What was the first film you watched post-Oscars?
Sunday, March 9, 2025 at 3:00PM 
An unpredictable awards season ended in an ANORA near-sweep at the Oscars.
It's been a week now since the Oscars.
The winners have celebrated, the losers have extended their congratulations (hopefully), the dust has settled, and the noise is slowly fading out. As we collectively move on from the recently concluded awards season, let me pose this question: what was the first film you watched post-Oscars?
Whether it be a leftover from the previous year, a new release from this current film year, or a good old classic, the first film one watches post-Oscars is fascinating to me because I do wonder if other cinephiles - especially those who intentionally subject themselves to the grueling roller-coaster ride of awards season - have a ritual of sorts on how to move forward with the recently concluded season...
This year, I went with John Ford's 1940 classic The Grapes of Wrath. Tackling the life of a working class family forced to migrate from Oklahoma to California due to the Great Depression, I do find this a quietly powerful watch, seeing how the effects of economic recession is experienced on a personal level with tremendous empathy and nary a penchant for emotional exploitation. Ford’s sensitive direction, bolstered by Gregg Toland’s astounding cinematography, amplifies this on a technical level. Terrific performances all around, especially from Henry Fonda, John Qualen, and Oscar winner Jane Darwell. I have been putting this film off for weeks, if not months, trying to find the right timing for it. At the same time, I do think the recently concluded Oscars (and awards season, in general) left a bit of an aftertaste so watching as far from this year as possible also made sense to be my first watch post-Oscars.
This made me look back at the first films I watched these past five years and tried to see if there was a trend with what I watched post-Oscars. Here is a the brief history (and what was going through in my head at the time, if I can still remember):
2024: ORIGIN (2023) - watched March 13 (Oscars: March 10)
This was the week when I was just furious at Lily Gladstone not winning Best Actress. Alas, to distract myself, I finally caught up with one of my most anticipated films from 2023. A shapeshifting marvel in storytelling, Ava DuVernay’s first narrative feature in five years is an expansive look at how caste affects division in different societies across time and space. I wish it got more awards attention that season (and it did get a very last-minute push from Frances Fisher, Angelina Jolie, Regina King, etc), but Neon's priorities were with Anatomy of a Fall then.
2023: LA YUMA (2009) - watched March 14 (Oscars: March 12)
I remember being pretty satisfied with how the Oscars turned out this time (especially with Women Talking winning Adapted Screenplay) so I wasn’t rushing to watch anything new. However, in celebrating the International Women’s Month, I decided to watch a number of International Feature Film submissions directed by women. I first went with this Nicaraguan drama about a young girl from the province who dreams of becoming a boxer. Speaking of Nicaragua: do you know that the country had arlready been nominated in International Feature Film back in the 1980s?
2022: WEST SIDE STORY (2021) - watched March 28 (Oscars: March 27)
I was a volunteer for an election campaign during the entirety of this awards season, doing house-to-house vote canvassing almost on a daily basis, so I was not as invested during this awards season. I was captching up with the contenders sporadicaly. As for the ceremony itself, I only saw half of it, missed the Will Smith slap, and I felt numb when I saw CODA make its mini-sweep over The Power of the Dog. On the same day (the ceremony falls on the morning of March 28), I decided to catch up with this Best Picture nominee, making it the seventh that I saw. I thought it'd be easier to watch since I'm already familiar with the story.
2021: THE STORY OF ADELE H. (1975) - watched April 30 (Oscars: April 25)
I remember being so happy that my personal favorites in Picture, Director, Actor, and Actress also turned out to be the Oscar winners. Also vindicated because Actor and Actress were such tight races that the sensible predictions at the time were to not pick the eventual winners. This was also the last year when I did predictions. Going back to this time: aside from experiencing burnout from my work at the time, the fourth season of The Handmaid’s Tale also premiered this week. So I’m not sure why - aside from sheer curiosity - did I end up with this French romantic drama starring Best Actress nominee Isabelle Adjani.
Do you have any film watching habits post-Oscars?
Reader Comments (5)
I have a couple of movies left before I completely close the book on 2024, so my first post-Oscar movie was Hard Truths, which was in cinemas for literally a week where I live. I feel like the distributor did the movie dirty - the trailer played really well any time I saw it. But now I've seen it, I understand better how word of mouth might not have been there.
I also kicked off my 2025 with One of Them Days, which IS in theaters, and is a lot of fun. Keke is a real star, and SZA is a lot of fun too.
I've been watching a few Gene Hackman films I never caught first time round or some i'd not seen for a long time
Power 1986 co stars Richard Gere and Julie Christie
Class Action 1991 co stars Mary Elizabeth Mastrantonio
Twilight 1998 co starring Susan Sarandon Reese Witherspoon and Paul Newman
Best Shot or Hoosiers if you're in the USA 1986 co stars Dennis Hopper
The Royal Tenenbaum's 2001 co stars Anjelica Huston
And in no order
A History Of Violence 2005 Viggo Mortensen
Kill Bill Volume One 2003 Uma Thurman
Vamp 1986 Grace Jones
A Nightingale Sang In Berkley Square 1979 David Niven
Nosferatu 2024 Willem Dafoe
The Woodsman 2004 Kevin Bacon
NOVOCAINE for me at a press screening. This is old old news but it still freaks me out a little that Jack Quaid is one of those strange cases of children of famous parents who look exactly like both parents fused together into a new human.
None of these came close to being Oscar contenders.
Tuesday -2023 (Julia Louis-Dreyfus is phenomenal in a movie one either totally vibes with or totally doesn't)
Heartbreakers - 2001 (for Hackman and actressing. Sigourney should have got a Globe nom)
You and Me - 1938 (Fritz Lang's strange one of a kind romantic comedy drama musical film)
So some reason, I had the DVD of Two of a Kind laying around. It was under 90 minutes, but I've forgotten how bad this John Travolta/Olivia Newton-John re-teaming was.
Otherwise, on TCM demand, I selected I'll Cry Tomorrow (1955). This was an MGM production and to me, this seemed more of a 'perfect vehicle' for Judy Garland to return to the screen in than ASIB. She seemed like a better fit to the Lillian Roth character than the more melodramatic Susan Hayward. I doubt that audiences wouldn't be able to compare Garland and Roth. Also seems that Garland would've gone to town playing a child vaudevillian with a stage mom who marries the wrong guys & becomes a skid row alcoholic, suicidal and an AA member. Seeing when Hayward hits rock bottom - wow, seems like Nellie O'Hara ripped her downfall from this film.