her husband. The film was also nominated for Madeline Fontaine’s authentic costume designs and the unsettling score by Mica Levi (Under the Skin, 2013), which used flutes and strings to evoke its heroine’s combination of vulnerability and resilience.

Four veterans return to the jungles of Vietnam in hopes of recovering a buried fortune in director/co-writer Spike Lee’s epic adventure drama, which pays homage to the classic The Treasure of the Sierra Madre (a favorite of the filmmaker’s) while exploring the rarely told experiences of Black soldiers in the Vietnam War. The top-notch cast includes Sinners supporting actor nominee Delroy Lindo as a proud Trump supporter; two stars of TV’s The Wire, Clarke Peters and Isiah Whitlock, Jr.; and Chadwick Boseman in one of his final performances. The film’s one Oscar nomination was earned by seven-time Grammy winner Terence Blanchard, a regular collaborator of Lee’s, whose bold orchestral score sits comfortably alongside the vintage Marvin Gaye songs that fill the film’s soundtrack.

An American tap dancer pursues the woman he loves from London to Venice in the fourth movie musical to feature the iconic team of Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers, and the second of their films to receive a Best Picture nomination, following The Gay Divorcee (1934). Spotlighting the stars at their effortless best, it was also nominated for Irving Berlin’s classic “Cheek to Cheek,” Hermes Pan’s dance direction of the numbers “Piccolino” and “Top Hat, White Tie, and Tails,” and the art direction of Van Nest Polglase and Carroll Clark, whose elegant deco sets include a Venice canal constructed on a Los Angeles soundstage.

New print courtesy of the Academy Film Archive.

Sister Clodagh (Deborah Kerr) enlists others from her nunnery to found a school and hospital in the Himalayan palace of Mopu, where the unrelenting winds and extraordinary beauty of the landscape distract the sisters from their mission. With hues so vibrant the images seem to breathe, Jack Cardiff, who won his first Oscar for Cinematography (Color) on this project, pushes Technicolor to its limits. He’s supported by the striking, Oscar-winning art direction of frequent Michael Powell-Emeric Pressburger collaborator Alfred Junge in what Powell has called “the most erotic film I have ever made.”

This lavish, widescreen musical from director Vincente Minnelli received nine Oscar nominations and won in each of its categories, including Best Picture and Directing. Minnelli’s An American in Paris (1951) discovery Leslie Caron plays Gigi, a young woman in turn-of-the-20th-century Paris who catches the eye of a charming womanizer (Louis Jourdan). The Oscar-winning screenplay by Alan Jay Lerner was based on the 1944 novella by Colette, and Lerner wrote the film’s original songs with his My Fair Lady (1964) composer Frederick Loewe, their score including such classics as “I Remember It Well,” “The Night They Invented Champagne,” and the Oscar-winning title song. Art directors William A. Horning and Preston Ames and set decorators Henry Grace and Keogh Gleason won Oscars for their eye-poppingly colorful recreation of the City of Light.

New print courtesy of the Academy Film Archive.

The second feature from director-choreographer Bob Fosse is one of his greatest works in any medium. It’s a dazzling adaptation of the John Kander-Fred Ebb Broadway show, inspired by Christopher Isherwood’s The Berlin Stories, and a fine demonstration of how a movie musical rooted in realism can be as satisfying as the more traditional variety. When naïve young Brian Roberts (Michael York as the Isherwood figure) moves into a Berlin boardinghouse in 1931, he is unprepared for his new neighbor—the brash, would-be star Sally Bowles, played by Liza Minnelli in her Oscar-winning, career-defining performance. The film received 10 nominations (including Best Picture) and won eight Oscars, including for Fosse’s direction, Joel Grey’s supporting performance, and the art direction of Rolf Zehetbauer, Jurgen Kiebach and set decorator Herbert Strabel. Their work brought the film’s time and place to life and provided Fosse with a realistically claustrophobic Kit Kat Klub, which nonetheless made room for the filmmaker’s typically thrilling musical numbers.

Ellen Ripley, the only survivor of the commercial spaceship Nostromo, is awakened from a half-century of suspended animation only to find herself returning to the last place she ever wanted to go— the planet where she first encountered the alien that slaughtered her crewmates. Writer-director James Cameron’s action-packed continuation of Ridley Scott’s 1979 sci-fi horror classic won Oscars for its sound effects editing and visual effects and received nominations for its film editing, sound, James Horner’s tense score, and Sigourney Weaver’s steely yet vulnerable performance as Ripley. The art direction of production designer Peter Lamont and set decorator Crispian Sallis also garnered a nomination, making a seamless visual connection with the original film while creating a variety of imaginative yet utterly convincing new designs.

