Vacuum your red carpet for one more high-heeled stroll, because this year’s awards season is about to end with its biggest celebration. The 97th Academy Awards, hosted by Conan O’Brien, is on Sunday night, concluding the annual race for Hollywood glory and a little gold statuette. 

If you’re feeling awards fatigue, take heart! The end is almost here! We’ll all wake up Monday, and it’ll be a brand-new year for Oscar watching. In the meantime, close out this year strong — devote your weekend to the Academy and walk into Sunday night ready for anything. You can prep by studying another awards show, possibly offering clues to the upcoming winners; catching a diverse selection of this year’s nominees across more than a dozen categories; or taking a tour of Oscars past with a sampling of some big winners from previous years. So without further ado, the Oscar goes to …  

But first, what’s new on Netflix?

A slam-dunk. Kate Hudson stars in the new series Running Point — from creators Mindy Kaling, Ike Barinholtz, and David Stassen — as a party girl who takes on the top job in her family business, which happens to be a professional basketball team. If that’s an air ball for you, take a swing at Season 3 of Full Swing, the docuseries that takes you onto the green with professional golfers. The new season chronicles all the drama of the 2024 season with some major new players in the game.  

If you have just a night … 

Get in the zone with one of the Oscars’ top precursors. The 31st Annual Screen Actors Guild Awards aired live on Netflix last weekend, and you can catch up on all the winners by replaying the ceremony ahead of filling out your own ballot on Oscar night. Hosted by Kristen Bell (also a nominee, for Nobody Wants This), the glamorous evening brought together the biggest names in Hollywood and the breakout stars of the season, all of whom honored each other at the dazzling bash. 

If you have a whole day … 

Do your homework. You can pack a day with Netflix’s Oscar-nominated titles so you’re prepared when the awards begin. Start with the most-nominated film of the year, Jacques Audiard’s musical crime drama Emilia Pérez, the 13 nominations for which include Best Picture, Best Director, and Best Supporting Actress (for SAG and Golden Globe winner Zoe Saldaña). Continue with Pablo Larraín’s Maria Callas biopic Maria, starring Angelina Jolie as the opera singer, which was nominated for Best Cinematography, and Tyler Perry’s historical drama The Six Triple Eight, starring Kerry Washington as WWII army officer Charity Adams, which was nominated for Diane Warren’s original song “The Journey.” 

Turn to the animated with Nick Park and Merlin Crossingham’s Wallace & Gromit: Vengeance Most Fowl, nominated for Best Animated Feature, and close things out with two short films: Molly O’Brien’s documentary short The Only Girl in the Orchestra follows New York Philharmonic double bassist Orin O’Brien, and Adam J. Graves’ live-action scripted short Anuja tells the story of a girl who works in a garment factory in India and gets a rare opportunity to change her life.   

If you have the entire weekend … 

Revisit big winners of the past. Start with three movies that nabbed Best Picture: Steven Spielberg’s 1993 Holocaust drama Schindler’s List, starring Liam Neeson as the industrialist and unlikely humanitarian Oskar Schindler, won 7 Oscars out of 12 nominations, including Best Director and Best Adapted Screenplay. Next, George Roy Hill’s 1973 caper The Sting stars Robert Redford and Paul Newman as a pair of con artists who pull a major scam in the 1930s; it stole 7 trophies out of 10 nominations, including for Hill’s direction and the legendary Edith Head’s costumes. Finally, Bong Joon-ho’s subversive 2019 thriller Parasite, about a poor family who carefully ingratiates itself with a wealthy one, won four awards out of six nods — and it was the first non-English-language film to win Best Picture. 

Speaking of films not in English, how about a pair of Best International Features (an award that Parasite also won in 2020)? Alfonso Cuarón’s poetic 2018 drama Roma, inspired by his own childhood in Mexico City, was nominated for 10 Oscars and won 3; Cuarón personally took home two, for Best Director and Best Cinematography. And Edward Berger’s 2022 WWI epic All Quiet on the Western Front, an adaptation of Erich Maria Remarque’s 1929 novel, scored four trophies out of nine nods.  

Don’t neglect the art of animation: the 2022 fantasy musical Guillermo del Toro’s Pinocchio, co-directed by del Toro and Mark Gustafson, won Best Animated Feature. Then finish off your weekend with a trio of Best Documentary Features. Steven Bognar and Julia Reichert’s American Factory (2019) depicts a culture clash when a Chinese company opens a factory in the Midwest; Icarus, filmmaker and cyclist Bryan Fogel’s acclaimed film from 2017, traces a massive doping scandal; and Pippa Ehrlich and James Reed’s tender 2020 nature doc, My Octopus Teacher, follows a free-diver who makes an unlikely friend. 

Don’t forget, you have one last chance … 

To meet the family. British sitcom The Windsors, created by George Jeffrie and Bert Tyler-Moore, mines outrageous satire from the personal dramas of the world-famous family of its title. You have one month to watch all three seasons before the series goes the way of the Empire. 

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