Another must watch movie from 2023 and another hit from Martin Scorsese. Currently it holds 10 nominations to the 96th Academy Awards (Best Picture, Director, Best Actress, Supporting Actor, Cinematography, Editing, Production Design, Costume Design, Original Score, Best Original Song).
It is based on the 2017 nonfiction book "Killers of the Flower Moon" by David Grann, that basically investigate the Osage Indian Nation that occurred between 1920 and 1930. Just as an outline oil was discovered on Osage lands in the end of 1800, but with the boom of automobile industry it value boomed, making the Osage people one of the most rich on Earth at that time, even if the jurisdictions of the legal rights were done by white man. Based on legal attributions and heritage marriage occurring on that time a wide spread of sordid murders and interracial marriages between Indian woman and white men occurred putting a whole af the money in white mens blood dirty hands.
Of course being a 3 and a half hour project (after all not all stories can be condensed on 2 hours, and the rhythm is right), the second of Scorsese after 2019's "The Irishman" - the movie (which had the rights buyed in 2015 by 5M) was to start production in 2019, but obviously it halted because of COVID what gave Scorsese time to get the money for a USD 200M production (by Apple and Paramount) and started the works in 2021.
I will not enter in details of the characters here, but all is historically researched, and many details were affected by Osage contributions. On the Acting part, Leonardo DiCaprio, as Ernest Burkhart, Robert De Niro as William King Hale, Ernest's uncle and Lily Gladstone as Mollie Burkhart, Ernest's wife are just perfect.
The nominations of Cinematography (Rodrigo Prieto - Argo, The Irishman, Brokeback Mountain among other sublime works), editing (Thelma Schoonmaker), Production Design (Jack Fisk and Adam Willis), Costume Design (Jacqueline West), Best Original Score (using musics from Indians and from that time, in a discrete, but at the same time prominent in the last work of Robbie Robertson) are all spot one.
Maybe the best achievement of the movie is bringing to the spotlights another history side of the evil side of USA, as Tulsa was in the same age.
I expect a lot of Awards for this ones, even with some strong competition - and give this one a 9,2 out of 10,0 / A score. Do yourself a favor and see it, if you like Scorsese epics.