Despite being near-universally praised, certain noteworthy movies were not nominated for even a single Oscar. Among the most shocking Oscar snubs of all time are iconic movies that are considered staples of their genre. However, making waves within a specific genre is not a guarantee of a nomination. Supposedly, they need to demonstrate artistic merit through writing, directing, acting, etc. to be recognized.

However, some of these movies are doubtlessly well-written and directed, but the filmmakers’ efforts still went unrecognized for the film. Even the best action movies are overlooked by the Academy, especially when they have no innovative CGI for which they can earn a token nomination. The movies that were not nominated for any Oscars demonstrate certain arbitrary preferences throughout Oscar history for specific types of movies and directors.

12

Reservoir Dogs (1992)

Quentin Tarantino’s breakout movie did not get him in with the Academy.

Quentin Tarantino first broke into Hollywood with a contained, psychological drama about a gang of criminals having an ongoing argument about who betrayed them. However, Reservoir Dogs wasn’t quite enough to get the Academy’s attention. This did not happen until Tarantino returned two years later with Pulp Fiction, which brought home seven nominations, including one for Best Picture. Tarantino himself won for Best Original Screenplay.

Although Tarantino has been a regular at the Oscars since Pulp Fiction, his style is too outrageous to be universally appealing. He is among the modern directors who have yet to win the Oscar for Best Director, although he won a second screenplay award for Django Unchained. While Reservoir Dogs is good, it might not have been undeniably brilliant enough to get Tarantino’s violent style past the initial screening.

11

Princess Mononoke (1997)

Princess Mononoke came out several years too early to win an Oscar nomination.

Princess Mononoke came out before the Academy instituted the category for Best Animated Feature, as well as before Spirited Away finished bringing anime into Western pop culture. However, it is not as though anime was a completely separate world; Akira’s release in 1988 also constituted a major breakthrough in this regard. The Academy simply wouldn’t have thought of Princess Mononoke as a contender at the time.

Had the movie come out in the mid-2000s, it still would have faced an uphill battle where the Oscars are concerned. Studio Ghibli’s movies have won twice out of five times they were nominated against Hollywood-produced animated movies, while critics still favor live-action over animation overall. The unfortunate circumstances mean that Princess Mononoke, doubtlessly one of the best Ghibli movies, would never get its due for its powerful storytelling, showcasing Ghibli’s characteristic environmental themes at its best.

10

Zodiac (2007)

Zodiac deserved nominations for its writing and acting.

On paper, Zodiac seems like a guaranteed Oscar nominee, especially in retrospect. It is based on wild but true events and directed by David Fincher, who was already an established name in Hollywood thanks to Se7en and Fight Club, while the cast is stacked with A-list actors. However, with the Academy still only picking five Best Picture nominees at the time, Zodiac was edged out by Atonement, Juno, and There Will Be Blood (with No Country for Old Men taking home the grand prize).

Additionally, Zodiac was possibly overlooked because some of the people involved with it were not yet as famous as they would be. Jake Gyllenhaal was riding on the success of Brokeback Mountain, but Robert Downey Jr. was only just beginning to make his comeback in the days leading up to Iron Man. Meanwhile, Fincher’s most praised and nominated movies were still in the future.

9

John Wick (2014)

John Wick is one of the best action movies ever and should have been awarded for it.

At the time of writing, the John Wick spinoff Ballerina is the only possibility left for the series to earn an Oscar nomination. Not only did the first John Wick not receive any nominations; the entire franchise has yet to be nominated for anything. Action blockbusters are generally ignored by the Academy, calling into question what an action movie has to be to achieve this status. Black Panther represents a major achievement as the first MCU movie to be nominated for Best Picture, or generally anything that is not strictly technical (effects, sound, etc.).

Meanwhile, Mad Max: Fury Road won six Oscars out of the 10 it was nominated for, although none of them were for writing. If the best action movies like Fury Road cannot hope to be recognized for their screenplays, it suggests that their value lies in a combination of production design, expertly executed action, and thematics. With John Wick’s stylish combat and storylines of loyalty, revenge, and self-determination, it is shocking that it was never nominated once.

8

Heat (1995)

One of De Niro and Pacino’s iconic action movies fell short in comparison.

A crime drama starring Robert De Niro and Al Pacino also seems like a surefire Oscar nominee. If Heat’s failure was in anything, it was probably that it didn’t measure up to the other gangster movies starring these iconic actors. In the wake of both Goodfellas and The Godfather Part III coming out in 1990, the climate surrounding Heat and how critics would have approached it would have been somewhat skewed.

The Godfather Part III proved that the epic landmark series and the director who created it were not infallible, while The Goodfellas set the bar for every crime movie that came after it. Without Martin Scorsese or Francis Ford Coppola attached to Heat, the Academy likely found it somewhat lacking. It is a biased result when none of the Best Picture nominees of 1995 measure up to the lineup of the previous year.

7

Léon: The Professional (1994)

Léon: The Professional didn’t stand a chance at the Oscars in 1994.

Léon: The Professional is another action movie that demonstrates how difficult it is for this genre to earn nominations in the major categories. Its strengths are its action sequences, character dynamics, and performances by the lead actors. Jean Reno plays the title character, an assassin who takes in an orphan girl, played by young breakout star Natalie Portman. However, it is Gary Oldman who steals the show as the movie’s antagonist.

