The 2024 Oscars weren’t short of surprises, and Emma Stone’s Best Actress win ended up proving that an infamous Oscar sub is only getting worse. 2023 was a huge year for cinema after a couple of rough years due to the COVID-19 pandemic. 2023 saw big box office hits like Barbie and The Super Mario Bros. Movie, as well as critically acclaimed movies like Oppenheimer, Killers of the Flower Moon, and Poor Things. As such, the awards season saw lots of surprises, both good and bad, and the 2024 Academy Awards were no exception.
Going into the Oscars, the movies with the most nominations across all categories were Christopher Nolan’s Oppenheimer and Yorgos Lanthimos’ Poor Things, with the former also taking the most Oscars of the night. However, Poor Things was also one of the biggest winners of the night, especially in the category of Best Actress. Emma Stone won her second Academy Award for her performance as Bella Baxter, and while it’s a well-deserved recognition of her work in Poor Things, it also made an infamous Oscar snub even worse than it already was.
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Oscars 2024 Winners List
Awards season comes to a close with the 96th Academy Awards on ABC honoring the best in film from 2023 – see the full list of Oscar winners.
Emma Stone Is Great, But Lily Gladstone Deserved 2024’s Best Actress Oscar
Lily Gladstone was the favorite to take the Best Actress Oscar.
As mentioned above, the competition at the 2024 Academy Awards was tough, but as the awards season develops, the chances of each nominee in the biggest categories to win either increase or decrease. For example, The Holdovers’ Da’Vine Joy Randolph and Oppenheimer’s Robert Downey Jr. became the clear favorites to win in the categories of Best Supporting Actress and Best Supporting Actor after taking home the biggest awards of the season. When it comes to the category of Best Actress, the odds fluctuated between Emma Stone and Lily Gladstone (Killers of the Flower Moon).
Both Stone and Gladstone took some of the biggest awards of the season, most notably the Golden Globe, as they were nominated in different categories: Stone for Best Actress – Motion Picture Musical or Comedy, and Gladstone for Best Actress – Motion Picture Drama. Still, Gladstone was the favorite to win the Oscar for Best Actress, which is why Stone’s win took many by surprise. Stone’s performance as Bella Baxter is undoubtedly brilliant and Stone perfectly portrayed all phases of Bella’s journey, from her innocence and naive nature, to her strength and pure heart.
Gladstone’s performance in Killers of the Flower Moon stole the spotlight from its male protagonists. Gladstone’s performance as Mollie Burkhart was subtle but strong at the same time, and, in many scenes, she showed complex emotions without even saying a word. Fans took to social media to express their surprise and disappointment over Gladstone’s snub, which is also making an even bigger sub at the Oscars a lot worse.
The Oscars’ Infamous Habit Of Snubbing Scorsese Is Getting Worse
The “Scorsese curse” has been going on for years.
Over the years, many Oscars “curses” have emerged, with some of them being broken (like Leonardo DiCaprio’s when he finally won Best Actor for The Revenant) and others continuing even after being broken at some point. Falling into the latter category is Martin Scorsese, who, as surprising as it is, has only won one Oscar. In 2006, the “Scorsese curse” was finally broken when he won the Oscar for Best Director for The Departed, after being nominated seven times before in the categories of Best Director and Best Adapted Screenplay. Unfortunately, the “Scorsese curse” continued after that.
Scorsese has been nominated 12 more times after his big win in 2006 in the categories of Best Director and Best Picture, but none of his nominated works won. One of the most notable examples of the “Scorsese curse” happened in 1990 with Goodfellas, which was nominated for six Oscars, including Best Picture, Best Director, and Best Adapted Screenplay. The only Oscar Goodfellas won was Best Supporting Actor, thanks to Joe Pesci’s performance as Tommy DeVito. Although the “Scorsese curse” has been mostly for Best Picture and Best Director, with Gladstone’s snub, it’s now extending into the acting categories.
Year | Category | Movie | Result |
|---|---|---|---|
1980 | Best Director | Raging Bull | Nominated |
1988 | Best Director | The Last Temptation of Christ | Nominated |
1990 | Best Director | Goodfellas | Nominated |
2002 | Best Director | Gangs of New York | Nominated |
2004 | Best Director | The Aviator | Nominated |
2006 | Best Director | The Departed | Won |
2011 | Best Director | Hugo | Nominated |
2011 | Best Picture | Hugo | Nominated |
2013 | Best Director | The Wolf of Wall Street | Nominated |
2013 | Best Picture | The Wolf of Wall Street | Nominated |
2019 | Best Director | The Irishman | Nominated |
2019 | Best Picture | The Irishman | Nominated |
2023 | Best Director | Killers of the Flower Moon | Nominated |
2023 | Best Picture | Killers of the Flower Moon | Nominated |
Lily Gladstone’s 2024 Loss Is One Of The Oscars’ Biggest Scorsese Snubs Yet
Lily Gladstone would have made Oscar history, too.
Despite the odds being pretty even for Emma Stone and Lily Gladstone at the Oscars, the latter’s loss has now become one of the biggest Oscars’ snubs in recent years. Although that doesn’t mean Stone isn’t deserving of the Oscar, as her performance in Poor Things was outstanding and, arguably, the best in her career, Gladstone’s also carried a lot of history. Had Gladstone won the Oscar for Best Actress, she would have been the first Native American person to do so in that category, but the weight of her performance goes beyond that.
As mentioned above, Gladstone’s performance went beyond how she delivered her lines, as in many scenes, she said a lot without saying a single word. Emma Stone and Lily Gladstone’s performances in Poor Things and Killers of the Flower Moon are very different but are both quite powerful, and though the former’s win was great, the latter’s loss was huge and made the “Scorsese curse” a lot worse.
