#LeMillRecommends Movies to Catch Up On for Awards Season
Awards season always arrives with its own rhythm. Films begin to circulate long before nominations are announced; first through whispers at festivals, then through stills, casting choices, directors returning after long silences, and the quiet consensus of people whose opinions tend to matter. By the time awards conversations officially begin, the real audience has already been watching.
This year’s slate feels particularly textured. There’s a noticeable return to literary adaptations, morally ambiguous protagonists, and directors leaning into atmosphere over spectacle. The stories feel intimate even when the scale is large, concerned less with resolution and more with memory, obsession, faith, and the strange ways people endure.
These are the films already shaping the conversation. The ones worth catching up on now, before they become impossible to avoid.
Bugonia
Yorgos Lanthimos continues his fascination with discomfort: social, emotional, and existential. Bugonia sits firmly in his universe of controlled absurdity, where humour and unease coexist without explanation. Expect precise performances, unsettling stillness, and a narrative that feels less interested in answers than in watching characters unravel under belief systems of their own making. Not an easy watch, but rarely the point.
Catch the movie on Amazon Prime Video.
Marty Supreme
Josh Safdie steps into the spotlight with a story that feels rooted in obsession and velocity. It's familiar territory, but filtered through a more character-driven lens. Marty Supreme carries the nervous energy of ambition at its breaking point, anchored by performance rather than plot. The film has already become shorthand for a certain kind of New York storytelling: restless, intimate, and slightly unhinged. Termed as an undeniable once-in-a-generation cinematic experience with a stacked ensemble featuring Timothée Chalamet, Gwyneth Paltrow, Tyler the Creator, among many familiar faces.
Watch the movie in select theatres near you or on Amazon Prime Video.
Frankenstein
Guillermo del Toro’s long-awaited Frankenstein feels less like a remake and more like a reclamation. Known for finding tenderness in monsters, del Toro approaches the story with an emotional gravity that leans into loneliness, creation, and responsibility rather than horror. Visually lush but emotionally restrained, it’s expected to resonate as much for its atmosphere as for its reinterpretation of a familiar myth.
Watch the timeless story unfold on Netflix.
Hamnet
Adapted from Maggie O’Farrell’s novel, and starring Jessie Buckley and Paul Mescal, Hamnet moves quietly through grief, marriage, and artistic legacy. The film resists grand gestures, choosing instead to linger in absence and memory. It’s the kind of period film that feels contemporary in its emotional language; intimate, restrained, and deeply personal without needing to declare itself as such.
Watch Hamnet on AppleTV+.
Sinners
Ryan Coogler’s Sinners arrives with the weight of expectation and the promise of reinvention. Details remain deliberately sparse, but early conversations suggest a film that blends genre with social commentary in a way that feels both ambitious and controlled. Coogler’s strength has always been emotional scale, and Sinners looks poised to extend that into darker territory.
Catch the Michael B. Jordan double role only on JioHotsar.
The Secret Agent
A return to political cinema that values tension over spectacle. Based on Conrad’s novel, The Secret Agent unfolds through paranoia, ideology, and quiet manipulation rather than overt drama. It’s the kind of film that rewards patience. It's dense, deliberate, and unconcerned with accessibility, which is precisely why it’s already being discussed.
Watch the movie on Amazon Prime Video.