Some would argue that Léon only lost out on the Oscars due to the obvious bias in the nomination process. While this bias does exist, it is hard to prove this particular movie deserved nominations because Pulp Fiction, The Shawshank Redemption, and Forrest Gump all came out in 1994. With impossible competition like this, Léon was left in the wake of this milestone year.

6

Your Name (2016)

One of the best recent anime movies was overlooked by awards shows.

Your Name is one of the most critically acclaimed anime movies in recent history. It is especially praised for its subversive storytelling, which kicks things off with a very familiar premise and takes it in a wildly different direction. With emotions running high in this twisting story of stunning animation, Your Name deserved to be the star of the animation categories at the major awards shows. However, this turned out to be a year when the Academy arbitrarily favored Disney movies.

Moana and Zootopia were both nominated for Best Animated Feature, with the latter winning. Meanwhile, Your Name wasn’t nominated for the Golden Globes either. The Golden Globes only recently made history by nominating two anime movies in one year, with Suzume and The Boy and the Heron’s nominations. However, Suzume was then snubbed by the Oscars.

5

The Shining (1980)

The ultimate horror movie received no Oscar nominations.

Stanley Kubrick’s The Shining is considered one of the best horror movies of all time by almost everyone except for Stephen King. King’s dislike of the adaptation of his famous novel is notorious, and his commentary highlights some genuine problems with the movie’s take on the story. However, as some of his comments did not come until years later, it seems unlikely that King’s opinion affected The Shining’s chances at the Oscars. It certainly didn’t change critics’ minds.

Kubrick’s not being nominated for Best Director is shocking, just as it is shocking that he never won Best Director in his lifetime. Jack Nicholson also merited consideration for his chilling, iconic performance as Jack Torrance. At least the Academy is now seriously considering lead horror stars in the acting categories, with Joaquin Phoenix’s win for Joker being a prime example.

4

Portrait Of A Lady On Fire (2019)

Portrait of a Lady on Fire’s romance deserved recognition, but faced tough competition.

Portrait of a Lady on Fire is a French movie telling a compelling, contained story about three women left to their own devices at a secluded seaside residence. While two of them have a love affair, they help the third find a way to end her pregnancy. The settings, sound, and subtle symbolisms powerfully convey a wide variety of themes: art, womanhood, secrecy, love, and loss.

Most would have expected Portrait of a Lady on Fire to at least get a nod from the Academy in the Best International Feature category. 2019 was a notoriously tough year, with Parasite sweeping most of the major awards, including and especially Best International Feature. Honeyland and Corpus Christi were also strong contenders in the category. Yet it is still surprising that Portrait of a Lady on Fire did not edge out one other nominee, given its unique but vivid format.

3

The Farewell (2019)

Awkwafina’s dramatic performance in The Farewell went unnoticed.

In The Farewell, Awkwafina proves that her potential is much greater than being a solely comedic actress. It would have come as no surprise if she had been nominated alongside Cynthia Erivo, Saoirse Ronan, and Scarlett Johansson at the 92nd Academy Awards. Additionally, The Farewell should have been nominated for writing, were it not for the incredibly difficult competition in the Best Original Screenplay category.

The debatable nominee in this category at this ceremony would have been 1917, a movie that arguably has better direction and cinematography that make good use of a straightforward screenplay. On the other hand, The Farewell is a comedy-drama that depicts realistic, morbidly funny, and heartfelt interactions among the focal family. One possible reason that The Farewell was snubbed was that it was not directed or written by an established name but by autobiographical filmmaker Lulu Wang, whom Awkwafina plays in the movie.

2

The Good, The Bad, And The Ugly (1966)

One of the quintessential Western movies is not as successful as people would think.

The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly is one of the most famous Westerns of all time, featuring Clint Eastwood in one of his most iconic movie roles. However, when the movie first premiered, it was met with an average reception. By the time The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly came to be appreciated as a cinematic milestone, its chances to win an Oscar nomination were long gone.

Because this movie came earlier in Eastwood’s career, he had not quite established himself yet as a name worthy of the Academy’s consideration. While he may have been popular among audiences, the critics were a different story. Eastwood would go on to win four Oscars in his monumental career. Ironically, the Oscars he won were for Best Picture and Best Director rather than acting, for Unforgiven and Million Dollar Baby.

1

Priscilla (2023)

Sofia Coppola’s Priscilla Presley biopic didn’t achieve expected awards.

Coming out the year after Baz Luhrmann’s psychedelic Elvis, Sofia Coppola produced its unofficial counterpart Priscilla. Coppola has already earned several Oscar nominations and Priscilla achieved enough good reviews that its appearance at the Oscars seemed like a given. An amazing selection of movies coming out in 2023 meant that Priscilla lost its chance at Best Picture and Best Adapted Screenplay.

If anything, Priscilla probably should have been chosen over Maestro, a formulaic Oscar-bait biopic. On the other hand, breakout star Cailee Spaeney’s performance as the title character is more subtle and soft-spoken than the other Best Lead Actress nominees of this year, making it more difficult for her to stand out. To summarize, Priscilla stands out as a movie with a profound story and execution, associated with an Oscar-regular name, but it still earned no nominations. Every Oscars ceremony brings with it some shocking choices, but none are as frustrating as the movies that deserved nominations but didn’t get them.