Hamnet

One of the year’s most celebrated films, Chloé Zhao’s adaptation of Maggie O’Farrell’s novel is nominated in eight categories: Best Picture, Director, Actress, Adapted Screenplay, Casting, Costume Design, Production Design, and Original Score. It’s a speculative tearjerker about the relationship between William Shakespeare’s son Hamnet, who died in 1596 at a tragically young age, and the Bard’s best known work, Hamlet, which was written a few short years later. 

Most historians agree that the connection between the two isn’t as strong as the novel and movie would have you believe, but Zhao, who already won Best Director for Nomadland, wrings every possible bit of emotion out of an inherently moving premise. Jessie Buckley is considered the front-runner for Best Actress, but Zhao will have to sneak past One Battle After Another helmer Paul Thomas Anderson to take home her second directing trophy.

Kokuho

A massive success in Japan, where its $128 million in box-office receipts have made it the country’s highest-grossing live-action movie of all time, Kokuho is up for Best Makeup and Hairstyling. (It also made the shortlist for Best International Feature Film but failed to land a nomination.) Lee Sang-il’s period piece about a pair of post-World War II kabuki actors is operatic in scope and feeling. It’s a testament to both the power of theater and the pain of a back-and-forth relationship that ends up defining two lives.

Marty Supreme

Josh Safdie’s Ping-Pong period piece — try saying that five times fast — both is and isn’t a typical awards contender. It’s inspired by a mid-20th-century athlete who revolutionized his sport, but it’s also fraught with the same nervous energy as the movies Safdie made a name for himself with, along with his brother Benny: Uncut Gems, Good Time, and Heaven Knows What, to name a few. 

Marty Supreme takes place in the 1950s and stars likely Best Actor winner Timothée Chalamet in the title role, a pugnacious table-tennis star whose skills bring him to the world championship in Tokyo — but not before a number of strangely enjoyable narrative detours. It’s nominated in nine categories: Best Picture, Director, Actor, Original Screenplay, Casting, Cinematography, Production Design, Editing, and Costume Design.

The Secret Agent

It would be quite the understatement to describe 1970s Brazil as “a time of great mischief,” which is exactly why Kleber Mendonça Filho does it. The Brazilian director has always had a certain ne’er-do-well playfulness to his filmmaking, and so it is in his exploration of what it means to be an enemy of the state simply by not conceding to its increasingly oppressive demands. 

The Secret Agent is up for four awards: Best Picture, Actor, Casting, and International Feature. Wagner Moura, who’s superlative in the title role, is the first Brazilian and South American leading man to be nominated for the top acting prize — making The Secret Agent historic even if it leaves the ceremony empty-handed.

Train Dreams

Covering eight decades in the life of a railroad worker in and around Bonners Ferry, Idaho, from the end of the 19th century until America’s first crewed space flight, Clint Bentley’s elegiac drama is another literary adaptation. He has more than done justice to Denis Johnson’s novella, with Train Dreams picking up four Oscar nods: Best Picture, Adapted Screenplay, Cinematography, and Original Song for Nick Cave and Bryce Dessner’s aptly titled “Train Dreams.” Anchored by a never-better Joel Edgerton, it’s probably the quietest, most contemplative of this year’s Best Picture nominees, but it’s also one of the best.

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Hygiene

Despite what just about every depiction of the period would have you believe, from Monty Python and the Holy Grail to Kingdom of Heaven, medieval people weren’t always dirty. The misconception is especially prevalent in regard to the peasantry, who are almost always portrayed in rags and a thick layer of grime as they eke out a meager existence under the yoke of a cruel lord. In reality, many people bathed and brushed their teeth on a regular basis, with most settlements built either near fresh water or in proximity to a functioning well. They even had soap, which has been available in Europe since the ninth century CE. 

Pitched Battles

When imagining medieval warfare, a very specific image comes to mind: two massive armies meeting on an open field and charging directly at each other until one side emerges victorious (known as a pitched battle and seen in such films as Braveheart and Henry V). Despite its frequent depiction in film and television, this was actually quite rare, and for a very good reason. Such conflicts were incredibly risky affairs whose outcomes were nearly impossible to control. Raids, sieges, and skirmishes were far more common, with one army targeting the other’s lands and terrorizing its people on a smaller scale rather than putting all their eggs in one basket. 

The Dark Ages

According to nearly every fictionalization of the medieval period, not a lot was going on in the worlds of art, literature, and science. This misconception earned the era its long-standing nickname: the “Dark Ages.” The Hollywood-fueled myth would have us believe that medieval people were ignorant, few scientific or cultural developments were made during these decades, and it was generally a bad time to be anything other than a king or noble. The truth is much more nuanced than movies such as Tristan & Isolde and Black Death would have you believe. The Christian church didn’t completely stifle science and art in medieval Europe; in fact, much of the era’s most beautiful art was actually sponsored by the church. Many of these myths trace back to Petrarch, a 14th-century poet, whose complaints about the Italian literature of the time being subpar were misinterpreted as relating to the entire era.

Chastity Belts

Like prima nocta, chastity belts are a myth — though Hollywood is not entirely to blame for this one. The concept predates the movies by several centuries, as these restrictive items have been depicted in art since at least the 1500s. Even then, they were mostly satirical — meaning that in the 16th century people found the idea as laughable as we do today, though it seems some took the jokes found in supposed illustrations of the device by military engineer Conrad Kyeser seriously and believed they were based on actual practices. None of this makes Robin Hood: Men in Tights any less funny, of course.

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