The Oscars' 9 best picture nominees and how we rated them

The Oscar’s 9 best picture nominees Prep for your Oscars party this weekend with a recap of this year’s nine best picture nominees, each film reviewed by The Chronicle’s Datebook team. On the big day, also keep up-to-date with us at www.sfchronicle.com/entertainment. The 89th annual Academy Awards, hosted by Jimmy Kimmel, is broadcast live on ABC at 5:30 p.m. Sunday, Feb. 26. Arrival Director Denis Villeneuve casts aside almost every “Independence Day,” “E.T.” and “Contact” cliché, and makes a science fiction epic that breaks free of genre shoeboxing. Amy Adams is a linguistics professor who, in collaboration with a physicist and mathematician played by Modesto-bred Jeremy Renner, races against the clock to make conversation with aliens. Better to leave the rest to surprise. The film is tightly calibrated, but leaves things open to interpretation, for discussion on the ride home from the theater and beyond. PG-13. 116 minutes. To read the full review, click here. Brilliantly written (by playwright August Wilson and directed by Denzel Washington), this is one for the ages, alongside “Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf?” and “A Streetcar Named Desire” as one of the handful of great movies made from great plays. The ensemble work is flawless, highlighted by Washington and Viola Davis as a working class couple in the Pittsburgh of the 1950s. PG-13. 138 minutes. To read the full review, click here. Andrew Garfield is terrific in the lead role. R. 131 minutes To read the full review, click here. Hell or High Water An outstanding modern Western, about two bank-robbing brothers (Chris Pine, Ben Foster) pursued by a pair of Rangers (Jeff Bridges, Gil Birmingham) in dusty and economically depressed West Texas. The film touches on many weighty themes — the law, institutional responsibility, loyalty to family, individualism — but has a surprising amount of humor. R. 103 minutes To read the full review, click here. A by-the-books historical piece, about black women mathematicians working in NASA’s early days, the film is enlivened by the three principal actresses, Taraji P. Henson, Janelle Monae and Octavia Spencer, and by Kevin Costner, who is the perfect vision of the early 1960s man. PG. 127 minutes. To read the full review, click here. The result is one of the best films of the year, with Emma Stone and Ryan Gosling as a pair of strivers who meet in Los Angeles and try to help each other. PG-13. 128 minutes. To read the full review, click here. Knowing the ending in advance is usually considered detrimental to effective filmmaking, but a smart director and screenwriter can use foreknowledge to their advantage, if they work it right. For much of the way, director Garth Davis and screenwriter Luke Davies work it right in “Lion,” the fact-based story of a young man (Dev Patel) who goes in search of his lost childhood. PG-13 118 minutes. To read the full review, click here. Manchester by the Sea Casey Affleck is magnificent in this portrait of a working class guy in Massachusetts, stumbling through life in the wake of personal tragedy. R. 137 minutes. To read the full review, click here. Stars Bay Area’s own Mahershala Ali. R. 110 minutes. To read the full review, click here.