Seen on Screen: American Dreams, Reimagined Vampires, Bob Dylan and “Our Nic”

Australians are still basking in the holiday sun, but in the northern hemisphere the Oscar race is heating up, with nominations arriving on January 17. And with the Golden Globes just gone, frontrunners are emerging. This month we’re finally getting a chance to see some of the major contenders, as Emilia Pérez and The Brutalist make their way to local cinemas. Meanwhile, on the small screen, a pair of very different thrillers will keep us entranced during the dog days of summer. Read on for our top picks of January’s screen highlights.

Our Nic being debased by an intern? Yep, that’s essentially the seed of Babygirl, a psychological erotic thriller about a high-level exec named Romy (Nicole Kidman) who’s also a wife and mother. She has it all, until an arrogant young man (Harris Dickinson) recognises that what she really craves is being told what to do. So they embark on an intensifying game of cat-and-mouse that sees Romy give up more and more of herself for the unprecedented high of having someone else control her. Kidman won Best Actress at the Venice Film Festival for her vulnerable performance. If you’ve seen Dutch director Halina Reijn’s previous film, Bodies Bodies Bodies, then you’ll know to expect something even more subversive than what we glimpse in the trailer. And once the online discourse around this movie fully kicks in, you won’t want to miss out on it. In cinemas January 30.

It’s been almost three years since the finale of the mind-bending corporate thriller’s first series, which seems fitting for a show about compartmentalising memories in the extreme. The core cast members – Adam Scott, Britt Lower, Tramell Tillman, Zach Cherry, John Turturro, Christopher Walken and Patricia Arquette – return for season two, which sees Scott’s lead character, Mark Scout, trying to glean details from his personal life before he agreed to “sever” all memory of his experiences outside of work. This, of course, is after he and his co-workers effectively became whistleblowers from within Lumen Industries at the conclusion of the first series. Think equal parts 1970s-style paranoia and wonky workplace satire, complete with an unpredictable streak that means just about anything could happen. Streaming on Apple TV+ from January 17.

Timothée Chalamet playing Bob Dylan? The idea might have sounded laughable a few years ago, but the ubiquitous actor has scored decent notices for his turn as the iconic songwriter. And director James Mangold knows his way around a music biopic, having reframed Johnny Cash in 2005’s Walk the Line. Cash shows up as a character in A Complete Unknown – this time played by Body Holbrook – as do folk legends Joan Baez (Monica Barbaro), Pete Seeger (Edward Norton) and Woody Guthrie (Scoot McNairy). Rather than try to capture the wide arc of Dylan’s many eras and phases, the movie functions as an origin story that sees him arrive in New York’s Greenwich Village with just a guitar. Once he becomes the toast of the local – and then national – folk scene, he bristles at the constraints and plots a new course toward electric rock’n’roll that will alienate many of his fans. And yes, Chalamet sings these classic songs himself. In cinemas January 23.

It may already be on Netflix in some countries, but Emilia Pérez arrives in local cinemas as part of a gradual rollout catered to the awards circuit. And it’s absolutely working: the film has already earned four Golden Globes and remains a strong Oscar contender across many categories. That’s impressive for a hybrid crime-comedy-musical by a French director (veteran filmmaker Jacques Audiard) that’s set in Mexico and based on the director’s own opera libretto. The twisty story centres on the title character, a cartel leader played by Spanish trans actress Karla Sofía Gascón, who employs a lawyer (Zoe Saldaña) to assist her in faking her death. Selena Gomez co-stars in a wild-looking performance, and there’s a lot more going on here too. This movie has proven very divisive so far, but that hasn’t hindered its awards momentum. If Netflix goes to the trouble of putting a movie in cinemas, you know it must be important. In cinemas January 15.

In the mood for a proper American epic? Actor and filmmaker Brady Corbet’s latest film is just that, evoking such classics as The Godfather, The Deerhunter and, more recently, There Will Be Blood. It runs for 215 minutes and there’s a built-in intermission. So you can understand why film bros online are positively gushing over this robust throwback to big-statement filmmaking. Adrien Brody stars as a Hungarian immigrant and brutalist architect who survives the Holocaust before trying to make a new start in America. He eventually gets his big break via an upper-crust industrialist played with great flair by Guy Pearce, before everything threatens to fall apart. Cue the Dutch angles, booming score and other signifiers that we’re witnessing a modern masterpiece. Then consider the fact that it was shot in Vistavision, a high-resolution, widescreen format used throughout the 1950s but not much since. You probably know already if this sort of thing is for you, but its three wins at the Globes means its audience might be larger than it initially seemed. In cinemas January 23.

This seems like a match made in heaven – or maybe hell? The deeply committed horror auteur behind The Witch, The Lighthouse and The Northman sinks his teeth into the most promising of source material: the century-old German silent film Nosferatu, itself a bleak riff on the original Dracula novel. Robert Eggers has assembled a formidable cast: Bill Skarsgård (Pennywise from the It movies) plays Count Orlok, who transforms into the titular bloodsucker. His unwavering sights are set on young Ellen Hutter (Lily-Rose Depp), gradually wresting her away from both the land of the living and her new husband (Nicholas Hoult) in Germany circa 1838. Willem Dafoe also features, which is a neat twist considering that he played a version of the story’s villain in the 2000 film Shadow of the Vampire. Eggers’s fanbase will need no convincing to see this, but the rest of us should expect deep shadows, spot-on period details and creeping dread giving way to outright terror. In cinemas now.

The second series of this local Stan Original sees Travis Fimmel (Vikings) return as haunted cold-case detective James Cormack. This time his focus is divided between a young woman missing since 2003 and his own brother, whose whereabouts has been unknown since childhood. New additions to the Australian cast include Jana McKinnon (Bad Behaviour), Megan Smart (Class of ’07) and Dan Spielman (The Newsreader). Fimmel himself directs the finale of the six-part mystery. While the first series was set in North Queensland, the second showcases the Sunshine Coast and especially the Glass House Mountains. It might not be a runaway hit, but Black Snow garnered solid reviews both at home and abroad in its first outing. Fimmel definitely nails the troubled past lurking behind his character’s eyes (and signature spectacles) as the tandem narratives unfold two decades apart. Streaming on Stan now.