10 great films from this century that didn’t win a single Oscar
What can the biggest snubs of the last 20+ years tell us about this year’s race?
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If winning an Oscar wasn’t a big deal, why are the year’s biggest snubs and surprises the first topic of discussion following every nomination announcement? What would the discourse be this year if we weren’t talking about Greta Gerwig and Margot Robbie not making the cut in the tight categories of Best Actress and Best Director for Barbie? We’re all armchair Academy voters when it comes to the question of which films, stars, and directors are worthy of recognition, and no one really knows the strange alchemy that goes into picking the winners. Sometimes their choices age well, sometimes not so much. It’s still hard to fathom that there was no Oscar love for outstanding movies like Psycho, A Clockwork Orange, The Shawshank Redemption, Heat, or Fight Club.
Those historic oversights have become part of Hollywood’s legend now, and they tell us not only that the Academy is fallible, but that the story can change with a little time and distance. What can we learn from more recent losers, though? Going back even a couple of decades, you start to see some familiar names attached to films that went home empty-handed. Some of them may even get their due this year (here’s a hint: his name rhymes with Shmistopher Shmolan). Here’s a list of our top 10 favorites in chronological order of release. If it were up to us, they’d all be winners.
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Man, I’ve come to the conclusion that Wes Anderson hates cinema, or has at least developed a hatred of it. Asteroid City is best enjoyed as a series of still photographs. At the very least, he’s devolved into a parody of himself. At the worst, his head’s so far up his arse he can gargle his own stomach acid.
Royal Tenenbaums is the only Anderson movie I like, and I love it–mostly because of Angelica Houston and Gene Hackman. I need to rewatch it.
I actually liked Asteroid City, after being left completely cold by the French Dispatch. It absolutely looks like a caricature of an Anderson movie, but that’s okay because it was fun and well-written. I almost skipped it and am glad I didn’t. But it’s no Tenenbaums.
Didn’t you all do a ranking of Scorsese films and put Gangs of New York like almost last?
I thought it was an odd statement that he had been making good movies for a long time which is proof that the awards don’t always get it right? Just because he’s made good movies for a long time doesn’t mean that every movie he makes should win every award.
Is probably the Scorsese film I am least likely to go back and watch again.
See I disagree with that – even though it’s not his best, it’s eminently rewatchable. “Fun” is obviously not the right word, but never dull.
Memento and Irishman are the odd ones out, they don’t belong on the list. And that’s taking into account that the Oscars get it wrong way more than they ever get it right.
Memento is a wholly original and compelling screenplay: the movie itself was rough around the edges.
The Tree of Life not here is a big omission.
Bloody hell. Did it not at least win for cinematography?
I went to see that at the movies and about an hour in someone groaned “what the fudge even is this”. Which is embarrassing for that person on several levels.
“ why are the year’s biggest snubs and surprises the first topic of discussion following every nomination announcement”With a link to your own site. Yeah, I’ll use this meme again
And Dan Marino never won the Super Bowl. When you’re not the best, you don’t win. I will never get tired of artsy people not getting this.
That’s a weird comparison. The Super Bowl isn’t subjective; you either score the most points or you don’t.And even though it’s totally subjective, the best movie/performance/editing, etc frequently doesn’t win at the Oscars.
that’s the point. “Best of” competitions in art are stupid
Then your reference to Dan Marino makes no sense, even as an ironic bit.
That I 100% agree with.Self congratulatory events like the Oscars, Globes, BAFTAS are absurd.
Lol art and sports are subjective and objective, respectively. One is based on opinions and beliefs, the other on literal numbers required to be higher or lower than one another.
Which is why “best of” competitions in art are stupid
While art if primarily subjective in terms of how one enjoys it, there is certainly an objectiveness to the craft itself. I work in the field so I can differentiate “good” writing from “bad” writing, etc.
I will never really get the idea that a QB isn’t great until he wins a Superbowl. Not only are there almost 60 other players on the team, the QB isn’t even on the field for half the game.
You’re an ignorant piece of shit.I will never get tired of pieces of shit not getting this.
The ‘82 Dolphins are the Citizen Kane of football teams.
Analogy doesn’t work as there’s hundreds of sports examples where the best team or player doesn’t win due to a fluke or injustice of some sort.
Holy shit. Art is not a competition.
The oscars have fuck all to do with being “the best”, and everything to do with having the best optics.
That’s because The Laces was in! Laces is supposed to be out! – Ray Finkle –
Will Forte was not nominated for “Nebraska”
Book Club Part 2, where Jane Fonda is revealed to be a divine being. An AI told me this and a google search confirmed it, so it must be true.
I double checked and Zoolander didn’t win any Oscars either.
Well how many abo-digitals do you see winning Oscars, how many do you think?
Gangs of New York really should’ve been the one. That’s the one film Martin could get away with having an overtly white Italian cast without falling into the same tropes of all his other films.
calling The Irishman “terrific” is a joke
It’s like when trailers clip critic’s quotes. The quote should be “A terrific slog” but the trailer will say “…terrific…”
If “terrific” means “Scorsese plagiarizing himself but with 0 energy, and with a Robert De Niro performance where he has only one expression during the entire runtime”, I agree.
