You probably haven’t watched any of the Best Picture nominees. You should.

That’s a shame — and a mistake. Despite the profound disruption covid-19 caused the movie business, the eight movies vying for Best Picture on Sunday night are almost uniformly terrific. More than that, they’re resonant, provocative and moving explorations of some of the biggest questions facing Americans today.

Take aging. As the pandemic tore through nursing homes last year, the death toll forced a painful conversation about whether congregate living is the best way to ensure the health and dignity of our elders.

“Minari,” Lee Isaac Chung’s gentle movie about a Korean immigrant family starting a farm in Arkansas, makes a kind, humorous case for multigenerational living. At first, grandmother Soon-ja is the mischievous caretaker to her grandchildren. But when she suffers a debilitating stroke, her lessons about resilience prepare her grandson to help care for her. “Minari” isn’t a falsely rosy portrait of either the immigrant experience or aging, but it is ultimately a warm and appealing one.

By contrast, “Nomadland” and “The Father” serve as warnings about what can happen when that familial safety net either doesn’t exist or breaks down under strain.

In “Nomadland,” Frances McDormand’s Fern joins a self-created community of van dwellers who take seasonal jobs in Amazon warehouses and at campgrounds. The movie is a testament to the resilience and adventuresomeness of older people. But it’s also clear about the limits of the network Fern has joined to protect her from the economic and emotional precarities of her new life. Of course, as Anthony Hopkins’ remarkable performance in “The Father” as a man afflicted by dementia makes clear, some parts of aging test even the most dedicated families and caregivers.

“Minari,” “Nomadland” and “The Father” offer no easy answers to a problem that’s simultaneously a massive policy challenge and a wrenching individual experience. But their beauty and humanity do make it easier to look at a part of life that too many would rather hide out of sight.

The debate about the wisdom of radicalism vs. moderation, on the other hand, remains central to American politics — and two other nominees explore that tension.

Aaron Sorkin’s “The Trial of the Chicago 7,” a courtroom drama about the prosecution of the anti-Vietnam War activists accused of inciting riots at the 1968 Democratic convention, is arguably the weakest of the Best Picture contenders.

But the virtue of the film is the conversation it stages between people who broadly agree on their desired outcomes, but disagree, sometimes bitterly, on how to achieve those goals. At a moment when dialogues like these are often conducted on social media, where they can splinter or get siloed, it’s refreshing to watch people engage in the sort of extended discussion that actually changes minds.

More intriguing is Shaka King’s “Judas and the Black Messiah,” which explores the FBI’s campaign to undermine — and eventually assassinate — Chicago Black Panther leader Fred Hampton. If some activists today prize moral purity above all else, the Hampton of the film and history is compelling — and to the FBI, dangerous — because of his skills as a coalition-builder. “The Trial of the Chicago 7” explores tactical differences in theory; “Judas and the Black Messiah” shows one of those approaches in practice.

And two of the most intriguing, challenging Best Picture contestants examine the importance of human connection, right on time for a year that plunged so many into isolation.

In “Promising Young Woman,” the title character devotes herself so deeply to a mission of vengeance that she cuts herself off from the full range of the human experience, at great cost. The movie makes an intriguing double feature with “Sound of Metal,” a profound and empathetic movie about a heavy metal drummer who joins adeaf community after losing his hearing.

Both films acknowledge that relationships — or memberships in intentional communities — require sacrifice. As Americans take tentative steps out of quarantine, and renew dormant relationships, “Promising Young Woman” and “Sound of Metal” are useful meditations on how to reemerge into the world.

I can’t promise you that any of the 2021 Best Picture nominees are pure diversions: There isn’t a stylish action movie or a swoon-worthy romance among them. But after a year of alternating between the horrors of the real world and anesthetizing ourselves with light entertainments, these seven movies are something more than that. Somewhere on that list may be the movie you need as you venture back into the world.

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