Emilia Pérez is only available on this streaming service

Emilia Pérez has been one of the most talked about movies in this year’s Oscar race, so here’s where you can watch the musical, in advance of the Academy Awards this weekend.

Emilia Pérez debuted at the Cannes Film Festival, where the movie musical received widespread critical acclaim, and won the Jury Prize.

The film was then nominated for an incredible 13 Academy Awards, including nods in Best Picture, Best Director, and Best Actress for Karla Sofia Gascón’s performance.

But that’s when the trouble started, as Gascón was then found to have posted awful statements on social media about Muslims, George Floyd, and somewhat ironically, diversity at the Oscars. Which turned this year’s awards race into something of a circus. But is also one of the reasons we’ll be tuning into the Academy Awards this year.

How to stream Emilia Pérez

Emilia Pérez is streaming on Netflix, which is the only way to currently watch the movie at home.

The streamer acquired rights to Emilia Pérez during Cannes, and depending on what report you read, the price was somewhere between $8 million and $12 million.

The film then received a limited theatrical release in the US on November 1 – to help with qualifying for the Oscars – before dropping on Netflix on November 13, 2025.

But since the Twitter controversy broke, it’s been something of a poisoned chalice for the streamer, with Karla Sofia Gascón removed from Oscar campaign adverts, and Chief Content Officer Bela Bajaria telling The Town podcast: “I think it’s really a bummer for the 100 incredibly talented people who made an amazing movie. If you look at the nominations, and all of this awards love that it’s received, I think it’s such a bummer that it distracted from that.”

What’s the movie about?

Netflix

Here’s the official synopsis for Emilia Pérez, as per Netflix: “Fearsome cartel leader Emilia (Karla Sofia Gascón) enlists Rita (Zoe Saldaña), an unappreciated lawyer stuck in a dead-end job, to help fake her death so that Emilia can finally live authentically as her true self.

Jacques Audiard both writes and directs, and sees the movie as an operatic musical, telling Netflix: “During the first lockdown, I wrote a treatment quickly, and I realized along the way that it was closer to an opera libretto than to a film script – it was broken down into acts, there were few sets, the characters were archetypal.”

Saldaña adds that it took time to wrap her head around that concept, saying: “It was described to me as this film noir that didn’t really exist in any of the conventional kind of genres, but it was a musical. It was actually an opera, and based in a crime world, but there was going to be a sense of justice, and validation, and sanctification. And I was just like, ‘What?’ I had to read it more than once. And then, I couldn’t stop thinking about it.”

For more acclaimed films, check out our list of 2024’s best movies as well as the best movies of 2025 so far. While to see where other Best Picture nominees are streaming, we’ve got guides to Anora, The Brutalist, A Complete Unknown, Conclave, Dune Part Two, I’m Still Here, Nickel Boys, and Wicked.