26 Oscar Snubs That Were Frankly Unforgivable
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ONCE YOU START getting dialed into the mystical time of year that movie buffs refer to only as "awards season," it can feel like being sucked into a vortex that makes all the sense in the world to everyone who's been sucked in, and almost none to those who remain on the outside.
Let me explain: when you've been following all of the conversation, discourse, and "precursor awards," (meaning the combination of critical awards and nominations/wins given out by groups such as SAG, DGA, WGA, etc.) it becomes very clear what is being considered for awards, and what movies are, for whatever reason, not part of the conversation. In another year, for example, a summer crowd-pleasing blockbuster like Barbie wouldn't immediately come to mind when it comes to the awards conversation, regardless of its extremely high quality. But after being part of one of the year's biggest cultural moments—who could forget "Barbenheimer"—we've arrived at a place where it's here.
What's more confusing would be explaining why certain brilliant movies wind up going largely or entirely ignore. Movies like Asteroid City, Past Lives, and How To Blow Up a Pipeline came out in the first half of 2024 and found themselves largely sitting out the awards season portion of the year. The Iron Claw, on the other hand, may have come up short solely because it wasn't widely seen by pundits and audiences until the very end of the year, and by then, the awards seasons narratives and contenders had largely rounded into shape. Is this fair? Eh, not really. Is it kind of just the way this stuff always goes? Yup. It's a flawed process, but for movie fans, it's the only one we've really got.
So for the purpose of this article, we're not necessarily saying that the entries on this list got "snubbed," because it's been pretty clear for a while what most of the Oscar nominations were going to be. Was there ever going to be a world where Pom Klementieff got a Best Supporting Actress nomination for her role in Mission: Impossible — Dead Reckoning? No, there was not. But in a just world she would've been deserving, and we truly and honestly believe that.
Below, we give you our list of "Oscar Snubs"—some of which are legitimately shocking snubs, and others that just could've been nominated if this whole thing was just a little bit different.
Leonardo DiCaprio (Best Actor, Killers of the Flower Moon)
How is it that one of the universally-agreed upon best actors of our generation is so continually under-appreciated? Leo finally won his Oscar back in early 2016 for The Revenant, and while that movie isn't bad, no one would list it as his best movie or performance. Instead, his work with some of the best directors of all time—including Martin Scorsese and Quentin Tarantino—goes continually under appreciated with regard to awards. DiCaprio anchors Killers of the Flower Moon for its nearly 3.5 hour long runtime, playing a type of character we've never seen from him before—a kiniving, naive, idiot. It's one of his best performances. DiCaprio is the level of actor who deserves to have more than just one Oscar for his career—maybe his forthcoming collaboration with Paul Thomas Anderson will be just that. —Evan Romano
How to Blow Up a Pipeline (Best Adapted Screenplay)
So many aspects of How to Blow Up a Pipeline, which was released to critical acclaim early in 2023 and was unceremoniously (and undeservingly) left out of the later-year awards conversation, are deserving of praise, but perhaps the most impressive is the script. Co-written by director Daniel Goldhaber along with Ariela Barer and Jordan Sjol, Pipeline manages to turn a nonfiction book highlighting the history of revolutionary acts into a tense, fast-paced film that plays like an eco-heist version of Ocean's Eleven. Great, underrated movie, that would've been deserving of an Adapted Screenplay nomination. —Evan Romano
Charles Melton (Best Supporting Actor, May December)
Perhaps the biggest snub of the year—from a pure acting standpoint—is Charles Melton in May December. The former Riverdale star proved anyone who may have doubted the acting skills of someone who started on a teen drama based on Archie comics wrong in his portrayal of Joe, a man whose deeply troubled life spiraled far out of his control at an age where he really didn't know any better. Melton plays the levels of this character at an extremely impressive degree, and watching the various layers of his shell crack over the course of director Todd Haynes' film is heartbreaking. Melton has been one of the stars of this awards season due to both his charisma and fantastic red carpet style, so we're hopeful and optimistic that his career will take on a major upswing from here regardless. —Evan Romano
Pom Klementieff (Best Supporting Actress, Mission: Impossible — Dead Reckoning)
