"Nickel Boys" doesn't look like any film you've seen this year — literally.
Directed by RaMell Ross and adapted from Colson Whitehead's 2019 Pulitzer Prize-winning novel of the same name, the historical drama was lushly shot from a first-person point of view.
This means you're immediately thrown into the action of 1962 Jim Crow-era Tallahassee, Florida, from the direct perspective of two young Black-American boys — Elwood (Ethan Heisse) and Turner (Brandon Wilson).
They navigate life at an abusive reform school called the Nickel Academy. Horrifically, the academy is based on a real-life Florida institution, the Dozier School for Boys, which is thankfully now closed.
“The two Black teens strike up an alliance: Turner dispensing fundamental tips for survival, Elwood, clinging to his optimistic worldview," reads the film's official synopsis. "Backdropped by the burgeoning Civil Rights Movement, Elwood and Turner’s existence appears worlds away from Rev. Martin Luther King's burnished oratory. Despite Nickel's brutality, Elwood strives to hold onto his humanity, awakening a new vision for Turner.”
Along with that POV-style shooting, Ross ambitiously interweaves archival footage and classic film clips — the speeches of Martin Luther King, Jr., the acting performances of Sidney Poitier and so on — for a collage-like effect, contextualizing and fleshing out the harsh yet hopeful world that these young Southerners inhabit.
Altogether, that avant-garde approach makes for an incredibly stirring watch, one that has clearly had a lasting effect on viewers and critics alike. "Nickel Boys" currently boasts a 90% approval rating on Rotten Tomatoes from 183 reviews.
Here's the website's consensus reading: "Director RaMell Ross' stylistically radical approach to adapting Colson Whitehead's searing novel will be jarring for some, but Nickel Boys' sense of immersion achieves the jaw-dropping effect of walking in another's shoes."
For Variety, "Moonlight" filmmaker Barry Jenkins named "Nickel Boys" one of his favorite films of 2024, writing: "This is medium-defining work — aesthetically, spiritually — a rich and overwhelming cinema where the camera is always curious and what it finds is always arresting.
In a time where there are more ways to make a film than ever (and yet less variation in the look, the feel, the shape of those films than in any other point in the medium’s history) RaMell has given us a new way of seeing. It is a thing to make one both humbled… and filled with gratitude."
And with all that acclaim comes some much-deserved awards recognition: along with receiving a 2025 Golden Globe nomination for Best Motion Picture – Drama, the film is currently up for Best Picture — alongside high-profile titles like "Wicked," "The Brutalist" and "Emilia Pérez" — as well as Best Adapted Screenplay (for screenwriters RaMell Ross and Joslyn Barnes) at the 97th Academy Awards, which will take place on Sunday, Mar. 2.
While you wait to see if "Nickel Boys" takes home gold next month, you can stream the Oscar-nominated drama at home beginning on Friday, Feb. 28 on MGM Plus. Currently, an MGM Plus subscription costs $6.99 per month or $58.99 per year, but the streaming service does offer a free trial for new subscribers.
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