Netflix’s best new film is a surefire Oscar contender

Netflix has just released what has been one of the year’s most talked about films in film circles, part Oscar contender, part fever dream. It would be Emilia Perezwhich has just hit the streaming service and people are in for an experience to say the least.

Here’s the description of the movie, which is actually a Netflix-produced movie:

“From renegade auteur Jacques Audiard comes Emilia Pérez, a daring fever dream that defies genres and expectations. Through liberating song and dance and bold imagery, this odyssey follows the journey of four remarkable women in Mexico, each pursuing their own happiness. Fearsome cartel leader Emilia (Karla Sofía Gascón) recruits Rita (Zoe Saldaña), an unappreciated lawyer stuck in a dead-end job, to help fake her death so Emilia can finally live authentically as her true self.

The “renegade auteur” in question, Jacques Audiard, has directed a host of films such as Paris 13th District, Rust and Bone and A Prophet, but this may be his most high-profile outing yet, with big stars like Zoe Saldana and Selena Gomez in tow. It also features a talented transgender lead in the form of Karla Sofía Gascón.

You can get past the revelation that this crime-focused film is actually a musical, and as a Spanish-language film, some say it’s an Oscar front-runner in that category. If star Karla Sofía Gascón received a separate nomination, she would make history for the trans community.

Emilia Perez has been described as everything from “brilliant” to “dangerously offensive”, but on the whole it seems to be well liked. It currently holds an 82% on Rotten Tomatoes with a whopping 157 reviews in it, and an audience score of 79% despite how strange the film may seem to many. Although now that it’s hit Netflix, it’s a very large mainstream audience and we’ll see what the larger market makes of it. So far, so good, it seems.

The just added movie hasn’t appeared on Netflix’s top 10 movies list and we’ll see how high it gets due to its subject matter and genre. Still, if you’re the type who wants to see everything nominated for the Oscars, this is definitely one you won’t want to skip, it seems. I’m not sure I’ve heard more debate about an out there movie this year since The Substance, and it looks worth experiencing for yourself, that’s for sure. We’ll see if it lands nominations when they go live at the Oscars on March 2, 2025.

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