Original Art & Entertainment Magazine
Original Domain
All Netflix material credit Netflix
All Amazon Studios material credit Amazon Studios
All Focus Features material credit Focus Features
Jan 6, 2021
All Searchlight Pictures material credit Searchlight Pictures
Film Award Season 2021
The current film/tv award season has certainly become one of the most unpredictable due to the coronavirus pandemic. Unfortunately, Hollywood has certainly fell victim to what could potentially be long term effects from movie production closures to cancellations and projects being rescheduled to modified released dates and yes, even movie houses being shut down.
Despite many obstacles the entertainment industry has suffered, as they say in the business, "The Show Must Go On" and it has for some, which brings us to the the 2021 award season - finally here - Which films are actually eligible and Who will win big? Which films have crossed the threshold of eligibility to claim victory gold?
Normally, all these questions and even more questions regarding the best in film would already be answered but this award season calendar was far from simple since all awards changed submission eligibility deadlines, voting dates and nomination announcement dates, which is actually two months late to accommodate the unusual film release calendar year of 2020 - all due to the pandemic.
Thankfully, we are coming closer to knowing which films will be nominated. Here is the 2021 Awards Calendar and a list of some films building momentum to score nominations and possibly win in their respective categories this award season.
Modified Awards Calendar
JANUARY 2021
Jan. 11: IFP Gotham Awards ceremony (Moved from its original 2020 date. New eligibility rules allow films released through Feb. 28 to be considered).
Jan. 18: Critics Choice Awards TV nominations announced
Jan. 26: National Board of Review winners announced
FEBRUARY 2021
Feb. 3: Golden Globe Awards nominations announced
Feb. 3: Writers Guild of America Awards TV screenplay nominations announced
Feb. 4: Screen Actors Guild Awards nominations announced
Feb. 7: Critics Choice Awards film nominations announced
Feb. 9: Oscars shortlists announced
Feb. 16: Writers Guild of America Awards film screenplay nominations announced
Feb. 28: Golden Globe Awards ceremony (New eligibility requirements stipulate more lenient entrance standards for streaming titles, among other changes)
MARCH 2021
March 2: Art Directors Guild nominations announced
March 3: Annie Awards nominations announced
March 5-10: Oscar nominations voting
March 7: Critics Choice Awards (The ceremony usually takes place in mid-January, but was postponed in the wake of the pandemic)
March 14: Grammys ceremony (Postponed from original January date)
March 15: Oscar nominations announced
March 21: Writers Guild of America Awards ceremony
March 24: Producers Guild of America Awards
APRIL 2021
April 4: Screen Actors Guild Awards ceremony (pushed back three months)
April 6: Visual Effects Society Awards ceremony
April 10: Art Directors Guild Awards ceremony
April 10: Directors Guild of America Awards ceremony
April 11: British Academy of Film and Television Arts awards ceremony (Shortly after the Academy announced it would shift the Oscars back by two months, the BAFTAs followed by moving their ceremony as well)
April 15-20th: Final Oscars voting window
April 16: Annie Awards ceremony
April 24: Film Independent Spirit Awards ceremony
April 25: Oscars ceremony (The 93rd Oscars were originally set to broadcast on Feb. 28, though the Academy extended its eligibility period into early 2021 and pushed back the ceremony by two months due to nation-wide theater closures and release alterations in the wake of COVID-19)
TOP Films of 2021 Award Season
Malcolm & Marie
When filmmaker Malcolm (John David Washington) and his girlfriend Marie (Zendaya), return home from a movie premiere and await his film’s critical response, the evening takes a turn as revelations about their relationship surface, testing the couple’s love.
Directed & written by Sam Levinson.
All material credit: Netflix
The Trial of the Chicago 7
What was intended to be a peaceful protest at the 1968 Democratic National Convention turned into a violent clash with police and the National Guard. The organizers of the protest—including Abbie Hoffman, Jerry Rubin, Tom Hayden and Bobby Seale—were charged with conspiracy to incite a riot and the trial that followed was one of the most notorious in history.
Pieces of a Woman
All Photo Credit Benjamin Loeb / Copyright 2020 © Netflix Inc.
Martha and Sean are a Boston couple on the verge of parenthood whose lives change irrevocably when a home birth ends in unimaginable tragedy. Thus begins a yearlong odyssey for Martha, who must navigate her grief while working through fractious relationships with Sean and her domineering mother (Ellen Burstyn), along with the publicly vilified midwife (Molly Parker), whom she must face in court. Directed by Kornél Mundruczó (WHITE GOD, winner of the 2014 Prix Un Certain Regard Award), written by Kata Wéber, and executive produced by Martin Scorsese, PIECES OF A WOMAN is a deeply personal, searing, and ultimately transcendent story of a woman learning to live alongside her loss.