I watched it and can barely remember a damn thing about it.But I saw Memento once and still remember it well 20 years later.
I remember a deaged De Niro still moving like a very old man.
“And the award for the best geriatric stomping goes to…”I had to stifle my laughter in the theater during that scene.
the irony!
Ha, inadvertent!
Memento being a director’s first film, and gritty, low-budget violent, probably left a lot of voters scratching their heads. But I couldn’t agree more.
Nolan’s first feature film was Following (now that was REALLY low-budget in comparison to Memento).
Oof, yeah good catch. In fairness, a movie I didn’t know existed for at least a decade.
It doesnt even contain a single man from Ireland…lies all the way down!!
It’s as terrific as De Niro tried to flimsily kick his way into credible 40 yrs old self. Which is not. (That scene is laughably bad).
The Banshees of Inisherin didn’t win anything despite 9 nominations.
Biggest omission from this list: Children of Men
Exactly the one I was coming to mention.
Oscar not really fond of sci-fi. Remember? Only in the last decade The Academy really put attention on hard sci-fi movies such as The Inception, The Martian, The Shape of Water and Interstellar. LoTR didn’t count, also, not sci-fi, but sword & sandal fantasy. Plus, the trilogy is such a massive 3 years event, a perfect storm it really hard for The Academy to ignore such magnitude.
A bunch of nominations and no wins is not a “snub.”
Memento and Lady Bird were awful.
I’m reminded of Foreigner’s “Waiting for a Girl Like You”, the second-biggest hit song of 1981-1982, which spent 10 weeks in the #2 slot of the Billboard Hot 100, nine of them behind the biggest hit song of 1981-1982, Olivia Newton-John’s “Physical”. Despite being one of the two most popular songs in a two-year period, it never hit #1. If your movie is the second-best film of the year and is nominated for ten Oscars, but the best movie of the year sweeps all those categories, you’re going home empty-handed.
On another note, last night I saw a sold-out showing of Moonstruck at one of the arthouse/revival theaters here in town. That movie was up for Best Picture and lost to The Last Emperor, but I would wager a showing of that film in 2024 would not have sold as many tickets. The Oscars often get it wrong when it comes to the films that endure (I would argue they’ve actually done this less in the current century than the previous one.)
“Psycho, A Clockwork Orange, The Shawshank Redemption, Heat, or Fight Club…”One of those things is not like the other…
Where is this treasure????
The Irishman didn’t win anything because not enough academy voters were able to stay awake during a screening.
I feel like Gangs of New York was too-obvious Oscar bait, which probably turned voters off.
#releasetheschoonmackercut
BIG fan of Scorsese here but willing to admit that Gangs of New York was just not very good.
That riot montage is just hacky. Yes, it would’ve gone gang busters in the 1940s, but not any time after that.
There’s a lot wrong with the film, and as much as everyone loved Daniel Day Lewis in the role (and I do think he’s one of the greatest actors of all time), it read as just really hammy to me. Oh, and Cameron Diaz was absolutely awful (and totally miscast).
Faith and begorrah, Iggy Poops, why, Cameron O’Diaz is the very picture of a fair girl from County Tipperary, t’be sure, t’be sure…and totally not some blonde California Long Beach girl who kinda lucked upward from modelling into acting. Look, I love Diaz, but she’s like the…next-leading-brand version of Charlize Theron. Similarly, and the internet’s gonna crack the absolute shits about this…I’ve never believed Leo DiCaprio as a serious thespian, no matter how hard Scorsese or Tarantino or Villeneuve try. I just see Leo – sure, its Leo trying to do an whah-Ah-do-declare plantation slave-owner, or grizzled (heh) mountain man, or everyone’s favourite G-man of Dorothy, J. Edgar Hoover. Strangely, I found him pretty good in Blood Diamond as a Rrrrhodesian merc. He’s good, but he’s not great like everyone seems to think. He’s no Olivier or Day-Lewis. And back on the riots…Like, who the hell is the voiceover talking to? It’s 1863. They’re not on the phone putting out an APB, they’re not on the wireless, because none of those things exist. It’s a way of showing how the riots spread, yes, but in the worst way possible: by straight-up telling us. And that cutting montage…that’s pure RKO Pictures stuff.
I’ve always found Leo to be above average as an actor — consistently in that “decent-to-good” range… rarely “great” but at least never “awful”
Absolutely agree – he’s not terrible, he’s not an oh-god-change-the-channel actor, but he’s not some great chameleon who can disappear into, and full inhabit, a role.
He’s good in Blood Diamond because he’s Leo as if he’d been born an Afrikaner diamond smuggler. Same charisma and ease.
Excellently put, that’s a damn fine way of explaining it. That and The Beach – I love The Beach, dammit – were great roles for him, but anything else…eh, it’s a stretch.
This is also true.
It’s tremendously entertaining, but I didn’t buy DiCaprio as a street tough or Diaz as early gang moll and petty thief. I could see winning screenplay or some design category.
Not screenplay, but maybe some technical/design category.