This one is all about the vibes. That Mission: Impossible — Dead Reckoning was one of the best action movies of the decade should come as no surprise, nor should the fact that Tom Cruise and director Christopher McQuarrie managed to once again restock the film with exciting new and returning characters. It's the fact that Pom Klementieff comes into Dead Reckoning with energy that bounces off the screen, exciting anyone watching (while occasionally terrifying them) that really makes her performance as Paris a special one. She's best known for playing Mantis, one of the warmest and kindest characters in the Marvel Cinematic Universe, but here she proves that she can tap into something else entirely. Action is historically even less represented at the Oscars than horror, but she really steals a large chunk of the latest MI film. —Evan Romano
Greta Gerwig (Best Director, Barbie)
Barbie was the biggest movie of 2023, objectively (with regard to box office numbers). It was also a complete cinematic achievement, telling a story on a massive, blockbuster scale that came with incredible performances, visually stunning production design, and a story that had great dialogue and important themes. Greta Gerwig has been nominated by the Academy before, but her ability to build all of this into a massively-seen blockbuster (and being part of the biggest cultural moment of the year) deserved to land her another nomination. —Evan Romano
Shea Whigham (Best Supporting Actor, Mission: Impossible — Dead Reckoning, Eileen, Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse
You know those guys who show up and just make anything they're in better? That's Shea Whigham. The 55-year-old character actor did fantastic work this year in a trio of films, tracking down Tom Cruise in Mission: Impossible — Dead Reckoning, playing an alcoholic, verbally abusive ex-cop in Eileen, and one of the most heartfelt vocal performances of the year as Captain George Stacy in Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse. Whigham has always been able to do it all, but as he adds more and more great work to his resume with each passing year, it becomes clearer and clearer that sooner or later his moment in the Oscar spotlight is probably going to come. —Evan Romano
Stream Mission: Impossible — Dead Reckoning Here
Stream Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse Here
Parker Posey (Best Supporting Actress, Beau is Afraid)
Longtime indie favorite Parker Posey has been doing stellar work for decades, and at some point probably should have gotten an Oscar nomination. But it just hasn't happened. She plays only a small role in Ari Aster's three-hour surreal horror/comedy Beau Is Afraid, but brings all of her comic sensibility and expert charisma to a role that's felt throughout the entire runtime despite it's minimal screentime, crescendoing with one of the most surprising sex scenes you'll ever see. Perhaps now that she's been cast in Season 3 of The White Lotus, her awards glory will finally come on the TV side. —Evan Romano
"Dear Alien" (Best Original Song, Asteroid City)
No shade to Barbie and it’s two nominations, but a slot in the Best Original Song list should have been saved for Asteroid City’s whimsical “Dear Alien”. The brief, yet entertaining song is one of the high points in Wes Anderson’s film (although overall we think the film is one of the year’s best). In a film with an overarching plot on grief and existentialism, “Dear Alien” is a welcome uplifting reprieve, an unforgettably poignant part of the film where we see some of the more minor characters (Maya Hawke’s June, for example) have their own personal narrative arcs change. The song adds depth to characters in the film who would potentially be pushed to the background under the creative control of a different director. In short, it’s a fun song, and a worthy entry into the category. —Milan Polk
Mica Levi (Best Original Score, The Zone of Interest)
Jonathan Glazer's The Zone of Interest is an extremely bleak—and masterfully made—film. While Glazer earned a nomination for Best Director and the film itself, which is about the family life of a Nazi officer who lives next door to Auschwitz, was nominated for Best Picture, perhaps the movie's biggest asset is Mica Levi's score, which is only heard ever-so-often during the film but has a massive impact felt whenever it does. The music is memorable and filled with dread—the exact perfect fit for what Glazer is putting on display in his film. —Evan Romano
Jay Baruchel and Glenn Howerton (Best Actor + Best Supporting Actor, Blackberry)
Blackberry didn't get nearly enough attention in 2023, but it did the "product biopic" thing better than just about anything else. Think The Social Network with a decided '90s-early 2000s edge. The entire movie, though, is balanced on the shoulders of Jay Baruchel (who plays quiet RIM co-CEO Mike) and Glenn Howerton (who plays ready-to-explode-at-any-moment co-CEO Jim). The two have energies that match perfectly in the film (and writer/director Matt Johnson, who also stars in the film, is great as well). —Evan Romano
Natalie Portman (Best Actress, May December)