Nomadland
(Searchlight Pictures)
Release: 02/19/2021
Following the economic collapse of a company town in rural Nevada, Fern (Frances McDormand) packs her van and sets off on the road exploring a life outside of conventional society as a modern-day nomad. The third feature film from director Chloé Zhao, NOMADLAND features real nomads Linda May, Swankie and Bob Wells as Fern’s mentors and comrades in her exploration through the vast landscape of the American West.
NOMADLAND. Photo Courtesy of Searchlight Pictures.
© 2020 20th Century Studios All Rights Reserved
All photo credit: Wilson Webb
Hillbilly Elegy
(Netflix)
J.D. Vance (Gabriel Basso), a former Marine from southern Ohio and current Yale Law student, is on the verge of landing his dream job when a family crisis forces him to return to the home he’s tried to forget. J.D. must navigate the complex dynamics of his Appalachian family, including his volatile relationship with his mother Bev (Amy Adams), who’s struggling with addiction. Fueled by memories of his grandmother Mamaw (Glenn Close), the resilient and whip-smart woman who raised him, J.D. comes to embrace his family’s indelible imprint on his own personal journey.
Based on J.D. Vance’s #1 New York Times Bestseller, directed by Academy Award winner Ron Howard and produced by Academy Award winner Brian Grazer, HILLBILLY ELEGY is a powerful personal memoir that offers a window into one family’s personal journey of survival and triumph. By following three colorful generations through their unique struggles, J.D.’s family story explores the highs and lows that define his family’s experience.
One Night In Miami
(Amazon Studios)Release: 01/15/2021
On one incredible night in 1964, four icons of sports, music, and activism gathered to celebrate one of the biggest upsets in boxing history. When underdog Cassius Clay, soon to be called Muhammad Ali, (Eli Goree), defeats heavy weight champion Sonny Liston at the Miami Convention Hall, Clay memorialized the event with three of his friends: Malcolm X (Kingsley Ben-Adir), Sam Cooke (Leslie Odom Jr.) and Jim Brown (Aldis Hodge).
Based on the award-winning play of the same name, and directed by Regina King, One Night In Miami… is a fictional account inspired by the historic night these four formidable figures spent together. It looks at the struggles these men faced and the vital role they each played in the civil rights movement and cultural upheaval of the 1960s. More than 40 years later, their conversations on racial injustice, religion, and personal responsibility still resonate.
Starring
Kingsley Ben-Adir, Eli Goree, Aldis Hodge, Leslie Odom Jr., Joaquina Kalukango, Nicolette Robinson with Beau Bridges & Lance Reddick
Directed By
Regina King
Produced By
Jess Wu Calder, Keith Calder, Jody Klein
Executive Produced By
Regina King, Kemp Powers, Paul O. Davis, Chris Harding
Promising Young Women
From groundbreaking writer-director Emerald Fennell (Killing Eve) comes a delicious, thrilling and wildly entertaining new take on revenge.
Everyone said Cassandra Thomas (Academy Award®-nominee Carey Mulligan) was a promising young woman ... until a mysterious event abruptly derailed her future. Now, she’s a medical school dropout trapped in stasis. Blonde, beautiful and blessed with a killer intellect, Cassie’s not interested in climbing the corporate ladder or marrying Mr. Right. Instead, she’s seemingly content to while away her days making lattes with her coffee shop colleague Gail (Laverne Cox), much to the profound disappointment and deep concern of her parents (Jennifer Coolidge, Clancy Brown). All they want is for their almost 30-year-old daughter to move on with her life, and to move out of their house.
By night, Cassie performs a ritual of her own invention. Going to bars and dance clubs alone in the wee hours, she pretends to be dangerously intoxicated, helpless to defend herself from anyone who might wish her harm. Inevitably, there’s a man who decides to make sure she gets home safely. Yet he also inevitably lets his own desires take priority over Cassie’s well-being, not realizing that he’s simply the latest to fall prey to Cassie’s nefarious schemes—he’s about to be taught a lesson he’s unlikely to forget anytime soon.
But whatever small satisfaction Cassie takes from her late-night rendezvous, it isn’t enough to quell the storm of rage and sorrow inside her. Until one day, handsome pediatric surgeon Ryan (Bo Burnham), an acquaintance from her med school days, happens into the coffee shop and upends Cassie’s cycle of destruction. As she begins to develop feelings for him, she’s pulled back toward her own past and the trauma that forever changed the course of her life.
Will she balance the scales and find her own kind of happy ending? Or will her mission of vengeance take an unimaginable toll?
Focus Features, in association with FilmNation Entertainment, presents a LuckyChap Entertainment Production, PROMISING YOUNG WOMAN. Carey Mulligan, Bo Burnham, Alison Brie, Connie Britton, Adam Brody, Jennifer Coolidge, Laverne Cox, Max Greenfield, Christopher Mintz-Plasse, Chris Lowell, Sam Richardson, Molly Shannon, Clancy Brown. Producers, Margot Robbie, Tom Ackerley, Josey McNamara, Ben Browning and Ashley Fox. Written, produced, and directed by Emerald Fennell.
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