March 05, 2026
Provided image/Warner Bros. Pictures
Benicio del Toro plays Sensei Sergio in 'One Battle After Another,' one of the 10 films up for best picture at the Oscars.
Fifty movies are up for the film industry's biggest honors at the Academy Awards on Sunday, March 15. But if you only have time to watch a few, consider these contenders.
Our streaming picks below do not include one of the award season's heavy hitters, "Sinners," because we've already recommended it and interviewed its director. So watch that if you haven't already, then check out these equally thrilling and devastating films in the best picture category. Two are foreign, another two star former teen idols and all four have family secrets — ranging from "your mom did something pretty bad, actually" to "I killed your uncle." Here's how to watch them:
As the title implies, "The Secret Agent" is a political thriller with plenty of style and intrigue. But it's also a surreal time capsule of 1970s Brazil and an affecting meditation on how we remember the past.
Like last year's Oscar contender "I'm Still Here," this period piece dramatizes the struggles of Brazilian citizens under the country's military dictatorship. Armando (Wagner Moura, aka Manny from "Dope Thief") takes up a new identity and home among a community of dissidents led by his landlady Dona Sebastiana (a delightful Tânia Maria) at the start of the film. It's unclear why he's in hiding, or what happened to his wife, but the picture slowly comes together as Armando dodges hitmen.
Researchers in the present day are also racing to figure out what happened to Armando, a man they know only as a voice on a series of tapes. The timelines converge at the very end in an abrupt and ultimately moving coda. Moura may be a dark horse for the best actor Oscar statuette, but he more than earns it with this performance. "The Secret Agent" is now streaming on Hulu and Disney+.
Some people get dependable dads. Willa (Chase Infiniti) got Bob (Leonardo DiCaprio), an unreliable stoner who hates technology. What Willa doesn't know is that her frustrating father used to be a revolutionary with her mother Perfidia Beverly Hills (Teyana Taylor) — and that past is coming back to bite them.
In "One Battle After Another," now streaming on Max, Bob is forced into an action hero role he predictably and hilariously fumbles when an old enemy comes to kill his biracial daughter. Steve Lockjaw (Sean Penn) has risen the fascist ranks by terrorizing immigrants, but Willa — who might actually be his kid — threatens to compromise his place in a secret white supremacist society. Bob flails around California searching for Willa at the same time as Lockjaw, tapping her karate sensei Sergio (Benicio del Toro) for help.
Critics have called "One Battle After Another" a movie of the moment, and it's not just because of the detention center jailbreak that opens the film. Bob, Perfidia, Sergio and other memorable characters (nuns with guns!) offer different models of resistance in a movie concerned with how people stand up to power and protect their loved ones in the face of tyranny. Also, there's a killer car chase.
Some people get dependable dads. Nora (Renate Reinsve) got Gustav (Stellan Skarsgård), a director absent for much of her adolescence. Now he wants her to play the lead in a film about her grandmother. She wants nothing to do with it.
The Norwegian family drama explores generational trauma, self-perception and the vastly different ways people can grapple with the same experience. But it's not all Nordic doom and gloom. Shot through with dark humor, "Sentimental Value" believes in the possibility of growth and reconciliation. Rent it on Prime or Apple TV+.
Guillermo del Toro, the longtime bard of sad monsters, takes on their blueprint story in "Frankenstein." His Gothic epic follows Victor Frankenstein's morally queasy quest to create life from dead bodies — but unlike many Mary Shelley adaptations, this one includes the scientist and his creature's showdown in the Arctic.
"Frankenstein" features the gorgeous production design and costumes typical of a del Toro movie. It is also, like "The Shape of Water," deeply sympathetic to the misfit at the center of the story. This empathy sands some interesting edges off Frankenstein's monster, but the story remains a compelling and tragic tale of man's hubris. (The man in question is Oscar Isaac, playing a swaggering egomaniac for the ages.) Stream it on Netflix.
Follow Kristin & PhillyVoice on Twitter: @kristin_hunt
| @thePhillyVoice
Like us on Facebook: PhillyVoice
Have a news tip? Let us know.
