What to Watch on FandangoNOW and Vudu: ’Night of the Sicario,’ Top Awards Nominees and More

Want to know what’s coming soon to digital and what to watch right now on FandangoNOW and Vudu? Here is your weekly guide to the latest releases:

What are the latest new releases to watch right now?

Night of the Sicario is now available to rent or buy digitally from FandangoNOW and Vudu. The gritty, faith-based action thriller stars Natasha Henstridge (Species) as the owner of an assisted living facility forced to shelter a DEA agent (Costas Mandylor) and the family of a federal witness being hunted by members of a drug cartel. And the Guantanamo-detainee courtroom drama The Mauritanian, for which Jodie Foster just won a Golden Globe, is now available to purchase digitally from FandangoNOW and Vudu.

Which of the top Oscar nominees are available to watch right now?

This year’s Academy Awards are happening on Sunday, and FandangoNOW has many of the top contenders in the major categories. The Best Picture nominees available include The Father, Judas and the Black Messiah, Minari, Nomadland and Promising Young Woman, all of which are also nominees in one or more acting categories. There’s also Another Round, which is up for Best Director and Best International Feature, and Pixar’s Onward and Soul, which are both nominated for Best Animated Feature.

What are some great binge bundles to purchase this week?

If you’re looking for more Oscar-worthy movies this week, FandangoNOW has a number of binge bundles spotlighting past contenders. There’s the Best Picture Favorites collection including Forrest Gump, Braveheart, Gladiator and No Country for Old Men, and there’s another Best Picture bundle featuring In the Heat of the Night, Dances with Wolves, Platoon and Midnight Cowboy. You can also pick up a bundle of the Godfather movies, two of which were Best Picture winners, the other a nominee.

Find more winners in the Contemporary Best Pictures collection with Argo, Unforgiven, The Departed and Chariots of Fire, and the Classic Best Picture bundle with Gone with the Wind, Casablanca, An American in Paris and Ben-Hur. Then there’s the Best Picture Nominee Classics collection with Sunset Boulevard, Romeo and Juliet, Chinatown, Nashville and Heaven Can Wait, and a Best Picture nominees bundle with Saving Private Ryan, Pulp Fiction, There Will Be Blood, Good Will Hunting and Boyhood.

Are there any other great deals on FandangoNOW this week?

FandangoNOW also has a sale on select Best Picture winners, Best Actress winners, Best Actor winners and other award-winning favorites. Plus there’s a sale on movies inspired by video games, which is perfect ahead of this week’s release of Mortal Kombat. My favorites to recommend are Sonic the Hedgehog, The Last Starfighter, Scott Pilgrim vs. the World and the Fred Savage-led coming of age movie The Wizard. Also, the original Mortal Kombat movie from 1995 is pretty fun at times.

Are we celebrating any big movie anniversaries this week?

This week marks the 20th anniversary of the release of the animated favorite Shrek. Other movies turning 20 this week include Amelie, Freddie Got Fingered, the sequel Crocodile Dundee in Los Angeles and Guillermo del Toro’s The Devil’s Backbone. Additional movies with big anniversaries include Mystery Science Theater 3000: The Movie, which turns 25, Ridley Scott’s Legend and the original Crocodile Dundee, which turn 35, and the romantic drama Summer of ’42, which turns 50 years old.

Going back further, the Rita Hayworth classic Gilda and Douglas Sirk’s A Scandal in Paris both turn 75, the musical Ziegfeld Girl turns 80 and the James Cagney gangster film The Public Enemy turns 90. More recent movies with notable anniversaries include American Dreamz, which turns 15, and Denis Villeneuve’s Incendies, which opened in the U.S. on April 22, 2011. Also turning 10 years old are Water for Elephants, Disneynature’s African Cats and the documentaries Bully and Limelight.

Can you recommend some more great movie deals on Vudu?

This week, Vudu has a sale on horror comedies as part of their month-long celebration of comedies. I have some favorite pairings (much of them blood-soaked black comedies) that will make for great double features: Gremlins and its sequel, Gremlins 2: The New Batch (available together in a bundle); Tim Burton’s Beetlejuice and the animated Corpse Bride (also available together in a bundle); Warm Bodies and Burying the Ex; Heathers and Jawbreaker; and The Last Supper and The Hunt.

Vudu’s Actor’s Spotlight series celebrates Gary Oldman, Maggie Q, Common, Sarah Jessica Parker, Michael Keaton and Jennifer Beals. Here are my personal favorite double-feature recommendations for each: Air Force One and The Contender for Oldman; Mission: Impossible III and Live Free or Die Hard for Maggie Q; Terminator Salvation and John Wick 2 for Common; L.A. Story and State and Main for Parker; Batman and Birdman for Keaton; and The Bride and Vampire’s Kiss for Beals.

Which must-see movies are coming soon to FandangoNOW and Vudu?

Taylor Chien’s The Resort arrives on digital, via FandangoNOW and Vudu, at the end of this month, on April 30. The horror movie whisks you and its characters away to Hawaii for a trip to a private hotel resort in paradise. Private because it’s an abandoned and allegedly haunted resort, that is, where a writer of books on para-normal activity (Bianca Haase) and her friends hope to encounter an infamous ghost known as the “Half-Faced Girl” and then also try to make it off the secluded island alive.