Print provided by The Walt Disney Company.

A New York police officer is recruited into a secret government organization that helps hide the existence of extraterrestrial visitors from the public, and teams up with a more experienced operative to track down a malicious alien that has taken over a human host. Tommy Lee Jones and Will Smith make an unexpectedly ideal mismatched pair of heroes, later reuniting for two sequels, and are supported by witty performances from Linda Fiorentino, Rip Torn, and a physical tour-de-force from Vincent D’Onofrio as the possessed farmer. Rick Baker and David LeRoy Anderson won Oscars for their imaginative alien makeup designs; Danny Elfman was nominated for his lively score; and production designer Bo Welch and set decorator Cheryl Carasik were nominated for the film’s art direction, which deftly combined retro-futurist sets and authentic New York locations.

A weekend party at an English mansion in the 1930s leads to murder in this seriocomic whodunit, with Robert Altman directing an all-star cast. The Oscar-winning screenplay came via Julian Fellowes, who later explored the same milieu for Downton Abbey. The remarkable transatlantic cast includes Alan Bates, Bob Balaban (who also produced and came up with the story idea with Altman), Clive Owen, Kristin Scott Thomas, Emily Watson, and Helen Mirren and Maggie Smith, who were both nominated for their performances. The film’s seven nominations include Best Picture, Directing, and Art Direction, with production designer Stephen Altman and set decorator Anna Pinnock mixing authentic English mansions and soundstage sets to evoke the glamour and class divisions of the era.

Wannabe celeb Roxie Hart murders her lover and is sent to jail, only to discover that a tabloid scandal may be her best route to true stardom in this stylish and lively version of the stage musical. Rob Marshall, making his feature directing debut, pays due homage to the distinctive style of Bob Fosse’s original Broadway production while bringing his own energetic approach to the material, which features such classic Kander and Ebb songs as “All That Jazz,” “Cell Block Tango,” and “Mister Cellophane.” The first movie musical to win Best Picture in the 34 years since Oliver! (1968), it received 13 nominations and also won for Costume Design, Film Editing, Sound, Catherine Zeta-Jones’s commanding performance as Roxie’s frenemy Velma Kelly. Production designer John Myhre and set decorator Gordon Sim also won for their Art Direction, featuring just the right blend of fantasy and reality.

Writer-director Wes Anderson was inspired by Austrian novelist Stefan Zweig (1881-1942) for his seriocomic and visually dazzling story about a posh resort, its vain concierge (Ralph Fiennes in a peerless comic performance) and a young lobby boy (Tony Revolori). Anderson directed an all-star international cast and brought his distinctive visual sensibilities to his original story (written with Hugo Guinness), set in a fictional European country on the eve of war. The film received nine nominations including Best Picture and won Oscars for Alexandre Desplat’s effervescent score, Milena Canonero’s costume design, the makeup and hair creations of Frances Hannon and Mark Coulier, and the production design of Adam Stockhausen and his set decorator, Anna Pinnock, who transformed a vacant German department store into the eponymous hotel.

Olivia Colman won the Best Actress Oscar for her richly detailed performance as England’s Queen Anne, who finds two women competing for her affections in their quest for power: the aristocratic Lady Sarah (supporting actress nominee Rachel Weisz) and the impoverished Abigail Hill (supporting actress nominee Emma Stone). Working from a darkly comic, fact-based screenplay by Deborah Davis and Tony McNamara, director Yorgos Lanthimos (Poor Things, 2023) subverts the cliches of historical dramas to startling effect. The Favourite’s 10 nominations include Best Picture, Directing and Original Screenplay. Nominated production designer Fiona Crombie and set decorator Alice Felton used a stark, black-and-white palate for their regal settings, matching Sandy Powell’s elegant, nominated costume designs.

Quentin Tarantino’s alternate history of the late-’60s film scene focuses on the intertwining lives of three figures: fading TV Western star Rick Dalton (Best Actor nominee Leonardo DiCaprio), his stunt double and best friend Cliff Booth (Supporting Actor winner Brad Pitt) and the real-life starlet Sharon Tate (Margot Robbie), whose life is destined to cross paths with Charles Manson and his followers. With its massive, stellar cast (including Margaret Qualley, Timothy Olyphant, Austin Butler, Dakota Fanning, Bruce Dern, Damian Lewis, and Al Pacino) and evocative, needle-drop score, Once Upon a Time elegantly evokes a lost era of Hollywood. Nominated for 10 Oscars including Best Picture, it won for production designer Barbara Ling and set decorator Nancy Haigh, who incorporate real-life locations such as the Musso & Frank Grill and the Playboy Mansion while creating believable living spaces for the protagonists.