We’re starting up a new weekly feature here on Collider.  Since we know many of you are Blu-ray collectors as well as moviegoers, we’ll be running down the major new releases to home video each week.  Here’s a brief glimpse at what August 21st has to offer.  Click on any title to buy it on Amazon:

• The Dictator – BANNED & UNRATED Version (Two-disc Blu-ray/DVD Combo + Digital Copy)
• A Separation [Blu-ray]
• Good Will Hunting: 15th Anniversary Edition [Blu-ray]
• The Rescuers: 35th Anniversary Edition (The Rescuers / The Rescuers Down Under) (Three-Disc Blu-ray/DVD Combo in Blu-ray Packaging)
• Pocahontas Two-Movie Special Edition (Pocahontas / Pocahontas II: Journey To A New World) (Three-Disc Blu-ray/DVD Combo in Blu-ray Packaging)
• Disneynature: Chimpanzee (Two-Disc Blu-ray/DVD Combo in Blu-ray Packaging)
• Wargames [Blu-ray]
• Bernie [Blu-ray]
• Weekend (The Criterion Collection) [Blu-ray]
• House, M.D.: Season Eight [Blu-ray]

Hit the jump for more details, and sound off in the comments with your thoughts on our latest feature.

The Oscars are finally over.  The front-runner, The Artist, won the awards race by picking up Best Picture, Best Director (Michael Hazanavicius), Best Actor (Jean Dujardin), Best Costume Design, and Best Score.  There were also some big upsets as “locks” like The Tree of Life for Best Cinematography and Rise of the Planet of the Apes for Best Visual Effects were no match for Hugo, which ended up taking those categories and three more (Sound Editing, Sound Mixing, and Art Direction).  As for nice surprises…not really (unless you loved Hugo).

It was a forgettable year for the Oscars, and Billy Crystal, turning in his safe, predictable, and family-friendly routine was the perfect fit for a year that screamed “Don’t rock the boat!”  Last year’s Oscars took a chance on pairing Anne Hathaway and James Franco, and the show was a mess.  This year, they played it safe and the ceremony was still dull.  Quite simply, there was no films to root for and the “upsets” were for the establishment.  It was also funny to have the show and actors celebrate the theater when audiences are moving to OnDemand services, and studios are trying to make the theatrical release window even shorter.   Hit the jump for a full list of the winners, click here for mine and Adam Chitwood’s Oscar predictions (he did way better than me), and click here for my live-blog of the ceremony.

The 2012 Independent Spirit Awards were announced tonight and—you’re not gonna believe this—the voters were smitten with The Artist.  The film won Best Feature, Michel Hazanavicius was awarded Best Director, Jean Dujardin was named Best Male Lead, and they threw in Best Cinematography to Guillaume Schiffman for good measure.  Some of the other winners have a good shot at repeating tomorrow night at the Oscars, like Christopher Plummer for Beginners (Best Supporting Male), Michelle Williams for My Week with Marilyn (Best Female Lead), or the script for The Descendants by Alexander Payne, Nat Faxon, and Jim Rash (Best Screenplay).  The “independent spirit” was seemingly saved for the unique categories: see Will Reiser’s 50/50 script as Best First Screenplay, Pariah for the John Cassavetes Award, Take Shelter for the Piaget Producers Award.  Hit the jump for the full list of winners.

The nominations for the 84th Annual Academy Awards have finally been unveiled. Many of the categories have fallen in line just as most have predicted (I fared alright with my predictions, but not great), with Hugo scoring 11 nods, followed closely by The Artist with 10. The biggest surprises are War Horse and Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close getting in for Best Picture, the exclusion of The Adventures of Tintin from Best Animated Feature, and The Tree of Life nabbing Best Picture and Best Director nods (hooray!). On the snub side of things, despite landing the most precursor critics awards of any other actor in the race thus far, Albert Brooks was denied a Best Supporting Actor nod for his stellar work in Drive (boo). Additionally, Tilda Swinton was overlooked for giving the best performance of the year in We Need to Talk About Kevin, and AMPAS has no love for Michael Fassbender‘s haunting work in Shame.

