James R | On 09, Feb 2020

It’s always tough to work out which subscription VOD service is better: Netflix UK, Amazon Prime or NOW? One way to judge it is to look at how many award winners are on each. So, while we prepare to watch the 2019 Oscars live , we rummage through the streaming line-up to see which former Academy Award victors are available to watch.

From Roma to Call Me by Your Name, here are the top Oscar winners available on Netflix UK:

Icarus – Best Documentary (2018)

This sports doping documentary is an eye-opening, endlessly surprising expose of corruption.

The White Helmets – Best Documentary Short (2017)

Netflix’s brief but powerful short is an important glimpse of heroes at work in the extremes of war.

Moonstruck – Best Actress (1988)

Cher and Nic Cage are together at last in this romantic comedy about Loretta Castorini, a bookkeeper from Brooklyn, New York, who finds herself in a difficult situation when she falls for the brother of the man she has agreed to marry.

Birdman – Best Picture (2015)

Stuffed with stars and surreal beats, Iñárritu’s satirical comedy is self-indulgent, amusing and enjoyably unpredictable.

Platoon – Best Picture (1987)

Oliver Stone’s war film deserves its reputation as one of the greats.

Silence of the Lambs – Best Director (1992)

Anthony Hopkins is on iconic form as Hannibal Lecter in Jonathan Demme’s chilling, gripping psychological thriller, starring Jodie Foster as FBI agent Clarice Starling trying to track down a serial killer.

The Revenant – Best Actor (2016)

Proof that Leonardo DiCaprio will go to any extreme for an award, Alejandro G. Iñárritu’s intense survival epic set on the fur-trading frontier of the 1820s sees DiCaprio’s trapper chased through the woods, battered by blizzards and mauled by a bear.

The Big Short – Best Adapted Screenplay (2016)

The Big Short is a patronising, awkward and uneven Oscar-winning comedy about the financial crisis. And, against all the odds, that’s a very, very good thing.

Dallas Buyers Club – Best Actor (2014)

Matthew McConaughey puts in an Oscar-winning performance in this moving true tale of one man’s fight against AIDs – and the pharmaceutical industry’s lack of treatment for it. Jared Leto impresses even more as his friend, Rayon.

Dunkirk (Best Sound Editing, 2018)

This raw, stripped-down war film is a harrowing elegy to British lives lost – and a powerful portrayal of despair in the face of hope.

Phantom Thread (Best Costume Design, 2018)

Paul Thomas Anderson’s romantic antidote to tortured male artists is a swooning, darkly comic masterpiece.

Call Me by Your Name (Best Adapted Screenplay, 2018)

This swooning ode to first love is impossibly ravishing cinema.

Blade Runner 2049 (Best Cinematography, 2018)

Denis Villeneuve’s remarkable sci-fi sequel is a profound evolution of the timeless original.

8 Mile (Best Original Song, 2003)

“His palms are sweaty, knees weak, arms are heavy, There’s vomit on his sweater already, mom’s spaghetti…”

Roma

“We’re on our own!” cries Sofia (Marina de Tavira) halfway through Roma, Alfonso Cuaron’s heart-wrenching latest. It’s an outburst, part painful realisation, part rallying cry, that doesn’t need saying to her housemaid, Cleo (Yalitza Aparicio), who has already been left to face the dramas of day-to-day life by herself. Together, they provide a moving, quietly remarkable lens through which to glimpse 1970s Mexico – a window with a cracked pane and no money to fix it. One of the best films of 2018, Alfonso Cuaron’s personal love letter to the woman who raised him is an epic with a heart on its sleeve.

Period. End of Sentence.

Directed by Rayka Zehtabchi, the film follows a group of women and girls in rural India who work together to operate a machine installed in their village to make sanitary pads and combat the crushing stigma of menstruation – an inspiring, important watch.

Spotlight

This Oscar-winning drama about the Boston Globe’s investigation into childhood abuse at the hands of Catholic priests in the early 2000s is understated, gripping, important viewing.

Boyhood

Shot over 12 years with the same group of actors, Richard Linklater’s chronicle of a boy growing up is an epic of tiny proportions – and astonishing feat of filmmaking.

12 Years a Slave

Artist-turned-director Steve McQueen has made a name for himself for tackling difficult subjects head-on – and for doing it beautifully. 12 Years a Slave continues the first part of that tradition, but skips the second, as the director presents Solomon Northup’s horrible true story of being captured and forced into slavery with minimum fuss – and maximum power. Chiwetel Ejiofor leads an astonishing cast in a film that feels as important as it is upsetting.

Lost in Translation (Best Original Screenplay, 2004)

Sofia Coppola’s bittersweet masterpiece is a touching story of two strangers connecting.

The Theory of Everything

Eddie Redmayne transforms completely for this turn as Stephen Hawking in James Marsh’s moving biopic.

The Social Network

A gripping, insightful drama of petty politics and understated genius.

Les Miserables

Do you hear the people sing? You soon will do after Tom Hooper’s fabulously heart-breaking adaptation of the stage musical.

La La Land

Damien Chazelle’s bittersweet Hollywood romance, starring Ryan Gosling and Emma Stone, is a toe-tapping delight.

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