It’s award season and no doubt you’ve seen a show or two celebrating the significant movies produced and available this past year. While films such as Oppenheimer and Barbie have garnered much attention and acclaim, the upcoming Oscars also look to shine a light on smaller, more intimate films, many of which may resonate with what we experience in our own lives.

For example, among the documentary short films nominated this year, one shines a lovely light on a pair of grandmothers and their lives during the COVID-19 epidemic. Entitled Nai Nai & Wài Pó (watch the trailer here), the film tells the story of filmmaker Sean Wang’s two grandmothers, who live together, sleep in the same bed, and support and amuse each other in a playful, joyful manner. Wang decided to capture what their lives are like when he moved in with them during the pandemic, and now his 17-minute documentary is up for an Oscar. As Wang’s Wài Pó stated, “I hope all the older generation people in the world see this movie and just see even in our twilight years, our later years of life, that we can still find joy.” Read more about this lovely film and its star grandmothers here.

In the Live Action Short Film Category, in addition to a new film by Wes Anderson, there is the new film Knight of Fortune, a comedy set in a morgue that focuses on the chance meeting of two grieving older men. You can watch the film, via The New Yorker Screening Room, by clicking here and you can read about the film here. Another short film available through The New Yorker that you will find moving (though not Oscar-nominated), is the film Nina & Irena, in which the documentary filmmaker Daniel Lambroso finds out the story of his grandmother’s sister lost during the Holocaust, a sibling about which he was previously unaware. You can read about this moving 22-minute film, and watch it, here.

In the category of Feature Documentary Film nominees, you’ll want to see The Eternal Memory, a film about a couple facing Alzheimer’s, by the Chilean director Maite Alberdi. Both personal and political, the film chronicles the slow decline of the husband Augusto Góngora, and the tender caregiving of his wife Paulina Urrutia. You can read a review of the film here and watch the trailer, and read another review, here. And if you want to know how to watch all of the short film nominees, grab your popcorn and read here.

Finally, in case it’s of interest, AARP has its own awards for the Movies For Grownups of 2024. Many of the films chosen are also Oscar contenders but the focus is on films dramatizing real lives, real events, and older actors and directors. So turn down the lights, take the remote, and click here.