There’s still plenty to be happy about, as Gary Oldman has his first ever Oscar Nomination (yes, that’s right) and Melissa McCarthy is a Best Supporting Actress nominee. Hit the jump to check out the full list of nominees. The 84th Academy Awards will be presented by Billy Crystal on February 26th.

Another awards ceremony, another The Artist triumph. Michel Hazanavicius’ silent film continues its near sweep of awards season as it took home the Best Film, Best Director, and Best Actor prize from the London Film Critics Circle Awards. Surprisingly, the other film to tie The Artist with three awards was the Iranian drama A Separation. The foreign film has been riding a wave of immense positive word of mouth, and the London Film Critics awarded the pic with Foreign Language Film of the Year, Best Screenwriter, and Best Actress.

Nearly shut out of the awards was Britain’s own Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy. The espionage drama failed to pick up any major prizes and was sent home with a win for Best Production Design. Elsewhere, We Need to Talk About Kevin was named Best British Film, Anna Paquin shared the Best Actress prize with Meryl Streep for her work in Margaret (quickly becoming the little engine that could), and Michael Fassbender won British Actor of the Year for his stellar work in Shame and A Dangerous Method. Full list of winners after the jump, which includes the critics’ top 10 films of 2011.

The Oscar countdown continues as AMPAS announced today that nine films have advanced in the Best Foreign Language Film category for the 84th Annual Academy Awards. Early favorite A Separation (Iran) made the cut, as did the modern dance documentary Pina (Germany). Shockingly, Zhang Yimou’s period epic The Flowers of War starring Christian Bale was left off the shortlist. The Chinese entry was the most expensive film in the country’s history, and many had pegged it as a shoo-in for a nomination. Also missing the cut were Mexico’s Miss Bala and the Finland dramedy Le Havre.

Voters will screen the nine shortlisted films this weekend, after which they’ll make their official selection. The five nominees will be announced alongside all the other Oscar nominees on Tuesday morning. The 84th Annual Academy Awards will be held on February 26th. Hit the jump to read the full press release.

I’ve just spent the past three hours watching and live-blogging the 2012 Golden Globe Awards.  My brain feels mushy.  After the jump and presented without comment is a list of this year’s winners. If you don’t even want to hit the jump, The Artist and The Descendants won Best Comedy/Musical and Best Drama, respectively.  If you want to awards prognosticate, I’ll save you the trouble: both were nominated for a Best Picture Oscar.  Those nominations haven’t been announced yet, but they were nominated.  Trust me.  I’m a professional.

Also, feel free to sound off on the winners and losers.  Lord knows I’ve been doing it for the past three hours.

With each passing awards ceremony, it’s looking more and more likely that we’re in for a fairly boring/predictable Oscars this year. The Artist continues to dominate the precursor ceremonies as it took home the Best Picture and Best Director prize at the Critics Choice Awards. On the acting side of things, George Clooney was named Best Actor for his work in The Descendants, and Viola Davis won Best Actress for The Help. The Artist is our clear frontrunner headed towards Oscar night, and I don’t really think anything else will be able to take it down. I can’t really complain about any of the acting wins, though for what it’s worth I think Brad Pitt gave the best performance of the year in Moneyball.

Elsewhere, Drive won Best Action Movie (though it’s really a drama) Bridesmaids won Best Comedy, and Rango was named Best Animated Feature. Hit the jump to see the full list of winners.

In the U.S. awards race,  The Artist, The Descendants, and Hugo seem to have a steady hold on the lead, but across the pond it looks like they may have other (and better) ideas.  Today, the London Critics Circle Film Award nominations were announced and Drive and Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy lead the pack with six nominations each.  A Separation and We Need to Talk about Kevin each landed five nominations a piece, and The Artist and Shame netted four nods each.  Attack the Block also got some love with nominations for Breakthrough British Filmmaker (Joe Cornish) and Young British Performer of the Year (John Boyega).

Hit the jump for the full list of nominees.  Winners will be announced on January 19th.

Awards season is officially in full-swing, with this morning’s announcements of the Gotham Awards winners and the full list of nominees for the upcoming Independent Spirit Awards. Now it’s the critics’ turn, as the New York Critics Circle have unveiled their list for the best in film of 2011. The Artist took home the top two prizes (Best Picture and Director), solidifying its status as an Oscar frontrunner. Brad Pitt was named Best Actor for his work in Moneyball and The Tree of Life, with the former also taking the Best Screenplay prize for Aaron Sorkin and Steven Zaillian. As for Best Actress, the undeniably talented Meryl Streep took the honor for her portrayal of Margaret Thatcher in The Iron Lady.

