Oscars 2025: The case for Nickel Boys to win Best Picture

But thankfully, it has made the cut. And while it is up against some terrific films in this year’s line-up – notably including Brady Corbet’s mesmerising three-and-a-half-hour epic The Brutalist – there should be no doubt that Nickel Boys would be the most deserving winner of the golden statuette.

Taking already brilliant source material in the shape of Colson Whitehead’s Pulitzer Prize-winning novel, director Ross – best known for his 2018 documentary feature Hale County This Morning, This Evening – made the bold approach to shoot the film entirely from the visual point of view of its leads, with the perspective regularly switching between that of the two main characters Elwood (Ethan Herisse) and Curtis (Brandon Wilson).

Far from being a pointless gimmick, this unique approach lends the film an intimacy and tactility that feels like the closest cinema has come to putting the audience directly in its characters' shoes. It’s a method so unconventional that some viewers may require a brief adjustment period to get used to the way the film looks and feels, but it won’t take long to draw you under its spell: creating a profoundly immersive experience punctuated by both fleeting moments of lyrical beauty and some deeply harrowing scenes.

Set in Jim Crow-era Florida, the film tells the story of Elwood, a young African-American teenager whose dream of studying at a tuition-free college is torn apart when he is wrongly implicated in a car theft. He is duly sent to a brutal, racially segregated reform school – called Nickel Academy – where he finds himself living against a backdrop of unbearable cruelty, meted out both by fellow students and the school's deeply racist staff.

Some rare solace comes in the form of the friendship he forms with a fellow student, the quietly rebellious Turner (Brandon Wilson), who shares Elwood’s disillusionment even if he’s rather more cynical about his attempts to seek hope and salvation by orchestrating a way for them to leave Nickel. Meanwhile, a number of flash forwards show an adult Elwood now living in New York City – which eventually leads to a fascinating, very moving reveal that we won’t spoil here.

Even aside from the audacious nature of its central formal conceit, the film is impeccably well made from a technical perspective and the impressionistic flourishes Ross adds – including some innovative use of archival footage – give the film a poetic quality, that builds to an astounding third act montage.

The cast are also superb throughout, and it seems essential to give special mention to Aunjanue Ellis-Taylor, who is remarkable in a supporting role as Elwood's grandmother and shines in some of the film's most raw and affecting moments. She can feel especially aggrieved to have missed out on a nomination for her performance.

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Indeed, while it’s so great to see it feature in the Best Picture category, the film on the whole can feel short-changed to have secured so few nominations besides that. An adapted screenplay nod for Ross and co-writer Joslyn Barnes is welcome, but it's hard to make sense of how the former could have been passed over for a Best Director nomination in favour of, for example, James Mangold – whose Bob Dylan biopic A Complete Unknown is directed competently but almost entirely conventionally.

That lack of other nominations – coupled with the fact the film doesn’t have many wins at the significant precursor awards shows – makes an actual Best Picture win seem all but impossible. But the fact that such an experimental film has been nominated at all is cause for celebration; we can live in hope that it somehow finds a way to secure the win.

The Academy Awards will take place on Sunday 2nd March.

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