We love movie awards season. LOVE it. It’s a celebration of all that’s great about cinema, and it’s hugely enjoyable to watch the beautiful, the glamorous and the phenomenally talented pick up their prizes while decked out in fabulous outfits.

And this Sunday night it’s the biggest one of all: the 95th Academy Awards, taking place at the Dolby Theatre in Los Angeles, and you can watch it live on Sky Showcase HD (CH 109). The start time of midnight isn’t ideal. But once in a while it’s great to draw the curtains, put your phone on silent and stay up to cheer on your favourites… and throw popcorn at the TV when they lose.

Even if you’re not a fan of awards ceremonies (and we could do without some of the speeches tbh), there’s no doubt that they’re a great pointer towards the best films around. If you’re looking for a thoroughly satisfying movie experience, checking out what’s nominated for lots of awards is a pretty foolproof way of finding one.

With that in mind, we invite you to peruse the terrific films in our 2023 Awards Contenders collection. They may not all end up winning, but they’re all winners in our book. From superheroes to satires of the super-rich, from fighting friends to fighter pilots, there’s a huge range of top-notch cinematic entertainment here. Take a look…

The Banshees Of Inisherin

Find it in Apps & Games > Disney+. Also available to buy or rent on the Virgin Media Store. Cert 15

In Bruges stars Colin Farrell and Brendan Gleeson, Kerry Condon (Better Call Saul) and Barry Keoghan (Dunkirk) have all been Oscar-nominated for their fantastic work in this offbeat drama about a pair of friends who fall out. Set in a small village off the coast of Ireland, writer/director Martin McDonagh’s film examines loneliness, friendship, depression and the lengths desperate people will go to. Also there’s a donkey.

Nominations: Best Picture, Best Director, Best Actor (Colin Farrell), Best Supporting Actor (Brendan Gleeson, Barry Keoghan), Best Supporting Actress (Kerry Condon), Best Original Screenplay, Best Editing, Best Score

Top Gun: Maverick

Available in Sky Cinema on demand. Also available to buy on the Virgin Media Store. Cert 12

It may have taken 36 years to come to our screens but the sequel to Top Gun was well worth the wait, bringing us supersonic airborne thrills galore and smashing box office records with global grosses of over $1.4 billion. Tom Cruise is as good as he’s even been as Pete “Maverick” Mitchell, the hotshot pilot turned thoughtful veteran as he tries to teach a new group of flyers and repair his damaged relationships. The aerial action is breathtaking, as reflected in the technical awards for which it’s been nominated.

Nominations: Best Picture, Best Adapted Screenplay, Best Editing, Best Sound, Best Original Song (“Hold My Hand”), Best Visual Effects

Elvis

Available in Sky Cinema on demand. Also available to buy on the Virgin Media Store. Cert 12

Austin Butler’s biggest roles before Elvis were in the Sex And The City prequel The Carrie Diaries and MTV fantasy drama The Shannara Chronicles – so it’s fair to say he took the world by surprise with his heartfelt and uncannily accurate portrayal of Elvis Presley. He’s already won more than a dozen awards including a Golden Globe and a BAFTA, making him a hot Oscar favourite. The biopic, directed and co-written by Baz Lurhmann (The Great Gatsby), also stars Tom Hanks as Elvis’s manager Tom Parker.

Nominations: Best Picture, Best Actor (Austin Butler), Best Cinematography, Best Editing, Best Production Design, Best Costume Design, Best Sound, Best Make-up and Hairstyling

Everything Everywhere All At Once

Find it in Apps & Games > Prime Video. Also available to buy on the Virgin Media Store. Cert 15

Downtrodden laundrette manager Evelyn Wang (Michelle Yeoh, Crazy Rich Asians) discovers she is the Chosen One who will save all the universes in this wildly inventive comedy fantasy thriller. It’s a dizzying adrenaline rush as Evelyn careers between parallel realities, but at heart it’s a story about the complex relationship between a mother and daughter, dealing with the consequences of our life choices, and choosing kindness. Yeoh is terrific, as are her fellow Oscar nominees Jamie Lee Curtis (Halloween), Ke Huy Quan (The Goonies) and Stephanie Hsu (The Marvelous Mrs Maisel).