Natalie Portman is one of our best working actresses, and she gives an incredibly layered and complex performance as the lead of the complex and bizarre May December. She plays wonderfully with all of her co-stars (including Julianne Moore, Charles Melton, and Cory Michael Smith), but its the fact that her work both physically and internally so meshes with Todd Haynes' direction and Samy Burches' tonally unique script that makes her performance so compelling. It's hard to look away when Portman is performing. —Evan Romano
Origin (Best Picture)
Ava Duvernay is a master of humanizing the lives destroyed by racism by exploring them outside of cold statistics, but Origin is something different. She takes Isabel Wilkerson’s book Caste: The Origins of Our Discontents and crafts a movie around Wilkerson’s search for answers to tragedies in her life, catalyzing her search for a historical connection between different countries’ relationships to the caste system. Aunjanue Ellis-Taylor as Wilkerson made the generational pain visceral and the tender love with Jon Bernthal’s Brett Hamilton aspirational in ways that should’ve made her the talk of awards season. Origin isn’t a film that should be rewarded for teaching lessons. It’s a film that should’ve been nominated for every award it was eligible for because it illuminated parts of our existence that are often overshadowed. — Keith Nelson
Greta Lee (Best Actress, Past Lives)
While Greta Lee has been working for a long time—TV fans will certainly remember her stellar work in shows like Russian Doll, Girls, and High Maintenance—she 100% leveled up with her performance in Past Lives. As the anchor in a story about lives that could have gone one way but ended up going another, Lee not only is convincing in every line she delivers, but, perhaps most vitally, in the lines she doesn't deliver. She and director Celine Song are so confident in their body language and the way they relish in silence that it manages to elevate this performance to one of the year's very best. An Oscar nomination for Best Actress would've been quite deserving. —Evan Romano
Jason Schwartzman (Best Actor/Supporting Actor, Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse, Hunger Games: The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes, Asteroid City)
It was a great year full of award-worthy movie entries. So it’s a shame that Jason Schwartzman–who possibly had one of the busiest years in his career in terms of film appearances–was completely ignored for Academy Award nominations. As the villainous Spot in Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse, lead Augie Steenbeck in Asteroid City, and Lucky Flickerman in Hunger Games: The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes (and that’s not even mentioning his television appearances), Schwartzman showcased his impressive range. Up against some of the more "Oscar"-y films of the year, it’s not a surprise Schwartzman didn’t get a nomination, but it’s clear the actor deserves recognition for his hard work in the industry. Maybe next year. —Milan Polk
Stream Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse Here
Stream The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes Here
Julianne Moore (Best Supporting Actress, May December)
In May December, Julianne Moore reunited with her longtime collaborator Todd Haynes to give perhaps her most uncomfortable performance yet. Moore plays a woman who was the subject of a tabloid scandal in the '90s, having seduced and had a child with a middle schooler while both worked at a local pet shop; it's unforgivable stuff that Moore and Haynes nonetheless work hard to build a real character—and not a 2D drawing—around. Moore makes every single scene pop, but her best moment comes during a heartbreaking late scene in the bedroom with Charles Melton. Moore is in the awards conversation just about every year, but this was a performance that was both unique and deserving—and, ultimately, probably a little too weird for the Academy. —Evan Romano
Wes Anderson (Best Director, Asteroid City)
Wes Anderson is, without question, one of the most beloved, directors in modern American culture. His films are distinguishable in a singular way that may go their entire careers unable to achieve, and he's entered the top-tier of directors with name-brand recognizability. So why has he only been nominated for a Best Director Oscar once (for The Grand Budapest Hotel)? Asteroid City, his latest film, is a meticulous masterpiece of storytelling, a film that's visually stunning and filled with incredible performances that only gets better and better with each rewatch. We're going to look back at Asteroid City in future years and wonder why the hell the Academy decided to ignore it. —Evan Romano
“Heavy is the Head” by Baby Rose (Best Original Song, Creed III)
The same way Billie Eilish distilled beautiful existentialism from a Barbie movie about sentient dolls (and gender inequality, to be fair) is how underrated songstress Baby Rose turned Creed III’s redemption story arc for Adonis Creed (Michael B Jordan) into a simmering salad about the weight of success. Beyond the fact that Baby Rose's voice sounds like how a weighted blanket on a stormy day feels, the song perfectly scores the scene where a bloodied Creed is getting pummeled in a sparring match before using memories of his journey to the top as motivation. This one song found beauty in the brutality and elevated a formulaic training montage to high art, just like the rest of the Best Original Song nominees. —Keith Nelson
