Nickel Boys

NICKEL BOYS (15)

D: RaMell Ross

Amazon / Orion / Plan B / Anonymous Content / Louverture (Dede Gardner, Jeremy Kleiner, David Levine & Joslyn Barnes)

US 🇺🇸 2024

140 mins

Drama

W: RaMell Ross & Joslyn Barnes [based on the novel by Colson Whitehead]

DP: Jomo Fray

Ed: Nicholas Monsour

Mus: Alex Somers & Scott Alario

PD: Nora Mendis

Cos: Brittany Loar

Ethan Herisse (Elwood), Ethan Cole Sharp (Young Elwood), Daveed Diggs (Adult Elwood), Brandon Wilson (Turner), Aunjanue Ellis-Taylor (Hattie)

Nickel Boys is easily the most-visually striking film of 2024, with stunningly beautiful cinematography and production design.

Director and co-screenwriter RaMell Ross adapts Colson Whitehead’s coming of age novel, following a young African-American boy, growing up in 1960s Florida, who is wrongly accused of a participating in a car theft and forced to attend an abusive reform school, where he strikes up a friendship with another boy.

The unique filmmaking style shows the events from the first person point-of-view of the main character and it’s a creative choice that makes this one of the best and most interesting films of 2024.

Nickel Boys was deservedly nominated for the Best Picture Oscar for 2024, though shockingly robbed of a Best Cinematography nomination. The latter being a category this film absolutely deserved to win.

8/10