How to Watch "Nomandland," the Film That Could Make Academy Awards History
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Chloé Zhao's Nomadland is a sweeping tale of Americans who live life on the road. Starring Frances McDormand as the lead and a host of actual nomads in the supporting roles, the film, which is streaming on Hulu, is an Academy Awards favorite—nominated for Best Picture and five other categories. One of the best reviewed movies of 2020, it's available for digital purchase on services like Amazon Prime, and streaming on Hulu.
McDormand's character, Fern, begins the movie living in Empire, Nevada. But when the local gypsum plant shuts down and her husband passes away, she decides to begin living in a van and taking work in places like Amazon warehouses and national parks. She meets other nomadic folks, and the film follows their journeys with a tender, sympathetic eye.
Like so many recent movies, the COVID-19 pandemic disrupted the release plan for Nomadland, but the good news is that there are several ways for interested viewers to check out this acclaimed picture.
You can stream Nomadland now on Hulu or you can purchase it.
Those who are comfortable going back to movie theaters can find screenings of Nomadland via sites like Fandango. Others, who prefer watching the movie at home, will be heartened to know it is already streaming on Hulu. The service offers several different plans, beginning at $5.99 per month.
The film is also available for digital purchase at $14.99 on Amazon Prime, Google Play, and Vudu, and will be released on Blu-Ray on April 27.
It received six Oscar nods, including a major one in the Best Director category.
Nomadland is tied for the second-most Academy Award nominations this year, alongside movies like Sound of Metal, Minari, and The Trial of the Chicago 7. The film was recognized in Best Picture (Mollye Asher, Dan Janvey, Frances McDormand, Peter Spears and Chloé Zhao), Best Director (Zhao), Best Actress (McDormand), Best Adapted Screenplay (Zhao), Best Cinematography (Joshua James Richards), and Best Film Editing, the latter of which Zhao also did herself.
Zhao has been breaking boundaries all awards season. She is the first Asian woman to win the Best Director Golden Globe (and just the second woman in the show's history to do so). On April 11, she became the first woman of color to win the Directors Guild Association's top award.
Many in the Academy Awards prediction business see wins for Zhao and Nomadland as likely, meaning Zhao could find herself on stage as part of another iconic moment. She's already the first Chinese woman to be nominated for Best Director, as well as the first woman of color in general. Kathryn Bigelow is the only woman to ever win the award, for The Hurt Locker.
Nomadland is based on true stories, as covered in a nonfiction book by Jessica Bruder.
The film was inspired by the true stories depicted in Nomadland: Surviving America in the Twenty-First Century by journalist Jessica Bruder. In order to write the book, Bruder spent three years "living in a camper van, documenting itinerant Americans who gave up traditional housing and hit the road full time." Her immersive reporting spanned 15,000 miles of travel.
In an interview with Deadline, Zhao said that she was captivated by the way that Bruder drew readers into this world that few understood.
"It was a time in America where a way of life was fast disappearing, and she had captured that with a chapter on Empire, Nevada, a chapter on quartzite, a chapter on the Amazon warehouse," Zhao said. "She really managed to capture a time. So, the world building of her book was attractive to me. Thinking about these unique characters within that visual world, I realized I had never really explored the world through an older person’s perspective."
Zhao, whose previous films Songs My Brother Taught Me and The Rider also told stories of underreported American communities, wound up casting some of the people Bruder wrote about in the movie.
"When I read Jessica's book, there's a core thing that I felt on the pages," Zhao told Entertainment Weekly in April. "The sense of loss, a collective sense of loss. The loss of a lifestyle, the loss of security, the loss of loved ones, the loss of sense of self."
Whether or not Nomadland takes home any of the major Academy Awards, it's already made great strides in shattering stigmas and bringing attention to the struggles of oft-forgotten people.
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