From a bumper 2021 in which sprawling blockbusters finally hit reopened movie theaters, and streaming platforms released more prestige flicks than ever, 10 films remain in contention for the best picture #AcademyAward.
Here's a rundown from @andrewmarszal u.afp.com/wsud
@andrewmarszal Kenneth Branagh's semi-autobiographical #Belfast has long been viewed as a serious #Oscars contender. It depicts the outbreak of violence in his native Northern Ireland in the late 1960s from the perspective of a nine-year-old boy
@andrewmarszal#CODAfilm centers on teen Ruby, the only hearing member of a deaf household in a small US fishing community. The #Oscars contender, which cast deaf actors in lead roles and features copious dialogue in sign language, has been celebrated as a landmark in disability representation
@andrewmarszal Satirical comedy #DontLookUp has the starriest cast of any #Oscars best picture nominated film this year, with A-listers including Leonardo DiCaprio and Meryl Streep facing extinction from a massive comet hurtling toward Earth -- an allegory for the climate crisis
@andrewmarszal Clocking in at a minute under three hours, Japanese drama #DriveMyCar -- a subtle and slow meditation on grief and loss, adapted from Haruki Murakami's short story -- is the longest film nominated for the best picture #Oscar
@andrewmarszal Denis Villeneuve's sci-fi epic #Dune adapts the first part of Frank Herbert's seminal novel about feuding noble houses on a planet plagued by giant sandworms. The movie earned $400 million at the global box office -- the other nine nominated movies took $220 million combined
@andrewmarszal Combining the remarkable real-life story of Venus and Serena Williams with the A-list stardust of Will Smith, #KingRichard is an uplifting crowd-pleaser with strong reviews to match. The best actor #Oscar appears to be Smith's to lose, but a best picture win would be an upset
@andrewmarszal Paul Thomas Anderson's latest offbeat offering #LicoricePizza returns to his native Los Angeles, where a directionless twentysomething woman and a cocky high school boy strike up an unlikely relationship
@andrewmarszal Macabre carnival fable #NightmareAlley is undeniably stylish and immersive, but Guillermo del Toro's noir about a traveling "mind reader" who defrauds rich clients with sham seances is unlikely to match the best picture #Oscar of his previous film, "The Shape of Water"
@andrewmarszal Since its world premiere, Jane Campion's moody Western #ThePowerOfTheDog has been the film to beat. Adapted from Thomas Savage's novel about toxic masculinity in 1920s Montana, it earned the most #Oscar nominations and has racked up a slew of other awards
@andrewmarszal Ariana DeBose's performance as Anita in Steven Spielberg's remake of the most-awarded musical film of all time #WestSideStory is expected to win her an #Oscar after numerous precursor awards, but the movie's odds for best picture remain long
VIDEO: Hollywood grapples with Ukraine ahead of Oscars.
As Leonardo DiCaprio's climate crisis warning and Joaquin Phoenix's outrage over artificially inseminated cows have recently shown, A-listers are rarely shy about making political statements at the Academy Awards
#BREAKING Biden says still considers Xi a 'dictator'
#UPDATE US President Joe Biden said after a summit with Xi Jinping that he still considers the Chinese president a "dictator", after he sparked fury from Beijing by making the comparison earlier this year.
"Well look he is, I mean he's a dictator in the sense that he's a guy who's running a country, a Communist country, that's based on a form of government totally different than ours," Biden said at the end of a news conference when a reporter asked if he would still use the term to describe Xi
#BREAKING China will not begin armed conflict with any nation, President Xi Jinping said Wednesday, after a high-stakes summit with US President Joe Biden.
"China does not seek spheres of influence, and will not fight a cold or hot war with any country," he told a gathering of business leaders in San Francisco
#BREAKING Any compromise with Russia will 'destroy' Ukrainian statehood: presidential aide to AFP
#BREAKING Putin says West used grain deal for 'political blackmail'
VIDEO: Ukrainian firefighters battle flames after a Russian strike on Odesa.
Ukraine's president accused Russia of deliberately targeting grain export infrastructure in the city after Moscow ended a landmark deal and lifted security guarantees in the Black Sea
#BREAKING Putin says situation 'difficult' in Rostov in southern Russia
#UPDATE Russian President Vladimir Putin on Saturday acknowledged a "difficult" situation was unfolding in the southern city of Rostov-on-Don, where the Wagner mercenary group has taken control of key military sites in an effort to oust Russian military's top brass.
#UPDATE President Vladimir Putin vowed Saturday he would not allow Russia to slip into civil war, after the leader of the Wagner mercenary force seized a key military headquarters overseeing the offensive in Ukraine.
https://t.co/PDuskr13ZGu.afp.com/izzr
#BREAKING Titanic sub operator believes passengers have 'sadly been lost': statement
#UPDATE The US Coast Guard now says the discovered debris from the submersible -- which was carrying five passengers down to the wreckage of the Titanic when the small vessel vanished on Sunday -- suggests 'catastrophic loss'
#BREAKING Pakistan offer condolences to family of British-Pakistan nationals on Titanic sub