Nickel Boys

Nickel Boys is a 2024 American historical drama film based on the 2019 novel The Nickel Boys by Colson Whitehead. It was directed by RaMell Ross, who wrote the screenplay with Joslyn Barnes. Starring Ethan Herisse, Brandon Wilson, Hamish Linklater, Fred Hechinger, Daveed Diggs, Jimmie Fails, and Aunjanue Ellis-Taylor, the story follows two African-American boys, Elwood (Herisse) and Turner (Wilson), who are sent to an abusive reform school in 1960s Florida. The film is inspired by the Dozier School for Boys, a now-closed Florida reform school notorious for its abusive treatment of students.
The film was shot from a first-person point-of-view, with filming taking place in Louisiana in late 2022. It premiered at the 51st Telluride Film Festival on August 30, 2024, and had a limited theatrical release by Amazon MGM Studios on December 13, 2024. It was named one of the top 10 films of 2024 by the American Film Institute and received numerous accolades, including the award for Best Cinematography at the 40th Independent Spirit Awards, a Best Motion Picture – Drama nomination at the 82nd Golden Globe Awards and two nominations at the 97th Academy Awards for Best Picture and Best Adapted Screenplay.
In 1962 Jim Crow-era Tallahassee, Florida, young African-American Elwood Curtis appears destined for great things in the classroom. His Black teacher encourages him to think for himself, rejecting Southern textbooks' slanted view of history. However, Elwood is raised by his doting grandmother, whose father died in a prison cell under suspicious circumstances, and who worries that White society will retaliate against him if he participates in the growing Civil Rights Movement, which he does. Images of Martin Luther King, Sidney Poitier, and other civil rights icons are shown, and appear throughout the film, along with other montages, such as images of the U.S. space program.
One day, Elwood is accepted into a tuition-free accelerated study program at a HBCU. While hitchhiking to campus, he is picked up by a man driving a stolen car. The police catch the man and convict Elwood of being his accomplice. Because Elwood is underage, he is sent to the Nickel Academy, a reform school.
Nickel is internally segregated; White students enjoy comfortable accommodations and personal attention from staff, while Black students are housed in shabby facilities, and the school makes little attempt to educate them. Although Spencer, the White superintendent, tells the Black students that they can be released for good behavior, in practice they cannot leave until they turn eighteen, as the school makes money hiring them out as convict labor. (Spencer's wife shows Elwood some kindness, donating Pride and Prejudice and other books to the boys and allowing him to use her house's pool, but Elwood had to do free labor for her.) It is implied that some students are sexually abused.
Elwood bonds with Turner, another quiet student. However, while Elwood is inspired by the non-violent and democratic ideals of the Civil Rights Movement, Turner is cynical, expects only mistreatment from society, and urges Elwood to keep his head down. Elwood is bullied and beaten by another student, but the administrators do not help him: instead, they savagely beat both students. Elwood's grandmother tries to visit him at Nickel but, on arrival, is not allowed to see him. She also scrimps and saves to hire a lawyer to appeal his conviction, but the lawyer runs away with her money, devastating Elwood. Spencer bets on Nickel's annual Black-White boxing match, but quietly executes a Black student who either refused or forgot to take a dive that Spencer told him to take.
In flashforwards to 1988, the adult Elwood lives in New York City, where he runs his own moving business, and a former classmate, Chickie Pete, comes to him to remember old times and to ask him for work. Elwood does not appear to be in contact with Turner. In 2018, he is badly shaken after learning that many unmarked graves have been discovered at the old Nickel campus, and does research. Forensic evidence reveals that most of the dead students were Black.
Back in the 1960s, Elwood, fed up with his mistreatment, takes his carefully kept diary of Nickel abuses and convinces a reluctant Turner to deliver it to a government inspector as an exposé. However, nothing happens, and the administrators retaliate by torturing Elwood in the school sweatbox. Turner learns that the school plans to kill Elwood and comes to rescue him. They attempt an escape, running away together on bicycles. However, pursued by a car from Nickel, they are quickly caught. Turner escapes into the woods, but Elwood is shot and killed.
A montage shows that Turner safely reached Tallahassee, where he delivered the news of Elwood's death to his grandmother. He then moved North and took on Elwood's name. He marries Millie, builds a stable life, and tries to honor Elwood's legacy by embracing some of his ideals. When the government begins investigating the school, Turner decides to testify about his experiences.
The adaptation of Colson Whitehead's 2019 novel, The Nickel Boys, into a feature film was reported in October 2022. RaMell Ross signed on to direct, making it his narrative feature directorial debut. Joslyn Barnes co-wrote and produced and Whitehead served as executive producer. Aunjanue Ellis-Taylor, Ethan Herisse, Fred Hechinger, Hamish Linklater, and Brandon Wilson were cast in the lead roles.
On a production budget of $23.2 million, principal photography took place in Louisiana from October to December 2022. Shooting locations were in LaPlace, New Orleans, Hammond and Ponchatoula. The office building of the Lafourche Parish District Attorney was used as a filming location in Thibodaux in early December.
