More than 20 years after his first nomination, Wes Anderson is an Oscar winner. The beloved filmmaker triumphed at the 96th Academy Awards this weekend, winning Best Live-Action Short Film for The Wonderful Story of Henry Sugar, one of four Roald Dahl adaptations he directed for Netflix.

Anderson, who’s prepping his next film in Germany, couldn’t attend the ceremony but provided the following statement: “If I could have been there, I (along with Steven Rales) would have said ‘Thank you’ to: the family of Roald Dahl [Luke and Liccy]; the team at Netflix [Ted, Scott, Racheline, Lisa/Catherine, many others]; Benedict and Ralph and Ben Kingsley and Dev and Richard and Bob and Adam and Jeremy and John and Jim and Rich and Jim and Polly and more. Also I would have said: If I had not met Owen Wilson in a corridor at the University of Texas between classes when I was 18 years old, I would certainly not be receiving this award tonight.”

Netflix received 17 other nominations across 10 titles, including Maestro, American Symphony, May December, NYAD, Rustin, Society of the Snow, The Wonderful Story of Henry Sugar, El Conde, The After, and Nimona. Read on to learn more about each film. 

The Wonderful Story of Henry Sugar

Best Live-Action Short Film Winner

One of the four Roald Dahl short films Wes Anderson directed for Netflix, The Wonderful Story of Henry Sugar tells the lavish story of a wealthy layabout who discovers an incredible ability. It’s a stagey and gorgeous departure from Anderson’s typical aesthetic, with an incredible cast including Benedict Cumberbatch, Dev Patel, Ben Kingsley, and Richard Ayoade. 

Watch The Wonderful Story of Henry Sugar on Netflix now.

Jason McDonald/Netflix

Maestro

Nominated for: Best Makeup and Hairstyling, Best Original Screenplay, Best Sound, Best Cinematography, Best Actor, Best Actress, Best Picture

Bradley Cooper directed, co-wrote, and stars in this epic love story that follows legendary composer and conductor Leonard Bernstein (Cooper) and his wife, actor Felicia Montealegre (Carey Mulligan), through their decades-long marriage. “I wanted to dedicate the real estate of the film to them,” Cooper told Netflix about the film’s ending. “How could I serve the truth of his life within this marriage while not shifting the focus away from them?”  

Of course, it couldn’t do justice to Leonard Bernstein without music. Here, too, Cooper threw his entire body into the production. “One of my favorite Bernstein quotes is, ‘I need to conduct with every part of my body, with my shoulders, with my wrists, with my knees,’” Metropolitan Opera music director and Maestro musical consultant Yannick Nézet-Séguin said about Cooper’s musical training. The writer-director and star spent months learning how to physically do just that, Lenny-style. You can see the results for yourself in the climactic scene in which Cooper-as-Bernstein conducts Mahler’s Symphony No. 2.

Watch Maestro on Netflix now.

Kimberley French/Netflix

NYAD

Nominated for: Best Supporting Actress, Best Actress

Oscar-winning Free Solo directors Elizabeth Chai Vasarhelyi and Jimmy Chin made their narrative feature film debut with NYAD, starring Annette Bening and Jodie Foster. NYAD tells the story of Diana Nyad, the real-life swimmer who embarked on an ambitious attempt to finish something she’d started 32 years before: a 110-mile swim from Cuba to Florida, without a shark cage. Vasarhelyi and Chin had never worked with actors before, but the cast made it easy. “This story is very much about friendship, and seeing the two phenomenal actors play off each other was incredible,” Chin tells Tudum about working with Bening and Foster. 

Watch NYAD on Netflix now.

François Duhamel/Netflix

May December

Nominated for: Best Original Screenplay

Todd Haynes’ darkly comic melodrama follows Elizabeth Berry (Natalie Portman), an actor who dives deep into research for a new role — maybe a little too deep. She’s preparing for a performance based on a notorious tabloid story, the marriage of Gracie Atherton (Julianne Moore) and Joe Yoo (Charles Melton). Decades prior, the pair began a relationship while Joe was only 13 and Gracie was in her 30s; after they were discovered, Gracie ended up serving time in prison. Now, the pair is married with three children, and strangely enough, all seems well. But as their children’s high school graduation approaches and Elizabeth puts their relationship under a microscope, things start to unravel. 