It was bad.
Useful bit of trivia, John C Reilly is the only actor to star in three different Best Picture nominees in the same year during the five nominee era.Gangs, Hours, Chicago.
Not useful at all, but definitely interesting!
He’s bad ass in Gangs. It was hard to view him as a comedic actor for a while after that because he’s so chilling in that role (especially before the first battle).
It was also awful…
Yeah I was gonna add that it also had many flaws, but didn’t want to start an argument with anyone who loved it. lol
Also it’s just a weird movie to choose here, out of ALL of the great movies of the 21st century that didn’t win any Oscars…Gangs of New York was alright but it’s lower-level Scorsese.
“why are the years biggest snubs and surpises the first topic of discussion following every nomination announcement?”Because drama monsters will latch on to anything remotely divisive and wring it dry in order to get their fix.
Biggest ommissions for me:Children of Men (already mentioned by TheRedScare)City of GodIn BrugesI was going to mention The Fountain (I know not everyone enjoys it, but I figured it would win for Best Cinematography), but then I remembered it was up against Children of Men and Pan’s Labyrinth.
All good choices (including The Fountain (which I really liked))
Co-signed
Oscars are a joke. Often times it is the “who”, the “what” and the “when” that matter more than the substance of the films. The underlying politics of Hollywood determine the winners. Sometimes this just so happens to coincide with deserving films, directors, actors, and production. Many times it does not, and the snub itself is publicity.
I’ll put forth The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford for inclusion on this list too. I guess it wasn’t everyone’s cup of tea, but I loved the heck out of it.
In the intro:Fight Club Zodiac Though not nominated for any Oscars, the Dublin Film Critics Circle did nominated it for best film of the decade.
The Irishman was a horrible movie, and having it on this list negates any point the writer was trying to make.
Pathetic.
To this day, I’m still furious Dallas Buyers Club won Best Makeup over Bad Grandpa.Like, that one wasn’t even subjective, the makeup in Bad Grandpa had to fool real people up close.I’d argue that win was the biggest crime commited by the academy on behalf of that film.
Although not a fan of this film, American Hustle was nominated for 10 Oscars and left empty handed.
It’s a fun caper flick, but nothing really yelled “Best ______” to me. I know Russell loves Lawrence, and she was fun to watch, but just too young for the role.
it’s genuinely surprising that True Grit didn’t win anything, given the career-best performance of a “late career” actor was prime Oscar bait. And deserved, frankly. Great film.
He already got his career achievement Oscar for the forgettable Crazy Heart, though.
I’d have liked this list to include categories the films should have won in. I really liked True Grit but am not stunned it didn’t win Best Picture. But running through what it was nominated for there are some that definitely would have made sense.Art Direction – Maybe? Everything looked authentic, but plenty of westerns doCinematography – Definitely. Inception effects were cool, but not in-cameraCostume Design – Also convincingly western, but nothing really new hereDirecting – I’d say the weakest candidate (King’s Speech) won. Coens, Aronofsky (Black Swan), Russell (The Fighter), Fincher (Social Network) all delivered more interesting moviesSound Editing – No personal basis for comparisonSound Mixing – SameBest – King’s Speech a miss, but would probably go Social Network over True GritBest – Could make a case for Bridges but he was a bit muchBest Support – Leo (mother from The Fighter) was the right choiceAdapted Screenplay – No beef with Social Network here. Made a story about the founding of Facebook by an asshole into a compelling storySo I would say Cinematography and maybe Adapted Screenplay.
TEEN WOLF TOO
Nine of his actors have been nominated in the performance categories, but just like Payne, none of them went on to win, either.
Maybe there’s an implied “for this movie” in there, but Payne has won two Oscars, for Sideways and The Descendants.
Maybe the length of these Scorsese films are part of the problem. Perhaps Oscar voters have a shorter attention span than he does. I started watching The Irishman, but gave up partway through. Between the mixed reviews and the length, I don’t think I even tried to watch Gangs of New York. I am interested in Killers of the Flower Moon, having read the book, but I have yet to sit down and decide that I’m ready to dedicate that much time to it.
I’d recommend Gangs. It’s long, but moves at pace throughout and Day-Lewis is an absolute blast. Some of it’s silly and Leo and Diaz are miscast, but you won’t be bored.
Yup. Day-Lewis IS the movie, pretty much.
Whoop-sie!
Why do people have such a difficult time processing that something could genuinely be the second best at all the parts… and that would make an amazing whole?
The Irishman didn’t win because the academy is old enough that several of them just thought it said “Irishman” and they’re not about to hire or reward one of those!
The Irishman was objectively bad. Scorsese is not infallible.
Irishman wasn’t great. It was good, but no way in hell was it deserving of all the Oscar nominations it got. To make matters worse, it probably denied Willem Dafoe a best supporting actor nomination for The Lighthouse.
Dafoe in the Lighthouse was a revelation. Best nautically-themed role for him since The Life Aquatic.
Lady Bird remains the single most overrated movie of all-time.
Oh, only a 10-slide slideshow. It could very easily have been 55+ slides in this one… 😛