Every year there are huge Oscar upsets, and thousands of people will complain about their favorite performances of the year not being nominated or even winning.
So many actors have given dozens of incredible performances over the years, but surprisingly, they have never won an Academy Award. Whether it’s because they were up against other great actors when they were nominated or because they weren’t even nominated at all, Redditors believe these actors deserve the accolade more than anyone else.
Willem Dafoe
Redditor RyzenRaider throws Willem Dafoe’s name into the ether, which is great timing considering he recently reprised his role as Norman Osborn, the best villain in Spider-Man: No Way Home. They hilariously use one of Norman’s most iconic quotes to vent their frustration at the Oscars, saying “Willem to the academy: ‘You know how much I sacrificed??!!'”
Dafoe has starred in so many indie movies in the interim between films about web slingers, some of which have been the most talked-about festival darlings of the past decade. He played Vincent van Gogh in the biopic At Eternity’s Gate, for which he was nominated for an Oscar but didn’t win. He also starred alongside Robert Pattinson in The Lighthouse, one of the most picturesque and riveting thrillers in years.
Ralph Fiennes
Ralph Fiennes is the go-to British actor to portray an intelligent professional working for a secret government agency, which can be seen in the recent James Bond movies and the recently released The King’s Man. However, when not doing that, Fiennes is starring in wonderful dramas like The Hurt Locker and The Grand Budapest Hotel, which features Fiennes’ most memorable movie role.
StoneDeaf argues that even though the actor deserves one, an Academy Award is meaningless to him anyway. They use Fiennes’ classic line from In Bruges to explain that “an Oscar is just an inanimate f**king object.”
Michael Keaton
Between roles in movies like Birdman, Spotlight, and The Founder, Michael Keaton has been on a hot streak this past decade, and Euphoric_Reaction399, especially, believes that he is an incredible actor who deserves an Oscar. They argue that he’s one of the “most underrated actors in terms of recognition for his talent that there is working today.”
Amazingly, Michael Keaton started out as a comedy actor and was as much of a comedian as he was as an actor to be taken seriously, if not more so. However, though many comedians have attempted to take on more dramatic roles, Keaton did it so well that people see him more as a dramatic actor these days.
Ed Norton
Between Fight Club, American History X, Birdman, and so many other films, Norton should have at least one Academy Award sitting on his fireplace at this point. Whizzzel thinks the same, but they speculate that he’s never won one because the Academy is made up of “people in the industry and he burns every bridge he crosses.”
The Redditor is referring to the fact that Norton is apparently notoriously difficult to work with. There are a lot of reported examples of this, with the most obvious being that Norton was constantly rewriting the Incredible Hulk screenplay. And for that reason, he may be nominated for more Oscars in the future, but, unfortunately, he might not ever win one.
Chiwetel Ejiofor
Chiwetel Ejiofor hasn’t starred in many movies that will appeal to the Academy, as he generally features in blockbusters like Maleficent, Triple 9, and, of course, the Marvel Cinematic Universe. However, he does still have several roles that should have been recognized by the Academy, especially from the 2000s, with movies like American Gangster.
Frenchtoasterss singles out one movie from 2012 that stars Ejiofor, explaining that the actor “should have won for 12 Years a Slave.” There’s even an incredible micro-budget BBC movie, Red Dust, which is what made filmmakers start to pay attention to him. The actor plays a South African politician who was tortured during apartheid, and it’s arguably one of the best performances of the 2000s.
Amy Adams
Amy Adams is considered one of the best actresses working today, and outside of her role of Lois Lane in the DC Extended Universe, she has tons of incredible dramatic performances under her belt. Weisp points to one Adams role specifically that she should have won for, explaining that she “got snubbed for her role in Arrival.”
Though Arrival is a genre movie and it isn’t exactly a film that would be considered when it comes to acting awards in general, there are tons of movies that feature amazing performances from Adams. She is long overdue a statuette, as she has even been nominated six times.
Colin Farrell
94itwasalladream half-jokingly asks, “who won Best Supporting Actor the year he did Horrible Bosses?!” And in fairness, if the Academy did take comedies seriously, Colin Farrell’s bald, overweight, aggressive portrayal of Bobby is one of the worst on-screen bosses and completely hilarious. But realistically, outside of comedy, Colin Farrell really does deserve an Academy Award.
Though the chances are slim because it’s a superhero movie, it is possible that he could even be nominated for his depiction of the Penguin in the upcoming The Batman. The portrayal looks completely unique, and actors have won Oscars for playing Batman villains in the past.
Jake Gyllenhaal
Jake Gyllenhaal not already having won an Oscar is one of the biggest surprises, as he’s constantly showing audiences how much range he has. Frenchtoastersss simply states “justice for Nightcrawler,” one of the best thrillers of the past few years. In the 2014 movie, Gyllenhaal plays Lou, a man who will literally plot a murder to advance his career.
But if Gyllenhaal deserves an Oscar for any movie, most fans would agree that it’s for Nightcrawler. But again, unfortunately, the thriller genre isn’t exactly something that the Academy generally looks at when considering the year’s best acting performances.
Tom Hardy
Thetrappster makes a strong argument that Tom Hardy should have an Oscar by now, and they even argue that “he was more deserving for The Revenant than Leonardo DiCaprio.” Not everybody would agree with this point, as DiCaprio put himself through hell for that role, but Hardy should have been nominated for Best Supporting Actor, at the very least.
If Tom Hardy starred in fewer movies where his face is covered, he might stand a chance at winning an Oscar. Between playing Bane, Mad Max, and Venom, viewers barely get to see the actor’s face. However, that’s a testament to how great of an actor is, as a lot of fans believe he should have still been nominated for his role in The Dark Knight Rises.
Sigourney Weaver
Sigourney Weaver is best known for portraying the iconic Ripley in the Alien series, but outside of playing the action hero, she’s more of a dramatic actor than anything. She has deserved to win an Oscar on several occasions, and Charming-Coyote1572 points out that “she was even nominated twice in one year and still lost.”
The Redditor is referring to the 1988 award ceremony when Weaver was nominated for Best Actress for Working Girl and Best Supporting Actress for Gorillas In The Mist. It seems like the actor has no interest in starring in any kind of movie that could attract the attention of the Academy anymore, which is unfortunate given how she should have been awarded one years ago.
