And the nominees are...

While we aren’t actively (but really are) caring about the outcome of this year’s Oscars (best bets: The Shape of Water, Guillermo del Toro, Frances McDormand, Gary Oldman, Allison Janney, Sam Rockwell, still mostly white) this weekend, a few sure-losers are showing up on Hong Kong screens, thankfully. When was the last time the best nominee actually won? Moonlight is just the exception that proves the rule — and this year’s show bungled that win magnificently.

In the feverishly acclaimed Call Me by Your Name, Elio (acting nominee Timothee Chalamet), afflicted as he is with early-1980s teen ennui, falls into a puppy-ish first love romance with his archaeology professor father’s handsome grad student Oliver (a perfectly cast Armie Hammer). Paul Thomas Anderson directs three-time Oscar winner, current nominee and soon to be retiree Daniel Day-Lewis as Reynolds Woodcock in Phantom Thread, a darkly funny, impeccably-crafted story of toxic masculinity and emotional power, wherein a London designer in the 1950s has his carefully controlled world challenged by his muse, Alma (Vicky Krieps). And finally, Swedish satirist Ruben Ostlund puts an even brighter spotlight on collapsing modern male privilege than he did in his breakout Force Majeure in The Square. The best foreign language film nominee (which could be an upset winner) follows art gallery curator Christian’s (Claes Bang) misadventures stemming from a missing cell phone, an angry Romany boy, and a controversial viral campaign for an upcoming exhibition.

Enjoyment of each film depends on your tolerance for iciness, or lack thereof. Call Me by Your Name is unfailingly warm, sentimental and wistful as only a coming-of-age romance can be. The relationship between Elio and Oliver blooms against the backdrop of the same sun-dappled Italian countryside of director Luca Guadagnino’s superior A Bigger Splash, but with the addition of the kind of erudite privilege that pervaded screenwriter James Ivory’s defining work: A Room with a View, Howard’s End, and most relevant here, Maurice. Call Me by Your Name is less revolutionary for its subject matter as for its bland treatment of that subject matter. The two men at the center of the romance aren’t punished the way same sex couples have been in the past, both on screen and off. But that doesn’t make the film much more than this generation’s Maurice. Still, the moments that work, work beautifully: Chalamet and Hammer make a luminous couple, and as the aware and non-interfering father, Michael Stuhlbarg almost walks away with the movie in one short scene. You’ll also never look at nectarines the same way ever again.

The chilling Phantom Thread is as impeccably constructed as Woodcock’s life, but Anderson’s meticulous craft is distant and studied, lacking the emotional upheaval of films like Alfred Hitchcock’s Rebecca, which it unashamedly evokes. It’s a claustrophobic, emotional puzzle-box examination of the evolving dynamic between Woodcock and Alma that never quite engages on a gut level. After Alma succumbs to Woodcock’s aesthetic seduction, he’s horrified to discover she will not bend to his will the way past muses have. As Woodcock spirals out of his tightly wound control, to the dismay of his partner and sister Cyril (Lesley Manville, perfectly imperious), and Alma emerges as a rival in manipulation, the film finally shakes off some its mannered elegance to flirt with lurid drama before hitting on its final twisted declaration, one reminiscent of There Will Be Blood’s final, “I’m finished.”

The Square is too intellectual (and too long) to connect on a visceral level but when Ostlund hits his marks there are few filmmakers out there that can compete with his critical social eye (Jordan Peele comes close). Played by Danish actor Bang, Christian looks like a French New Wave movie star, and the film introduces him during an interview with art writer Anne (The Handmaid’s Tale’s Elisabeth Moss). He stumbles over explaining a typically convoluted deconstruction of an artwork, which sets up the film’s absurdist tone and biting satire of pretentious elitism, classism, mobile phone culture, personal responsibility and, of course, male anxiety. The Square’s best moments are its most discomfiting ones, including a Q&A with a “brilliant” artist (Dominic West) who’s constantly interrupted by an audience member with Tourette’s syndrome and the most awkward — and unforgettable — fundraiser of all time.