READY TO STREAM this year’s biggest award winner from the comfort of your own living room?
Nomadland premieres on Disney+ today – and in cinemas where available – less than a week after it won Best Picture, Best Director for Chloe Zhao and Best Actress for Frances McDormand at the 2021 Academy Awards.
The Oscar accolades closed off an incredible awards season for Nomadland. The film won Best Director and Best Motion Picture (Drama) at the Golden Globes in March 2021, along with wins at the Critics’ Choice Awards, the BAFTAs and more.
Nomadland follows Fern (McDormand)’s story as she packs her van and takes to the road as a modern-day nomad following the death of her husband and the economic collapse of a company town in rural Nevada.
The film, which is based on a non-fiction book by Jessica Bruder, features real nomads Linda May, Swankie and Bob Wells as Fern’s mentors and friends in her journey through the vast landscape of the American West.
Speaking to The New York Times, McDormand said she found herself relating to the protagonist’s decision to leave everything behind.
“Chloé [Zhao] tapped into the truth of it,” she said, “which was at different points of my life, I’ve said to my husband, ‘I can’t take this anymore, I’m dropping out.’”
“I made a very conscious effort not to do press and publicity for 10 years in what other people would think would be a very dangerous moment in a female actor’s career, but it paid off for exactly the reasons I wanted it to,” she said. “That’s why [Nomadland] works. That’s why Chloé could bear to even think of doing this with me, because of what I’ve created for years not just as an actor, but in my personal life.”
Even when staying out of the limelight, McDormand’s talents haven’t gone unnoticed. The star is no stranger to the famous golden Oscar statuette, having taken home the Best Actress accolade twice before for her roles in Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri (2017) and Fargo (1997) – plus a further three Academy Award nominations along the way.
As for the film itself, along with Nomadland’s multiple award wins, there has been no shortage of raving reviews about it among critics (The Wall Street Journal called it “a modest masterpiece like no other”).
For any film buffs missing the cinema, Nomadland is a film not to be missed.
Nomadland is available to stream exclusively on Star on Disney+ now. Sign up to Disney+ and enjoy access to hundreds of movies, TV series and documentaries here.
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