Available on various platforms

The dialogue may be mostly in Korean, but this tender tale of an immigrant family making a first go of farming their own land in rural Arkansas is as all-American as they come. It’s based on the real-life childhood experiences of writer-director Mr Lee Isaac Chung and boasts a Sag and Oscar-nominated performance from rising star Mr Steven Yeun as the family’s dream-focussed dad. Minari is also very funny, mostly due to Korean screen legend, and all-round grand dame, Ms Youn Yuh-jung. As “grandma”, she ensures the kids stay connected to their heritage in the most brilliantly blunt fashion.

Available on Netflix

It’s a critical truism than Hollywood likes to laud movies about moviemaking (see La La Land and The Artist), but Mr David Fincher’s immersive biopic of the whip-smart boozehound and Citizen Kane screenwriter Mr Herman J “Mank” Mankiewicz is more than just an industry love-in. Shot in immersive black and white, it meticulously recreates the era, resulting in rapturous reminder of Old Hollywood magic. But expect some grumbles if Mr Gary Oldman’s star turn wins Best Actor; his is the least interesting performance in a category crowded with fresh and unsung talent.

Available on various platforms

All the controversy regarding casting a Brit as a Black American community leader has been silenced by Mr Daniel Kaluuya’s exhilarating performance as Mr Fred Hampton, chairman of the Illinois Black Panther Party. But that doesn’t mean there isn’t still plenty to talk about. This Mr Shaka King-directed historical drama is framed by the experiences of Mr William O’Neal (Mr Lakeith Stanfield), an FBI informant, whose act of betrayal led to Hampton’s assassination in 1969, when he was just 21. This structure is dramatically effective, turning history into a tense crime thriller, but might it also lead to some regrettable omissions?

Available on Netflix

The second of this year’s films to feature Fred Hampton is this rousing courtroom drama from The West Wing creator, Mr Aaron Sorkin. Hampton’s only a minor character here, however, amid an impressive ensemble cast depicting the participants in a landmark 1969-1970 trial. It’s Mr Sacha Baron Cohen as “flower power” activist Mr Abbie Hoffman who’s up for several big acting awards and – as you’d expect from a writer known for his screwball dialogue and grand-standing political speeches – the screenplay is also nominated. The film’s plot is “fact-based” rather than strictly factual, but its theme of protest rights and police surveillance remain powerfully topical.

Available on Netflix

Remember Ms Issa Rae’s pointed congratulations to “those men” from last year’s Oscars’ nomination announcement? Well, this year is looking far more gender-balanced, thanks in part to this radiant film and its Bafta-nominated director, Ms Sarah Gavron. Rocks is about an east London teenager of the same name, who faces tough challenges, but gets by with a little help from her girl gang of friends. This young, mostly non-professional cast takes the long-standing and – let’s be honest – often drab tradition of British social realism, then lights it up with the giggly, firecracker energy of a Cardi B concert.

Available on various platforms

The diversity and sheer quality of documentary film this year is mind-blowing. Crip Camp, about the disabled rights revolution, and My Octopus Teacher, about an extraordinary underwater friendship, both available on Netflix, to take just two examples. It’s this powerful, engrossing film from Romania, though, that’s making the biggest noise in judging circles. In October 2015, a fire at the Bucharest nightclub Colectiv killed 27 people, rising to 64 over the following months. This documentary follows the dedicated and very much collective efforts to uncover the true scale of corruption behind this tragedy. Every new revelation is more jaw-dropping than the last.

Available on Netflix

The final film release from the late Mr Chadwick Boseman is this Mr Denzel Washington-produced adaptation of an enduringly relevant 1984 play, set in 1920s Chicago. While a certain stagey-ness is inevitable, the performances consistently soar above the theatre rafters. Ms Viola Davis co-stars as the cranky, blues-singing legend, while Boseman plays trumpeter Levee, an alternately cocky and desperate man, who, despite a lifetime of struggle, naively hopes his artistic talents might be properly rewarded. Racism doesn’t work like that, tragically. And neither does the music industry.

Available on AppleTV+

Given Pixar’s usually deserved domination of animation awards, this Irish folklore-based fantasy is the category underdog. Or should that be underwolf? The story is simple – a little girl befriends a magical woodland creature, then helps defend her home from the humans – but its impact is deeply felt. That’s because Wolfwalkers is beautifully crafted by Cartoon Saloon, the Kilkenny-based studio behind The Secret Of Kells. What these guys lack in big budgets and storied history, they more than make up for in imagination and distinctive style.

Available on Amazon Prime

In the tradition of Spotlight and Erin Brockovich, this film by The Last King Of Scotland director Mr Kevin Macdonald takes an overlooked injustice from recent history and gives it the attention it always deserved. Mr Tahar Rahim stars as Mr Mohamedou Ould Slahi (who has written his experiences in the best-selling memoir of the same name), a man from the north-west African nation of Mauritania who was detained on spurious grounds after 9/11 and endured unthinkable torture during his more than 14 years in the American extrajudicial prison at Guantánamo Bay. There’s a starry support cast, too, featuring Mses Jodie Foster and Shailene Woodley as Slahi’s legal defence team and Mr Benedict Cumberbatch as his crew-cut military prosecutor.

Promising Young Woman

A dark, feminist twist on the revenge fantasy thriller and the feature-directing debut of Ms Emerald Fennel (aka Camilla in The Crown). It stars Ms Carrey Mulligan as a woman on a mission to right wrongs; some long past and some yet to be committed.

**Watch instead: **The Dig (Netflix)

Say: “If Mulligan can believably play a character 20 years her senior, as she does in The Dig, then the Promising Young Woman’s honey-trapping heroine shouldn’t stretch anyone’s imagination.”

The Father

This quietly devastating drama lets us into the disorientating reality of dementia via an ageing man (Sir Anthony Hopkins) who refuses assistance from his daughter (Ms Olivia Colman).

Watch instead: _Hillbilly Elegy _(Netflix)

**Say: **“Glenn Close’s performance as foul-mouthed ‘Mawmaw’ makes her both the backwoods equivalent of Anthony, and Colman’s strongest competition for Best Supporting Actress. Will it be eighth time lucky for the much-nominated star?”

Sound Of Metal

The inventively told tale of a punk-metal drummer (Mr Riz Ahmed) struggling to come to terms with sudden hearing loss.

Watch instead: _Crip Camp _(Netflix)

**Say: **“Sure, Riz Ahmed has been on the path to Oscar glory since Four Lions, but if there’s one name from this film that should really ring out, it’s sound designer Nicolas Becker.”

Nomadland

A part-documentary, part-fictionalised account of the real experience of many 60 and 70-something Americans who, like Fern (Ms Frances McDormand), have been forced into an itinerant lifestyle to survive.

**Watch instead: **News Of The World (Netflix)

**Say: “**Chloe Zhao’s rough-riding road movie tells us as much about the state of the American soul as any macho neo-Western.”

Another Round

Four Danish men in middle-age self-medicate away their depression with a day-drinking experiment that gets amusingly – then dangerously – out of control.

Watch instead: The Hunt (Amazon Prime)

**Say: **“Clearly marvellous mayhem ensues whenever Vinterberg and Mikkelsen get together, booze or no booze.”