“The seed of it for me was always the character of Joe, this idea of being a 36-year-old man who was about to be an empty-nester, who hadn't processed what happened to him when he was young or the media blitz that followed,” screenwriter Samy Burch told Netflix. Elizabeth’s arrival provokes soul-searching for Joe, but it also makes for some surprising comedy, an element that was in the pages of the Oscar-nominated screenplay from the very beginning. “[Humor] was evident in Samy Burch’s script, but I don’t think you can fully imagine how it plays out until actors of this caliber are navigating it,” Haynes tells Tudum about the film’s tone. 

Watch May December on Netflix now.

The After

Nominated for: Best Live-Action Short Film

David Oyelowo (Selma) stars in this short film about a rideshare driver in mourning. When he picks up a family, he’s forced to confront his grief. “It both scared me and [drew me] like a moth to the flame,” Oyelowo told The Hollywood Reporter about reading director Misan Harriman’s daring script for the first time. 

Watch The After on Netflix now.

American Symphony

Nominated for: Best Original Song (“It Never Went Away”)

Matthew Heineman’s documentary follows Grammy- and Oscar-winning composer and Late Show bandleader Jon Batiste as he prepares for a one-night-only performance at Carnegie Hall — and reckons with his life partner Suleika Jaouad’s battle with leukemia. American Symphony tells the story of the couple’s relationship and creative partnership, and their strength in the face of life’s many obstacles. “Some people are hardwired to create,” Batiste told Netflix. “We get energy from writing and performing, creating, and gathering people into a community. We also get energy from being together, the two of us, or being alone.”

Watch American Symphony on Netflix now.

Pablo Larraín/Netflix

El Conde

Nominated for: Best Cinematography

Pablo Larraín’s pitch-black comedy recasts Chilean dictator Augusto Pinochet (Jaime Vadell) as a 250-year-old vampire biding his time in the country’s remote hills. When his children arrive for a penny-pinching visit, things go off the rails of Pinochet’s carefully constructed retirement. Add in a young French accountant (Paula Luchsinger) who arrives to audit the count’s financial situation, and you have a recipe for gorgeously photographed chaos, courtesy of Carol cinematographer Edward Lachman.

Watch El Conde on Netflix now.

Nimona

Nominated for: Best Animated Feature Film

If Nimona is a subversive fairy tale, then Nimona herself is an even more subversive heroine. “There’s a surprise at every turn with this story,” Nimona screenwriter Robert L. Baird told Netflix about Nimona. “Not only does it have deeply resonant themes, but Nimona is also an incredibly unique character and this very untraditional antihero.” A spunky shape-shifter who finds herself caught in the middle of a plot to frame the kingdom’s bravest knight, Nimona (voiced by Chloë Grace Moretz) is soon on the run and fighting for her life. She’ll find an ally in that aforementioned knight, Ballister Boldheart (voiced by Riz Ahmed), and together they’ll crack the case — and maybe, just maybe, find friendship along the way. 

Watch Nimona on Netflix now.

David Lee/Netflix

Rustin

Nominated for: Best Actor

Colman Domingo plays the openly gay Black Civil Rights leader Bayard Rustin in George C. Wolfe’s film Rustin. It’s the Emmy winner’s first leading film role, and a fitting one. “[Bayard Rustin] is a role model for what it means to be an American, what it means to daily, moment-to-moment, commit to democracy, commit to freedom, commit to possibility, commit to discovery, commit to passing on that which you know to other people,” Wolfe told Netflix about the message of the film. “Democracy is a muscle, and if you don’t exercise it regularly, it ceases to function.” Rustin led the charge on planning the 1963 March on Washington; the film depicts the many challenges leading up to that historic day. 

Watch Rustin on Netflix now.

Quim Vives/Netflix

Society of the Snow

Nominated for: Best Makeup and Hairstyling, Best International Feature Film

J.A. Bayona (The Impossible) directed the true story of the Miracle of the Andes, in which an Uruguayan rugby team are stranded in the snowy mountains after a plane crash — and find the strength to survive the winter. Society of the Snow is a harrowing tale that follows the survivors as they summon the will to keep going, even in the face of unspeakable odds.  

Watch Society of the Snow on Netflix now.