In a unique filmmaking approach for viewers to see the plot unfold directly through the eyes of the two protagonists, the film was shot in from the first-person point-of-view with a 1.33:1 aspect ratio. This creative choice was compared heavily to a similar approach employed by Robert Montgomery for his 1947 film noir Lady in the Lake. Ross explained this process in an interview:
Nickel Boys had its world premiere at the 51st Telluride Film Festival on August 30, 2024. It was the opening film at the 62nd New York Film Festival at Alice Tully Hall on September 27, 2024.
The film was originally set to have a limited theatrical release in New York City on October 25, 2024 and Los Angeles on November 1, before streaming on Prime Video on an unspecified date. However, the film's release was pushed further, with the film now premiered in New York City on December 13 and in Los Angeles on December 20; Amazon MGM Studios is additionally preparing prints on 35mm film for the updated release. It was released by Curzon Film in the United Kingdom on January 3, 2025.
The film became available on to stream on Amazon Prime Video and MGM+ on February 24, 2025.
As of March 12, 2025, the film has grossed $2.9 million in the United States and $356,592 in other territories for a worldwide total of $3.2 million.
The film began a limited release in the United States in December 2024, with a gradual rollout during awards season. In its first weekend, it earned $54,794 from two theaters in New York City (the Angelika Film Center and AMC Lincoln Square), for a per-screen average of $27,397. It opened in Los Angeles the following week, expanding to five theaters and earning $62,865 in its sophomore weekend and $34,145 in its third. It made $144,948 in its fourth weekend after adding 13 screens nationwide and grossed $119,911 playing in 26 theaters in its fifth. During the four-day MLK weekend, the film expanded to 240 theaters and made $386,191 to cross the $1 million mark stateside. Its three-day per-screen average of $1,246 was on the lower end of fellow awards-season films. After obtaining two Oscar nominations, it moved to 540 screens in its seventh weekend, earning $348,060 and pushing its nationwide cume past $1.5 million. Internationally, the film earned $356,592 from the United Kingdom, where it played for three weeks in January 2025.
On the review aggregator website Rotten Tomatoes, 91% of 202 critics' reviews are positive, with an average rating of 8.4/10. The website's consensus reads: "Director RaMell Ross' stylistically radical approach to adapting Colson Whitehead's searing novel will be jarring for some, but Nickel Boys' sense of immersion achieves the jaw-dropping effect of walking in another's shoes." Metacritic, which uses a weighted average, assigned the film a score of 91 out of 100, based on 49 critics, indicating "universal acclaim".Sight & Sound put the film as their tenth pick on their list of the best 50 movies of 2024.
Lovia Gyarkye of The Hollywood Reporter praised the film and cast performances. She highlighted the unique visual style, cinematography, and Ross's artistic portrayal of the novel's story. Pete Hammond writing for Deadline Hollywood criticized the "overlong" runtime and Ross's use of first person POV-style shooting of one character talking to another that is not seen on camera and only heard. He wrote, "It is a dangling conversation approach that goes quickly from being intriguing to being annoying, pointing to artifice rather than serving the story", and added, "I hope it doesn't prevent some audiences from getting the larger point that we should be talking about". Maureen Lee Lenker of Entertainment Weekly felt a disconnection with Elwood and Turner by the POV approach, explaining, "Both Wilson and Herisse give subtle, affecting performances but the first-person approach means they are often not on camera. Their performances are largely experiential, which makes it difficult to connect with their work on an emotional level".
Carla Renata writing for TheWrap applauded Alex Somers and Scott Alario's music score, casting and performances. She expressed: "This may sound like another Black trauma porn motion picture sanctioned by Hollywood to exploit Black history for financial gain. Thankfully, through the lens of Ross, this narrative doesn't fall into that trap we have seen for decades. Ross [...] brings his unique cinematic sensibility, allowing audiences to experience this type of story from a sensory perspective". IndieWire's David Ehrlich gave the film an "A" grade, emphasizing the film's visual style and storytelling technique. David Canfield of Vanity Fair wrote the film's "avant-garde approach is cannily balanced by its moral urgency and aesthetic rigor. Like last year's The Zone of Interest, it all but reinvents the language for movies about a particular, dark historical chapter, and seems primed to spark conversations about both its content and its form".
Filmmaker Barry Jenkins named it one of his favorite films of 2024, saying "This is medium-defining work — aesthetically, spiritually — a rich and overwhelming cinema where the camera is always curious and what it finds is always arresting. In a time where there are more ways to make a film than ever (and yet less variation in the look, the feel, the shape of those films than in any other point in the medium’s history) RaMell has given us a new way of seeing. It is a thing to make one both humbled… and filled with gratitude." Other filmmakers, including Joanna Arnow, Edward Berger, Coralie Fargeat, Hannah Fidell, Kitty Green, Max Hechtman, Don Hertzfeldt, Nicole Holofcener, Laura Poitras and Denis Villeneuve also praised the film.
The February 2025 issue of New York Magazine lists Nickel Boys alongside Citizen Kane, Sunset Boulevard, Dr. Strangelove, Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid, The Conversation, Nashville, Taxi Driver, The Elephant Man, Pulp Fiction, In the Bedroom, There Will Be Blood, Roma, Tár and Killers of the Flower Moon as "The Best Movies That Lost Best Picture at the Oscars."