How to Watch the Oscar Nominated 'American Fiction'

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At the 2024 Academy Awards next weekend, American Fiction is up for Oscars in five categories—including the night's top prize, Best Picture.

The film follows literature professor Thelonious "Monk" Ellison (Jeffrey Wright), who is frustrated with stereotypical stories about Black Americans being the only books that the publishing industry is interested in. To prove his point, he decides to write an outrageous, stereotypical book of his own—one that becomes a bestseller and puts him at the heart of the madness and hypocrisy.

"I think this film and this character is more personal for me than any other role that I’ve done, maybe aside from Basquiat," Wright says of playing Monk. "This role is probably more similar to who I am than any other role that I have ever played. It didn’t require a lot of alterations. It really just required more emerging and a kind of synthesis of the internal."

The movie was adapted from the novel Erasure by Percival Everett. "Percival has really rabid fans, and reasonably so," Jefferson said. "That, to me, was the most frightening screening I did of the movie.... Percival came to my house and watched a cut with his wife." He added that it went well, though, "I was just drenched in sweat by the time it was over. The nicest thing he said was, 'The thing that I like about it is that it feels like you made it your own, it feels like a different piece of art.' That was the highest praise you could get."

Currently, American Fiction is available to rent and purchase on video on demand platforms.

Watch on Apple TV

Watch on Prime Video

Watch on Vudu

In addition, American Fiction was distributed by Amazon MGM Studios, which means when it eventually hits streaming, it'll be on Prime Video.

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