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Black Panther, BlackKklansman, First Reformed, Isle of Dogs, Three Identical Strangers, You Were Never Really Here, Leave No Trace, and Support the Girls are among the films garnering year-end awards recognition that have already been released on home video, but what of the other major awards contenders released theatrically in 2018? Which other acclaimed films from the year just passed will we see released on home video in the new year, and when?

Don’t expect to see Alfonso Cuaron’s Roma any time soon, if at all. Cuaron’s film, which could conceivably be nominated for and win Oscars for both Best Foreign Language Film and Best Picture, is controlled by Netflix. Netflix only grudgingly opens their prestige films in select markets for awards consideration. Once they have completed their Oscar qualification runs in the Los Angeles area, they are available only on Netflix streaming services. Although Netflix has released select TV series on Blu-ray and standard DVD, they have yet to release any of their films on the home video market.

Roma‘s chief competition for Best Foreign Language Film, Cold War, has just been released in the U.S. and will not be available on home video for a while, but will be available in the U.K., where it opened last August, on January 7th.

The first major awards contender to be released on home video in the U.S. in 2019 will be The Old Man & the Gun on January 15th. By then we will know if Robert Redford has won or lost his 7th Golden Globe on his 11th nomination. His first four wins were for Most Promising Newcomer for 1965’s Inside Daisy Clover and as World Film Favorite of 1974, 1976, and 1977, awards that no longer exist. His fifth was for Best Director for 1980’s Ordinary People, for which he also won an Oscar. His sixth was for the honorary Cecil B. DeMille award at the 1993 Globes. The 82-year-old screen legend says his portrayal of the elderly bank robber will be his last acting role.

First Man on January 22nd and Boy Erased and The Wife on January 29th are the only other major awards contenders scheduled for release for the remainder of the month.

Based on its strong showings at film festivals in August and September, First Man was widely anticipated to be an Oscar frontrunner, but its disappointing box-office upon its October release torpedoed its chances. Films made on small budgets don’t necessarily have to be box-office hits to click with awards givers, but films with multi-million-dollar budgets that underperform tend to sour their chances. Such has been the case with Damien Chazelle’s biographical film about Neil Armstrong, the first man on the moon. Awards bodies have mostly stayed away, with even the Golden Globes only nominating it for Best Supporting Actress Claire Foy and Best Original Score. Its best showing to date has been with the Broadcast Critics which nominated it for ten awards including Best Film, Director, Actor (Ryan Gosling), and, of course, Claire Foy as Mrs. Armstrong.

Joel Edgerton’s gay conversion therapy exposรฉ, Boy Erased, hasn’t done as well with the early awards groups as had been anticipated, but the Golden Globes have nominated Lucas Hedges for his starring role, while other organizations have singled out both Hedges and co-star Nicole Kidman, who plays his mother. The San Diego Film Critics Society gave their Best Supporting Actress award to Kidman.

Bjorn Runge’s The Wife has piled up five wins and an additional sixteen nominations so far, all them for Glenn Close’s portrayal of the title character. Although she has been nominated six times for an Oscar from 1982’s The World According to Garp to 2011’s Albert Nobbs, she has never won. The film, in which plays the wife of a writer on his way to receive a Nobel Prize for Literature, was delayed a year in hopes of her winning an Oscar in what was perceived at the time as being likely a less competitive year. She is currently nominated for a Golden Globe, A Broadcast Critics Award, and a SAG award among others.

Thus far, only Widows and A Star Is Born among major awards contenders have been announced for release in February.

Steve McQueen’s Widows, like First Man, suffers from poor box office in the wake of great expectations. Completely ignored by the Golden Globes and SAG, the Broadcast Film Critics have only nominated it for Best Action Movie, Acting Ensemble, and Editing. It will be an uphill battle for the Viola Davis starrer to be a player at the Oscars at this point, but one never knows.

On the other hand, it would be a shock for Bradley Cooper’s remake of A Star Is Born not to earn a slew of Oscar nominations including Best Picture, Actor (Cooper), Actress (Lady Gaga), Supporting Actor (Sam Elliott), Screenplay (Cooper and collaborators), and Director (Cooper again).

The fourth film of that title, Gaga and Cooper follow in the footsteps of Janet Gaynor and Fredric March in William A. Wellman’s 1937 original, Judy Garland and James Mason in George Cukor’s 1954 classic remake, and Barbra Streisand and Kris Kristofferson in Frank Pierson’s much maligned 1976 version. One can also trace its roots back to Cukor’s 1932 film What Price Hollywood? with Constance Bennett and Lowell Sherman. There is no reason to expect that Gaga and Cooper won’t following Gaynor and March’s and Garland and Mason’s shoes in receiving Oscar nominations for their performances and no reason to expect that Cooper won’t be the first since Wellman to receive writing and directing nominations. Wellman won for writing. Gaga, like Streisand before her, could also be nominated and win for Best Song.

Although they do not have a scheduled release date, The Favourite, Green Book, Bohemian Rhapsody, and Mary Queen of Scots are available for pre-order at Amazon in both Blu-ray and standard DVD formats.

Other contenders such as Mary Poppins Returns, If Beale Street Could Talk, Ben Is Back, Beautiful Boy, On the Basis of Sex, and The Ballad of Buster Scruggs are not as yet available for pre-order.

This week’s new releases include the Blu-ray debuts of Washington Square and Tell Them Willie Boy Is Here.

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