Oscars 2017: 20 Predicted Best Film Nominees Ranked Worst To Best

Jeff Nichols is an incredibly gifted director, and one who is seemingly happy to slip through genres, this time taking a lead from real-life events and taking a back seat as a director to allow the courageous tale to be told in a low-key, but still completely compelling film.

The film is based on the monumental 1967 Supreme Court case Loving v. Virginia, and focuses on white construction worker Richard Loving (the excellent Joel Edgerton), who falls for Mildred Jeter (Ruth Negga), a local black woman. When they fall pregnant, they head to Washington DC to be married, thanks to Virginia's strict interracial laws, but still face a struggle when the Virginia authorities refuse to accept the validity of their union.

Nichols thrives on the opportunity to build his characters and mood, letting Edgerton and Negga take the lead and giving them room to offer two fundamentally different but complementary performances. He is stoic, she is a picture of grace and it is on their shoulders that this important but deft and subtle movie is sold so well. And arguably, that's something that Nicholls should be lauded for, when he could have been a far more visible presence in his movie.