The Oscar nominations are here! Once you’ve streamed the nominees and participated in our cherished national pastime of griping about all the snubs and surprises, you might want to read more about the best picture class of 2018. To help, we’ve compiled a brief list of essential interviews, features and critical essays on the Academy’s favorite films of last year.

‘Phantom Thread’

‘Daniel Day-Lewis and Paul Thomas Anderson on How They Created “Phantom Thread”’ [The New York Times]

“Phantom Thread” is, at its core, the story of a romance between two deeply bizarre individuals: the fictional midcentury fashion designer Reynolds Woodcock and the love of his life, Alma. The Times’s Reggie Ugwu interviewed director Paul Thomas Anderson and the leading cast members about how they captured the film’s unique, ineffable weirdness. “There’s no strangeness you can imagine that is more strange than the lives of apparently conventional people behind closed doors,” says Day-Lewis, who stars as Woodcock.

‘The Dresses in “Phantom Thread” Are Gorgeous, But Not Dazzling — and That’s the Point’ [The Washington Post]

“Because this is a story that revolves around a designer’s creative and emotional impulses, one might presume the film would feature any number of extraordinary and memorable ensembles,” writes the fashion critic Robin Givhan in a perceptive analysis Woodcock’s creations. “But there are none.”

‘Get Out’

‘The Movie “Get Out” Is a Strong Antidote to the Myth of “Postracial” America’ [The New York Times]

The filmmaker and comedian Jordan Peele has expressed frustration at the characterization of his movie “Get Out” as a comedy. In an editorial, Brent Staples underlines the seriousness of Peele’s political critique, writing: “The film is a disquisition on the continuing impact of slavery in American life. Among other things, it argues that present-day race relations are heavily determined by the myths that were created to justify enslavement — particularly the notion that black people were never fully human.”

‘Jordan Peele Goes Inside “Get Out”’s Biggest Twist’ [Entertainment Weekly]

Every horror movie has a moment when the floor finally drops out from under the protagonist. Peele goes deep into his version of that scene in a spoiler-filled interview. “That was the hardest scene to shoot,” he tells the writer Derek Lawrence. “It was very hard for me to put into words exactly why we were going to be able to reveal this twist twice in a matter of four minutes.”

‘Call Me By Your Name’

‘The “Call Me by Your Name” Monologue Leaving Audiences in Tears’ [The Daily Beast]

Timothée Chalamet got the Oscar nomination, but Michael Stuhlbarg, who plays the father of Chalamet’s character, dominates the film’s most touching scene. In a conversation with the reporter Kevin Fallon, Stuhlbarg explains, “All you can hope for is an opportunity to tell a story that seems to be what a lot of people have lived through, and perhaps present a different version of what it seems most people may have gone through in trying to communicate with a parent about who they are, what they feel, what their lives have been like.”

‘“Call Me by Your Name” Is a Love Letter to Missed Opportunity’ [Pacific Standard]

In an essay, Brandon Tensley writes, “On top of so much else, ‘Call Me by Your Name’ is an exploration of the sometimes-heartrending ways in which time, whittled down by a nasty world, works against queer people.”

‘The Shape of Water’

‘How “The Shape of Water’s” Aquatic Beast Got So Sexy’ [Vanity Fair]

Katey Rich investigates the unnerving allure of a scaly fish-man with washboard abs in interviews with the team behind the beautiful beast. Mike Hill, the sculptor who gave life to the director Guillermo del Toro’s vision for the character, recalls that: “The main thing he said to me was, ‘Mike, I don’t want you to make a creature; you’re designing the leading man.’ What Guillermo was interested in was giving the fish-man a soul, a personality, a heart, so to speak.”

‘Stream the Movies That Inspired “The Shape of Water”’ [Watching]

Del Toro is a genuine cinephile, and he loves to reference his favorite films in his own work. If you liked “The Shape of Water,” why not celebrate its 13 Oscar nominations by watching “The Creature From the Black Lagoon,” Jean Cocteau’s “Beauty and the Beast” or one of the other streamable movies on this list compiled by Jason Bailey?

‘Lady Bird’

‘Greta Gerwig Is a Director, Not a Muse’ [New York Magazine]

Greta Gerwig rose to fame as an actress, in films by directors like Joe Swanberg and her partner and collaborator, Noah Baumbach. But, as she explains to the journalist Noreen Malone in this perceptive profile, “I did not love being called a muse.” Considering that she is now the fifth woman ever to earn a best director nomination, it appears that Hollywood is finally getting the message.

