Written by Mackenzie Manley, Content Specialist, Downtown Main Library
The nominations for the 98th Academy Awards were recently announced, but there’s still plenty of time to catch up with the Best Picture nominees.
If you're looking for titles to read and watch in between screenings, check out these titles from the Library’s collection.
Bugonia
Yorgos Lanthimos’ dark satire Bugonia stars Emma Stone as a CEO of a major corporation and Jesse Plemons as a man convinced that she is an extraterrestrial intent on humanity’s demise. Unapologetically weird and wily, if you’ve seen (and loved) Bugonia, check out its South Korean counterpart: 2003’s Save the Green Planet!, on which Lanthimos’ film is based.
If the movie made you want to watch more kidnapping tales (hey, we’re not judging), reach for Stephen King’s classic, Misery. And for a just-as-twisty-and-unique story, try Earthlings by Sayaka Murata, which follows a woman who believes she is an alien.
Frankenstein
Guillermo del Toro has a penchant for practical effects and richly detailed gothic horror. His take on the classic sci-fi gothic Frankenstein is no different. Starring Jacob Elordi as The Creature and Oscar Isaac as Victor Frankenstein, del Toro’s adaptation is the perfect excuse to reread the source material: Frankenstein by Mary Shelley.
If you’re looking for a more recently written gothic horror novel that features creatures of the night, check out Vampires of El Norte by Isabel Canas.
Frankenstein, Or, The Modern Prometheus
F1
This Brad Pitt-starring flick features actual Formula 1 race drivers. It follows Sonny Hayes (Pitt), who returns to the F1 world via fictional underdog team APXGP after a 30-year absence. Directed by Joseph Kosinski, it’s also the most dad-core movie on this list (rivaled perhaps by One Battle After Another). That’s why we’re plugging another dad-friendly movie, Top Gun: Maverick, which landed a Best Picture nomination in 2023.
Speaking of F1, we’re still kicking our feet over Slipstream by Madge Maril, who spoke at the Library last June. Maril’s sizzling sports romance features Lilah Graywood, a filmmaker who is thrust into the world of F1 racing, opposite Arthur Bianco, an enigmatic reserve driver with a career on the line.
Hamnet
Directed by Cholé Zhao, Hamnet is a tender and bewitching adaptation of the Maggie O’Farrell novel. Both imagine the life of playwright William Shakespeare and his wife Agnes Hathaway as they grapple with the death of their son. Paul Mescal and Jessie Buckley deliver stunning, devastating performances.
If you enjoyed exploring the reimagining of Shakespeare’s life and work, try another historical fiction novel: James by Percival Everett. James tells the story of Mark Twain’s classic novel Adventures of Huckleberry Finn through the perspective of Jim, a fugitive slave, instead of Huck.
If the lush, fantastic atmosphere of Hamnet struck you, read The Buried Giant by Kazuo Ishiguro. A modernized version of an Arthurian legend, it also features a couple traveling in search of their long-lost son.
Marty Supreme
Josh Safdie is known for his high stress movies. See: Uncut Gems and Good Time. His latest, the Timothée Chalamet-starring Marty Supreme, is no different. This time around, the story follows a competitive ping-pong player in pursuit of greatness.
In creating Marty Supreme, Safdie is on record as having drawn inspiration from Saturday Night Fever. Both films follow characters who are skilled in very niche areas. (See: ping pong and disco.) And don’t sleep on the power of a well-manicured soundtrack! These two protagonists are shaped by the music that backdrops their decision making.
For books, reach for Rabbit, Run by John Updike. Its protagonist, a 20-something basketball player named Harry, is similar to Marty. Both blend humor and drama and are set in the mid-20th century. (Marty Supreme unfolds in 1952 while Rabbit, Run begins in 1959.)
The Secret Agent
Set in 1977 Brazil, The Secret Agent centers on Marcelo, who returns to the city of Recife in search of refuge, but he soon realizes he will not find peace. Directed by Kleber Mendonça Filho and starring Wagner Moura, this political thriller drenches viewers in government corruption, societal commentary, and Brazilian sunshine.
Sink into another story full of espionage and intrigue with The Spy that Came in from the Cold by John le Carré.
One Battle After Another
If we’re being honest, seeing Leonardo DiCaprio as a crazed and paranoid Bob Ferguson in Paul Thomas Anderson’s One Battle After Another reminded us of Jeff Bridges as The Dude in The Big Lebowski.
That being said, our recommendation comes right from PTA himself. The director selected five films viewers should watch ahead of One Battle After Another: Running on Empty; Midnight Run; The French Connection; The Battle of Algiers; and The Searchers.
This thriller features an ex-revolutionary living off the grid with his daughter, Willia (Chase Infiniti). When figures from his past reemerge and Willia goes missing, Bob must battle his past for the sake of their future. Read its source material: Thomas Pychon’s Vineland. Already read it? Go for another post-modernist work, White Noise by Don DeLillo.
Sinners
Sinners made Oscars history by snagging 16 nominations, a record that would make twins Smoke and Stack proud. Ryan Coogler’s vampiric, bluesy film set in the Jim Crow South bends genre conventions to deliver a bold, unique Southern Gothic. (We will never hear “Rocky the Road to Dublin” the same!) If all those vampires doing the Irish jig in Sinners made you thirsty to see them slayed, give comic book classic Blade a chance. And if you want to see another pair of brother ensnared in the trap of ghoulish bloodsuckers, add Robert Rodriguez's From Dusk Till Dawn to your watchlist.
For another vampire epic, read The Buffalo Hunter Hunter by Stephen Graham Jones. The indigenous horror novel follows a Blackfeet man named Good Stab who becomes a revenge-seeking vampire after a series of massacres on his reservation.
Train Dreams
The Clint Bentley-directed Train Dreams is based on a 2011 novella of the same name by Denis Johnson. Sink into the film, however, and you might find yourself thinking of John Steinbeck’s writing. It follows 80 years in the life of Robert, a man who spent his younger years aimless — until he met Gladys, the woman who would become his wife. He begins working for the Spokane International Railway and later becomes a logger.
Told with oozing sentiment and care, Train Dreams is both tragic and hopeful. If you liked taking in the story of one man’s life, who some might deem unremarkable or mundane, read Stoner by John Williams, a quiet novel capable of sending readers into an existential tailspin.
Sentimental Value
Joachim Trier’s Sentimental Value navigates troubled parent-child relationships, particularly between a famed director and his estranged grown-up daughters. Sentimental Value has been reviewed as heart-wrenching and poignant in its exploration of complex family dynamics.
Still itching for complicated family drama? Add The Namesake by Jhumpa Lahiri to your to-be-read list. The novel focuses on a Bengali immigrant family living in America. The son, Gogol, must grapple with his parent’s cultural traditions and his American surroundings.
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