Some movies get a lot of nominations from the Academy Awards. Maybe it’s engineering marvels like Under the spell of the Ring trilogy, Titanicor Gravity. Maybe they have multiple incredible acting feats like all about Eva or Network. Sometimes it’s a bit of both. Either way, it’s not uncommon for a movie to receive double-digit nominations at the Academy Awards every year. Usually it makes sense. However, there are some movies that have some really mind-boggling omissions, despite the huge love they got from the Academy Awards. These are the head-scratchers that will make you say, “Really? The movie got 10 nominations and this show WAS NOT one of them?” Think snubs like Denis Villenueve are missing the Best Director for Dune, despite that film receiving 10 nominations, the second most of all films that year. Here are a few more mind-boggling Oscar snubs from movies the Academy really loved.
6/6 Fred MacMurray Misses Best Supporting Actor for The Apartment
The apartment is a wonderful comedy-drama directed by the legendary Billy Wilder. The plot of this 1960 Best Picture winner revolves around CC Baxter (Jack Lemmon), a lonely employee at an insurance company who climbs the corporate ladder by letting his superiors use his apartment for extramarital affairs. One of those several is Fred MacMurray’s character, Human Resources Director Jeff Sheldrake, who has an affair with elevator operator Fran Kubelik (Shirley MacLaine), the woman Baxter has feelings for. Both Lemmon and MacLaine were rightfully nominated in the Best Actor and Best Actress categories, and the film received a nod for Best Supporting Actor for… Jack Kruschen, who plays Baxter’s neighbor. Kruschen is doing well, but not really a star. MacMurray is much more memorable and should have gotten the nomination over him. It’s not the first MacMurray to miss out on an acting nomination for a film that received many nominations in the Academy Awards. He also missed out on a Best Actor nomination for another classic Billy Wilder movie: Double compensationwhich received 7 nominations.
5/6 Caitriona Balfe misses best supporting actress for Belfast
Belfast is a coming-of-age story directed by Kenneth Branagh and centered around a nine-year-old boy named Buddy, who lives in the title town during The Troubles. The film received seven Academy Award nominations and ranked third among all films that year, including Best Picture, Director, Original Screenplay (which he won), and Best Supporting Actor and Actress, which makes sense too. Jamie Dornan and Caitriona Balfe, who play Buddy’s parents, give great…hold on. Balfe and Dornan were not nominated. Ciaran Hinds and Judi Dench, who play Buddy’s grandparents, got the noms instead. While Hinds’ nomination makes sense, both he and Dornan were often nominated by the forerunners, Dench over Balfe is nothing short of mind-boggling. That’s not to say Dench is bad in this movie. She’s not, and though she gets a really powerful moment at the end, but other than that she’s not that remarkable. Another case of right movie, wrong person.
4/6 Andrew Garfield Misses Best Supporting Actor for The Social Network
David Fincher’s masterpiece about Mark Zuckerberg and the founding of Facebook received eight Academy Award nominations, finishing third that year with Start. Among the nominations were Best Picture, Director (which should have won), Best Actor (Jesse Eisenberg), Best Adapted Screenplay, Best Editing and Best Original Score. It won those last three. While Jesse Eisenberg was rightfully nominated for his performance, it’s incredibly shocking that Andrew garfield was not nominated for him. Garfield’s performance was incredible. Although he received nominations from the Golden Globes and BAFTA (the British equivalent of the Academy Awards), he missed a nomination for the Screen Actors’ Guild Award. Remember that actors nominate other actors for Oscars. The fact that Garfield missed out on both SAG and AMPAS is a rather blatant mistake.
3/6 Paul Giamatti misses best actor for Sideways
sideways is a wonderful comedy-drama about two men in their forties, the depressed teacher Miles (Paul Giamatti), and his best actor Jack (Thomas Haden Church). The couple travels through the California wine country to celebrate Jack’s upcoming wedding, meeting two women (Sandra Oh and Virginia Madsen) along the way. Although the film only received five nominations, they were all in its major categories, including Best Picture, Director, Supporting Actor (Thomas Haden Church), Supporting Actress (Virginia Madsen), and Adapted Screenplay (which it won). With nominations like that, it’s nothing short of inexcusable that the film’s best performance wasn’t nominated. Paul Giamatti is incredible in this movie. The scene in which he describes the differences between cabernet and pinot noir to Virginia Madsen should have earned him a nomination on its own.
2/6 Despite nine nominations, they still shoot horses? was not nominated for Best Picture
1969’s They shoot horses, don’t they? holds the record for most Oscar nominations without a Best Picture nomination, with 9, second most of all films that year. The film received nominations for director and screenplay, along with three acting nominations, one of which won (Gig Young for Best Supporting Actor). With that level of support, it’s even more mind-boggling that the film missed out on a Best Picture nomination. The film even received good reviews, unlike the Best Picture nominee, Anna of the Thousand Days. So… what the hell happened? Why did They shoot horses, don’t they? miss a Best Picture wink?
1/6 The color purple receives 11 nominations, but the best director is not one of them
.jpg)
In the opening paragraph of this article, remember how Dune Missed Best Director despite 10 nominations? Well, a similar situation arose almost 30 years earlier. In that case, the movie The color purple, and the director who missed it was… Steven Spielberg. This one gets really mind blowing when you learn that Spielberg won the Directors Guild of America Award for it, perhaps the best predictor of who will win the same category at the Oscars. In fact, only three directors who have won the award have missed out on an Oscar nomination: Spielberg, as previously mentioned, Ron Howard for Apollo 13and Ben Affleck for argo. The nominees for Best Director in 1985 were Sydney Pollack for From Africa (who won), Hector Babenco for Spider woman kissJohn Huston’s for Prizzi’s honour, Akira Kurosawa for ranand Peter Weir for Witness. At the very least, Spielberg should have beaten John Huston. Prizzi’s Honor is one of his weaker films anyway.