Nominations: Best Picture, Best Director, Best Actress (Michelle Yeoh), Best Supporting Actress (Jamie Lee Curtis, Stephanie Hsu), Best Supporting Actor (Ke Huy Quan), Best Original Screenplay, Best Editing, Best Costume Design, Best Score, Best Original Song (“This Is A Life”)

Triangle Of Sadness

Available to buy or rent on the Virgin Media Store. Cert 15

Writer/director Ruben Östland won his second Palme d’Or at the Cannes Festival with this scabrous and merciless satire of the super-rich. A pair of influencers (Charlbi Dean and Harris Dickinson) are invited on board a luxury yacht, only to be horrified at the distasteful antics of the passengers. And when a storm hits, things get even messier… Woody Harrelson (The Hunger Games) is the permanently drunk captain of the ship, while Dolly de Leon has had awards recognition for her role as cleaning lady Abigail.

Nominations: Best Picture, Best Director, Best Original Screenplay

Aftersun

Available to buy or rent on the Virgin Media Store. Cert 12

Paul Mescal was a virtual unknown when he starred in the BBC’s Normal People in 2020; now he’s winning awards around the world for his role in Aftersun. Mescal is Calum, who’s taken his young daughter Sophie (Frankie Corio) on holiday to Turkey, and tries to ensure she has fun while dealing with his own mental struggles. In her first feature film, Scottish writer/director Charlotte Wells shows astonishing deftness as she gives the viewer access to her characters’ inner worlds, and deservedly won a BAFTA for Outstanding Debut.

Nominations: Best Actor (Paul Mescal)

The Batman

Available in Sky Cinema on demand. Also available to buy on the Virgin Media Store. Cert 15

After the grand-scale superheroics of Christian Bale and Ben Affleck’s Batmans (er, Batmen?), Robert Pattinson’s take on the role is a more low-key, noir-ish affair, as the caped vigilante follows the evidence doggedly to find out who is committing murders in Gotham City and leaving riddles at the crime scenes. Sombre yet stylish, it’s been honoured by numerous awards bodies for its impressive production design and effects.

Nominations: Best Sound, Best Make-up and Hairstyling, Best Visual Effects

All Quiet On The Western Front

Find it in Apps & Games > Netflix

The first German-language screen adaptation of the classic anti-war novel by German author Erich Maria Remarque has proven hugely popular with awards voters, gaining 14 BAFTA nominations and winning seven – including Best Film and Best Director for Edward Berger – as well as scoring nine Oscar nominations. Felix Kammerer plays a young man who enthusiastically joins the Army in 1917, but quickly finds that it’s not all romance and heroism.

Nominations: Best Picture, Best Adapted Screenplay, Best Cinematography, Best Production Design, Best Sound, Best Make-up and Hairstyling, Best Score, Best Visual Effects, Best International Feature Film

Mrs Harris Goes To Paris

Available to buy on the Virgin Media Store. Cert PG

One surefire way of getting your film an Academy Award nomination is to hire Jenny Beavan to create the costumes. The English designer has been nominated an astonishing 12 times, winning for three extravagantly varied films: A Room With A View, Mad Max: Fury Road and Cruella. Her 1950s outfits for Lesley Manville (The Phantom Thread) and the rest of the cast of this delightful comedy drama about a widow with her heart set on a Dior dress are among her best work.

Nominations: Best Costume Design

The Quiet Girl

Available to buy on the Virgin Media Store. Cert 15

The Oscars aren’t all about the biggest box-office smashes and most famous screen stars. Colm Bairéad’s The Quiet Girl (An Cailín Ciúin), with dialogue mostly in Irish, is a low budget coming-of-age drama set in 1980s rural Ireland about a young girl, Cáit (Catherine Clinch), sent to live with relatives while her mother prepares to give birth. The emotional story of their brief time together won seven Irish Film Academy Awards, including Best Film.

