Hacksaw Ridge

Did you miss any of the highlights of the 2016 award season when they were still in theaters? That’s where our series, On Demand With ScreenCrush, comes in. Every two weeks, ScreenCrush Editor-in-Chief Matt Singer joins you to recommend three handpicked new titles you can watch at home right now from Movies on Demand. These are big new releases you won’t find streaming on Netflix, and the choices run the gamut from indie favorites, to major blockbusters, to insightful documentaries, and everything in between — all available with your remote.

After months of hype and controversy, the big night is finally upon us. The red carpet has been rolled out, the votes have been cast, and host Jimmy Kimmel has rehearsed all his best Matt Damon jokes. At last, the 89th Academy Awards have arrived.

For months we’ve speculated who and what will take home golden statues come Oscar night. Will La La Land continue its awards season domination? Does Moonlight have a shot at winning Best Picture? Is 2017 such a garbage fire that Mel Gibson may actually win a Best Director Academy Award for Hacksaw Ridge? And is Lion really that good, or is it just the Pumpkin Spice Latte of the Oscars? (It is.)

La La Land, duh. Manchester By the Sea, right. Moonlight, you better. Deadpool – excuse me? It’s true, Ryan Reynolds’ superhero movie has just been named one of the 10 best films of 2016 by the Producers Guild of America (via Variety). Many of us thought its Golden Globes nominations were just a result of the HFPA’s always wacky taste, but it seems the Deadpool virus has spread across the nation to multiple voting bodies, from the Writer’s Guild of America to the Producers.

Another year, another wacky and uncertain awards season. Monday morning brought the 2017 Golden Globe nominations, including a handful of odd choices and snubs. The Hollywood Foreign Press Association was more wooed by Andrew Garfield’s performance in Hacksaw Ridge than Silence, giving the Mel Gibson war drama three nods and Martin Scorsese’s religious period piece zero. Tom Ford’s Nocturnal Animals got three nods (not including one for Michael Shannon’s critically praised performance), and Deadpool earned for Best Picture Comedy/Musical and Best Actor nominations. It will be a weird awards season indeed.

As December rolls on, so too does the cavalcade of year-end lists. The latest authority to weigh in is AFI, by which I mean the American Film Institute and not the Californian alternative-rock group also known as A Fire Inside. While we may never know which films the quartet behind “Miss Murder” favored this year, the other AFI has released their list of 2016’s ten best releases, and it’s a little more varied than some of the heretofore published lists, bringing in some films with less awards buzz along with your usual suspects of Moonlight, Manchester by the Sea, and La La Land.

Like any new Marvel Studios movie, Doctor Strange was destined to take the number one spot at the box office  —  it was really just a question of how much it would make. Ultimately, Benedict Cumberbatch’s Sorcerer Supreme surpassed expectations, topping the charts with an exceptional $84 million. But this was a strong weekend in general, with Trolls and Hacksaw Ridge performing well in second and third place.

Here comes another WWII film, but this one has a pretty distinct story. The latest directorial effort from Mel Gibson, ‘Hacksaw Ridge,’ follows the true story of a solider who refused to use a weapon on the battlefield.

It's been several years since Mel Gibson has directed a film, and although he recently appeared in 'The Expendables 3,' he's been mostly under the radar for a while now. But that might change as Gibson is in talks to take on his first directing project in eight years: the WWII drama 'Hacksaw Ridge,' which could potentially star Andrew Garfield, who currently has some time on his hands as the fate of 'The Amazing Spider-Man' franchise is somewhat uncertain.