In the supporting categories, Albert Brooks was recognized for his dastardly role in Drive, while the prolific Jessica Chastain was named Best Supporting Actress for her work in The Tree of Life, The Help, and Take Shelter. While The Artist was already running into the Oscars with a good deal of steam, Moneyball‘s two wins give the film a much needed boost heading into the thick of awards season. Hit the jump to see the full list of winners.

The nominations for the 27th Annual Independent Spirit Awards were announced this morning with The Artist and Take Shelter each nabbing five nominations. In addition to The Artist and Take Shelter, Drive, 50/50, The Descendants, and Beginners will duke it out for the top prize. Absent from the Best Feature list is Woody Allen’s Midnight in Paris, though the film was recognized in Best Supporting Male (Corey Stoll) and Best Cinematography. Also of note, Elizabeth Olsen and John Hawkes landed nominations for Best Actress and Best Supporting Male for Martha Marcy May Marlene, and Ryan Gosling and Woody Harrelson were both singled out in Best Actor for Drive and Rampart respectively.

Hit the jump to check out the full list of nominations. Recognizing the best in independent film, the awards will be handed out on February 25th, the day before the Oscars.

The prestige of the Telluride Film Festival continues to rise each year.  It’s the waypoint between the Venice Film Festival and the Toronto International Film Festival and it’s a great opportunity to see the hot fall films without travelling internationally.  Last year, Telluride showed off Best Picture winner The King’s Speech, Best Picture nominees Black Swan and 127 Hours, and a variety of other films that picked up Oscar nominations.  The line-up for this year’s festival has been announced and it looks like it will be equally exciting if not more so.  Movies playing at Telluride this year include Alexander Payne’s The Descendants, David Cronenberg’s A Dangerous Method, the critically acclaimed silent film The Artist, Steve McQueen’s Shame, Werner Herzog’s Into the Abyss, Martin Scorsese’s documentary Living in the Material World, Rodrigo Garcia’s Albert Nobbs, and Lynne Ramsay’s We Need to Talk about Kevin.  And keep in mind that these are only the films with pre-festival buzz.  No one was paying much attention to The King’s Speech until it kicked off at Telluride and landed at TIFF.  Plus there’s the TBA screenings to consider (Black Swan and 127 Hours were both TBA films).

Hit the jump for the line-up.  The 2011 Telluride Film Festival runs from September 2 – 5th.

This year’s festival season continues to take shape as the full line-up for the 2011 New York Film Festival has been revealed.  Roman Polanski’s Carnage will open the festival, Simon Curtis’ My Week with Marilyn will be the “Centerpiece Gala Section”, there will be special gala presentations of David Croneneberg’s A Dangerous Method and Pedro Almodovar’s The Skin I Live In, and Alexander Payne’s The Descendants will close out the festival.  Other noteworthy films playing are the Cannes’ sensations The Artist and Melancholia, the hit Sundance films Marcy Martha May Marlene, Martin Scorsese’s documentary George Harrison: Living in the Material World, Abel Ferrara’s 4:44: Last Day on Earth, and Wim Wenders’ 3D film Pina.

Hit the jump for the full line up.  The New York Film Festival runs from September 30 – October 16th.

Two of the 2011 Berlin Film Festival award winners landed North American distribution today. Sony Pictures Classics picked up Nader and Simin, A Separation, which won the festival’s highest honor, the Golden Bear.  Written and directed by Asghar Farhadi (About Elly), the Iranian drama centers on Simin’s effort to divorce her husband.  For what it’s worth, Nader and Simin ranks 210 on the IMDB Top 250 as of this writing.

In nonfiction, THR reports 7th Art Releasing has acquired the North American rights to the documentary In Heaven, Underground: The Jewish Cemetery in Berlin-Weissensee, which won the Panorama Audience Award following its world premiere at the Berlin Fest.  Directed by Britta Wauer, In Heaven observes the cultural importance of the oldest Jewish cemetery still in use in Europe.  Hit the jump for more on both films.