In 1962 Jim Crow-era Tallahassee, Florida, young African-American Elwood Curtis appears destined for great things in the classroom.

However, Elwood is raised by his doting grandmother, whose father died in a prison cell under suspicious circumstances, and who worries that White society will retaliate against him if he participates in the growing Civil Rights Movement, which he does.

Although Spencer, the White administrator, tells the Black students that they can be released for good behavior, in practice they cannot leave until they turn eighteen, as the school makes money hiring them out as convict labor.

In flashforwards, the adult Elwood lives in New York City, where he runs his own moving business, and a former classmate, Chickie Pete, comes to him to remember old times and to ask him for work.

Back in the 1960s, Elwood, fed up with his mistreatment, takes his carefully-kept diary of Nickel abuses and convinces a reluctant Turner to deliver it to a government inspector as an exposé.

Aunjanue Ellis-Taylor, Ethan Herisse, Fred Hechinger, Hamish Linklater, and Brandon Wilson were cast in the lead roles.

In a unique filmmaking approach for viewers to see the plot unfold directly through the eyes of the two protagonists, the film was shot in from the first-person point-of-view with a 1.33:1 aspect ratio.

This creative choice was compared heavily to a similar approach employed by Robert Montgomery for his 1947 film noir Lady in the Lake.

The film was originally set to have a limited theatrical release in New York City on October 25, 2024 and Los Angeles on November 1, before streaming on Prime Video on an unspecified date.

In its first weekend, it earned $54,794 from two theaters in New York City (the Angelika Film Center and AMC Lincoln Square), for a per-screen average of $27,397.

[31][32] After obtaining two Oscar nominations, it moved to 540 screens in its seventh weekend, earning $348,060 and pushing its nationwide cume past $1.5 million.

The website's consensus reads: "Director RaMell Ross' stylistically radical approach to adapting Colson Whitehead's searing novel will be jarring for some, but Nickel Boys' sense of immersion achieves the jaw-dropping effect of walking in another's shoes.

[39] Pete Hammond writing for Deadline Hollywood criticized the "overlong" runtime and Ross's use of first person POV-style shooting of one character talking to another that is not seen on camera and only heard.

[41] Carla Renata writing for TheWrap applauded Alex Somers and Scott Alario's music score, casting and performances.

[10] David Canfield of Vanity Fair wrote the film's "avant-garde approach is cannily balanced by its moral urgency and aesthetic rigor.

Like last year's The Zone of Interest, it all but reinvents the language for movies about a particular, dark historical chapter, and seems primed to spark conversations about both its content and its form".

[14] Filmmaker Barry Jenkins named it one of his favorite films of 2024, saying "This is medium-defining work — aesthetically, spiritually — a rich and overwhelming cinema where the camera is always curious and what it finds is always arresting.

"[43] Other filmmakers, including Joanna Arnow, Edward Berger, Coralie Fargeat, Hannah Fidell, Kitty Green, Max Hechtman, Don Hertzfeldt, Nicole Holofcener and Laura Poitras also praised the film.