Oscars Best Picture Winner Nomadland Doesn’t Just Tell A Story About America. It Embodies It.

ALISSA WILKINSON

I wish I’d seen Nomadland in a theater, for reasons that didn’t become clear until the second time I saw it. I wish I’d seen every movie nominated for Best Picture this year in a theater. But the only one I saw in that setting was Minari, when it premiered at the Sundance Film Festival in January 2020, and the world felt chaotic but still familiar. I watched Nomadland on my TV, in my house, like every other movie I’ve seen for the past 14 months.

I dearly hope we emerge from this awful period in our lives with expanded accessibility to films for everyone — including audiences who can’t or for a variety of reasons prefer not to go to the theater. But Best Picture winner Nomadland begs for a big screen.

Nomadland was considered a Best Picture frontrunner almost from the start of this extra-long