Sandra Hüller (Best Supporting Actress, The Zone of Interest)
It was a big 2023 for Sandra Hüller, who got a much-deserved nomination in the Best Actress category for her role in Anatomy of a Fall. But she was also fantastic at the center of The Zone of Interest, a housewife who has absolutely no problem with the real-life horrors taking place to what she desperately wants to convince herself is a perfect idyllic life. She's the human embodiment of the "banality of evil" phrase that we hear so much: complacent with indescribable horrors. It would have been cool to see Hüller become a double Oscar nominee this year. —Evan Romano
Chad Stahelski (Best Director, John Wick: Chapter 4)
Why don't the Oscars respect perfectly-made action films? In a just world, Keanu Reeves would have some kind of Oscar for his portrayal of John Wick over the course of the franchise's four films so far. But let's talk today about Chad Stahelski, the former-stuntman-turned-director who's helmed each Wick film, turning in perhaps his most impressive effort yet with 2023's Chapter 4; the nearly-3-hour-long action extravaganza has some of the most sriking choices you'll ever see in such a film, and deserves as much recognition as any typical Oscar Season tearjerking drama you'll see. Some day, these dynamics will update. We hope. —Evan Romano
Hayao Miyazaki (Best Director, The Boy and the Heron)
Animated movies, much like most foreign films, have a hard time breaking out of their category. Considering The Boy and the Heron could likely be Hayao Miyazaki’s final directing gig, it’s high time the Studio Ghibli co-founder got his well-earned flowers. Even a nomination in the Best Director category would serve as a hat tip to the influence Miyazaki has had on animation internationally. It’s not every day a director can make a box-office hit in Japan and the U.S. (and eke out an Oscar nomination) with such little marketing. It’s important to give credit where it’s due to the greats of the filmmaking industry, and Miyazaki has proven he’s an artist at his craft, not only making entertaining films for both adults and kids, but imbuing them with deep meaning and emotional weight. —Milan Polk
Andrew Scott (Best Actor, All Of Us Strangers)
All of Us Strangers will make you feel all kinds of emotions. Laugh? Cry? Terror? Happiness? It's all there. Andrew Scott is our guide to all of it as a writer flailing through life, uncertain about his personal life and still clinging to the memory of his parents' deaths during his childhood. And while the film's supporting players—Paul Mescal, Claire Foy, and Jamie Bell—are all fantastic and would've been nomination worthy in their own right, the fact that Scott manages to hold so many different ideas and tones in place with a stellar, heartbreaking performance of his own makes his Oscar snub a real disappointment. Luckily, Oscars be damned, the movie isn't going anywhere. —Evan Romano
Brandon Cronenberg (Best Director, Infinity Pool)
If you want to see a movie that the Academy would never nominate, I would like to direct you to Infinity Pool. That being said, director Brandon Cronenberg does a wonderful job in creating a visually stunning story that will both shock and scare you. If you've got a strong stomach (yup!), this is one that will stick with you for a little bit thanks to great work by the director. —Evan Romano
Jennifer Lawrence (Best Actress, No Hard Feelings)
JLaw already got her moment in the Oscar spotlight back in the Silver Linings Playbook days, but including this on our list for the purpose that great comedic performances tend to go largely underappreciated, particularly when it comes to awards voting. No Hard Feelings isn't a great piece of cinema mastery, but it works and is a pretty damn fun time due almost entirely to Lawrence's enormous and charismatic movie star performance at its center. —Evan Romano
Zac Efron (Best Actor, The Iron Claw)
In another world, Zac Efron could've been nominated, and, hell, maybe even won the Oscar for his role as Kevin Von Erich in The Iron Claw. The physical and internal work he does in A24's real-life wrestling tragedy is without question the performance of his career so far, and would've been well-deserving of a statue. But, alas, sometimes these Oscar campaigns get going and it can be hard to change too much about the momentum for any impact to be felt. Regardless—Efron's performance in The Iron Claw will floor you, right down to the film's very last scene. —Evan Romano
David Fincher (Best Director, The Killer)
Is The KillerDavid Fincher's best movie? It's not. But Fincher is one of our great living directors, and he 100% should have won an Oscar several times over by now (Particularly for The Social Network, which was heisted from him in favor of Tom Hooper for The King's Speech. Don't get me started.). Regardless, every Fincher film is a masterwork, and sooner or later, hopefully, his time will come. —Evan Romano
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