Nominations: Best International Feature Film

Disney Pixar’s Turning Red

Find it in Apps & Games > Disney+. Also available to buy on the Virgin Media Store. Cert PG

Another emotional coming-of-age story about a young girl but with an entirely different tone, Turning Red centres on Toronto teenager Mei Lee (Rosalie Chang) who discovers that she transforms into a giant red panda whenever her feelings run hot. How will she and her family (including Killing Eve’s Sandra Oh as her mother, Ming) cope with the change? The directorial debut of Domee Shi, who also co-wrote the screenplay with Julia Cho, its nomination is the 50th for a Pixar movie since the studio’s first in 1996 for Toy Story.

Nominations: Best Animated Feature Film

Navalny

Available to buy on the Virgin Media Store. Cert 12

The winner of the Audience Award in the documentary category at the Sundance Festival, this film follows the investigation into the poisoning of Russian anti-corruption activist Alexei Navalny in 2020. The presence of a Novichok nerve agent was confirmed by five independent labs; the Kremlin denies all knowledge of the attack. Given the current geopolitical circumstances, this eye-opening and indignation-provoking doc is heavily favoured to win the Oscar.

Nominations: Best Documentary Feature

Marvel Studios’ Black Panther: Wakanda Forever

Find it in Apps & Games > Disney+. Also available to buy on the Virgin Media Store. Cert 12

Angela Bassett’s devastating portrayal of the bereaved Queen Ramonda has made her the first person to score an acting nomination for a Marvel Studios movie. The Black Panther sequel is a superhero flick with a difference: part action thriller, part meditation on grief (after the original film’s star Chadwick Boseman died in 2020), and part critique of exploitative colonialism – all expertly guided by writer/director Ryan Coogler, who also has a nomination as a contributor in the Best Song category.

Nominations: Best Supporting Actress (Angela Bassett), Best Costume Design, Best Make-up and Hairstyling, Best Original Song (“Lift Me Up”), Best Visual Effects

Tár

Available to rent now in On Demand > Movies > Premium Rentals. Cert 15

Double Oscar winner Cate Blanchett cements her position among the modern screen greats with another magnetic performance as Lydia Tár, who becomes the first female conductor of the Berlin Philharmonic but is beset by accusations of abuse. It’s a study of the complexities of power dynamics, especially for women, that has scored Oscar nominations for Todd Field for both writing and directing. After winning the BAFTA and numerous critics’ awards, Blanchett is a front-runner.

Nominations: Best Picture, Best Director, Best Actress (Cate Blanchett), Best Original Screenplay, Best Cinematography, Best Editing

The Whale

Available to rent now in On Demand > Movies > Premium Rentals. Cert 15

After movie success in the 1990s with California Man, The Mummy and more, Brendan Fraser endured a tough time in which his physical and mental health suffered. That’s partly what makes his comeback role in The Whale so compelling, as he plays a man in poor health who comes to realise that he has to make the best of his life. Fraser is nominated alongside Hong Chau, who plays his nurse, and the team who created the prosthetic effects that allowed him to play a morbidly obese character.

Nominations: Best Actor (Brendan Fraser), Best Suporting Actress (Hong Chau), Best Make-up and Hairstyling

Living

Available to buy on the Virgin Media Store. Also available to rent from Monday 13 March in On Demand > Movies > Premium Rentals. Cert 12

Bill Nighy has been nominated for the Best Actor Oscar for the first time aged 73 for Living, in which he plays a 1950s bureaucrat facing a fatal illness. He resolves to take his own life but bumps into former colleague Margaret (Sex Education’s Aimee Lou Woods), whose youthful joie de vivre gives him a new lease of life. Nobel Prize-winning British author Kazuo Ishiguro is also nominated for his screenplay, inspired by the Japanese film Ikiru and Leo Tolstoy’s story The Death Of Ivan Ilyich.

Nominations: Best Actor (Bill Nighy), Best Adapted Screenplay

When are the 2023 Oscars on Sky Showcase?

The 95th Academy Awards, aka the Oscars, are on Sky Showcase HD (CH 109) at 12am on Monday 13 March – that’s Sunday night into the early hours of Monday morning. If you want to see the stars arriving on the red carpet, coverage begins at 11pm, also on Sky Showcase HD, with more build-up on Sky News HD (CH 602).