A long list of children have perished on the big screen; blockbusters have been claiming kids’ lives since poor little Alex Kintner spent a few too many minutes playing in the water in Jaws. But of late, this plot point is omnipresent—particularly among the nominees for this weekend’s Oscars. The 11-year-old titular character in Hamnet, up for Best Picture, succumbs to the plague. In Train Dreams, another Best Picture contender, the protagonist’s toddler and wife vanish in a fire. And The Voice of Hind Rajab, which is competing against Sirāt for Best International Feature, dramatizes the real-life killing of a 6-year-old Palestinian girl caught in the cross fire of the Gaza war in 2024. Academy voters, it seems, were irresistibly drawn this year to movies featuring children in jeopardy.