‘The Miseducation of “Lady Bird”’ [The Baffler]

“Lady Bird” currently boasts a 99 percent “fresh” rating on Rotten Tomatoes. And, Lauren Oyler concedes, it is “good as a feel-good movie.” But does it really deserve such ecstatic, universal praise? “Why Gerwig and her audience would want to mother themselves through the horrors of high school, the necessary milestones that range from un-special to uncomfortable to traumatizing, is not hard to figure out,” Oyler writes. “What’s surprising, or at least dispiriting, is the willingness with which adults sacrifice their hard-won autonomy for an existence so remedial.”

‘The Post’

‘Behind the Race to Publish the Top-Secret Pentagon Papers’ [The New York Times]

Steven Spielberg’s latest film dramatizes The Washington Post’s historic efforts to cover the Pentagon Papers after the government barred The New York Times from following the story. The Times’s Niraj Chokshi digs through the archives in this piece tracing the newspapers’ race to publish the documents and defend the free press.

‘Breaking Down a Crucial Phone Call in “The Post”’ [The Atlantic]

Meryl Streep racked up yet another Oscar nomination for her performance as the Post’s publisher, Katharine Graham. Here, David Sims gives a close reading of the scene where Graham must decide whether her paper will take on the enormous risk of publishing the documents. “Her decision is something the film has spent an hour building toward, dramatizing Graham’s nervy debates with [Ben] Bradlee, with [Frederick] Beebe, and with her lawyers over the necessity of standing up to Nixon,” he writes. “But once she makes her choice, it’s ironclad.”

‘Dunkirk’

‘What’s Fact and What’s Fiction in “Dunkirk”?’ [Slate]

“Why the obsession with airplane fuel?” “What was the deal with the French being denied places on the boats and ships?” And, of course, “‘Where the hell were you?’” The history professor John Broich answers all these questions and more in this thorough explainer on the real story behind Christopher Nolan’s World War II epic.

‘Christopher Nolan’s Latest Time-Bending Feat? “Dunkirk”’ [The New York Times]

Nolan, the acclaimed auteur behind “Inception” and the most recent Batman trilogy, picked up his first best-director nomination this year. “As a filmmaker you’re looking for gaps in the culture, pop culture at least; you’re looking for things that haven’t been addressed in movies,” Nolan explained to Cara Buckley in an interview before the movie’s release. “And Dunkirk, for whatever reason, has never been addressed in modern cinema.”

‘Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri’

‘Caleb Landry Jones: “Working With Frances McDormand Terrified Me”’ [Guardian]

Frances McDormand, Sam Rockwell and Woody Harrelson all earned Oscar nominations for their stellar work in “Three Billboards.” Caleb Landry Jones played a smaller role in the film, but his additional performances in “Twin Peaks: The Return,” “The Florida Project” and “Get Out” helped to make him one of 2017’s most promising breakout actors. Get to know him in this lively interview with Jonathan Romney.

‘“Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri” Is Hopelessly Bad on Race’ [Pacific Standard]

With a Golden Globe for best drama under its belt, “Three Billboards” is a top contender for best picture. It’s also one of last year’s most controversial films. In an essay that uses one joke as a window into the movie’s racial politics, Hanif Abdurraqib notes: “A word thrown around a lot by fans of ‘Three Billboards’ is ‘nuance.’ But nuance is a single plank in the bridge to redemption, not the entire bridge. It is asking a lot of people to watch a story in which we root for a racist and abusive police officer in the name of his own redemption, but it is asking even more of the audience if Dixon himself does no actual work in the name of earning that redemption.”

‘Darkest Hour’

‘Blood, Sweat, Toil and Tears: Playing Churchill on Screen’ [The New York Times]

What did Gary Oldman learn while preparing for his Golden Globe-winning, Oscar-nominated performance as Winston Churchill? “I discovered a man who was not as fat as we all thought he was in 1940 and who had really an athletic tread,” he tells The Times’s Julie Bloom. “He skipped around and he had this sort of stoop and it was forward moving.” He adds: “There’s a real twinkle in the eye, and he has humor. The Churchill I saw and I discovered had charm.”

‘The True Story Behind the Winston Churchill Biopic “Darkest Hour”’ [Time]

Why might the filmmaker have chosen to focus on just a few months of Churchill’s lengthy career, May and June of 1940? “It’s the most important moment in Churchill’s life and career and the most important historical turning point of the 20th century,” Michael Bishop, the executive director of the International Churchill Society, tells Time’s Olivia B. Waxman. “It was really the moment when Hitler could have won the war.”