Nominated for Best Picture, Best Cinematography, Best Production Design, and Best Costumes 
Stanton Carlisle (Bradley Cooper) comes upon a traveling circus that asks no questions. He starts out at the bottom but quickly manages to ingratiate himself with Madame Zeena (Toni Collette) and her mentalist husband, Pete (David Strathairn). Pete mentors Stanton in the art of cold reading and sizing up marks, but warns him about never falling for his own schtick and never doing "spook" shows, i.e. pretending to contact the dead, seances, etc. It gets out of hand too easily. Stanton takes Molly (Rooney Mara) as his assistant and things are looking up. The pair are headliners. But an icy psychologist (Cate Blanchett) is on to the con and allows Stanton to approach with an offer: he does his act for the wealthy and damaged while she feeds him inside information from their therapy sessions. What could go wrong?
Holy shit, this movie is dark. Like, dark-night-of-the-human-soul dark. You thought Willem Dafoe was creepy as Green Goblin? Wait til you see him as a carny. Jesus. The mustache alone is a felony.
This has got production design sewn up in the bag. Maybe costumes too, we'll see. Probably not Best Picture or Cinematography, though. I watched it on Hulu but it's also streaming on HBO Max. Pick something light for after, though.
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