The 12 Most Painful Oscar Snubs of 2015
A lot of amazing movies got screwed this year.
Image via Complex Original
Best Picture
Who Got Nominated: American Sniper, Birdman, Boyhood, The Grand Budapest Hotel, The Imitation Game, Selma, The Theory of Everything, Whiplash
Who Got Snubbed: Inherent Vice
Who Should Be Dropped: The Theory of Everything
Get ready to see this film a bunch on this list. But what else do you expect after Complex’s number one film in 2014 gets almost entirely shut out this morning? Paul Thomas Anderson is this generation’s Stanley Kubrick. And while both auteurs have the same amount of Oscars (zero), the Academy was generally wise enough to put Kubrick’s opuses into contention when there were only five Best Picture slots.
After receiving multiple nominations for There Will Be Blood, Anderson has sat outside the Best Picture race the last two ceremonies in years that he’s released a film (The Master and Vice). When there are up to ten Best Picture nominations every year, that looks pretty weak on the Academy’s part. Despite some complaints of Vice being too complicated to unravel, it was, regardless, a film unlike any other in 2014. A puff of smoke in a room full of mirrors.
Best Director
Who Got Nominated: Wes Anderson (The Grand Budapest Hotel), Alejandro González Iñárritu (Birdman), Richard Linklater (Boyhood), Bennett Miller (Foxcatcher), Morten Tyldum (The Imitation Game)
Who Got Snubbed: Ava DuVernay (Selma)
Who Should Be Dropped: Morten Tyldum (The Imitation Game)
The biggest and most unfortunate snub of the day is Ava DuVernay for her deft, passionate, and powerful direction of Selma. DuVernay likely had two things working against her: a late release date, and screeners being sent late to voters (not to mention the usual whitewashing of the Academy Awards).
Also, if the Washington Post op-ed that scolded the film because Lyndon B. Johnson wasn’t portrayed saintly enough (written by someone who worked for LBJ, who thereby appears to be pushing a separate agenda; seriously, we do not need a white savior for every black film—this was not LBJ’s story) was significant for voters, that is extremely problematic because Bennett Miller was nominated for Foxcatcher, which is having its own truther problems. Both Selma and Foxcatcher are very good films, and narrative choices have to be made to create the most tension in a film. Films aren’t made for encyclopedia-thumping truthers, but somehow DuVernay has found herself caught in this odd crossfire and the achievements she and her film have made are being diminished because of it.
The DuVernay snub uncomfortably feels like Academy members think that by awarding 12 Years a Slave last year, they’ve done enough. Sorry, not sorry. It’s foul that so many true story films got so much love this morning, but DuVernay’s Selma was left out in the cold. And it’s even worse since Selma is a rare studio film that was both directed by an African American and actually gave black men and women power, swagger, and their own perspective—especially now, at a time when the cultural conversation is so dominated by the events surrounding Ferguson and Eric Garner.
It’s also a bad omen for Hollywood when the two directors who’ve failed to be nominated in recent years due to cries of inaccuracy have both been women—Kathryn Bigelow for Zero Dark Thirty and now DuVernay for Selma.
Best Actor
Who Got Nominated: Steve Carell (Foxcatcher), Bradley Cooper (American Sniper), Benedict Cumberbatch (The Imitation Game), Michael Keaton (Birdman), Eddie Redmayne (The Theory of Everything)
Who Got Snubbed: David Oyelowo (Selma), Joaquin Phoenix (Inherent Vice), Oscar Isaac (A Most Violent Year)
Who Should Be Dropped: Bradley Cooper (American Sniper) and Steve Carell (Foxcatcher)
David Oyelowo is a glaring omission for his powerful and human portrayal of Martin Luther King, Jr. in Selma. But let’s shift gears to a different type of performance: the strong, but silent type.
It’s been floated around on some award-tracking sites that this has been one of the best years for the Best Actor race in a long time. But Joaquin Phoenix and Oscar Isaac have both gotten the shaft two years straight—Phoenix last year for Her, Isaac for Inside Llewyn Davis. The committee usually loves a make-up nomination (look at Paul Giamatti for Cinderella Man after the actor was snubbed for Sideways), but neither Phoenix nor Isaac got one, even though they deserved more recognition this year for their late December films, Inherent Vice and A Most Violent Year.
In Her, The Master and now Vice, Phoenix has proven that he does some of his best work when he’s listening. In Vice his eyebrows and lips are perpetually flexed, and he is perpetually vexed as a stoned private detective. Isaac meanwhile gave a highly impressive performance in A Most Violent Year. His reaction to every violent maneuver around him was to keep his fists in his pockets, and his posture straight. Maintaining composure like that isn't flashy, but it's much more difficult than it sounds.
Best Actress
Who Got Nominated: Marion Cotillard (Two Days, One Night), Felicity Jones (The Theory of Everything), Julianne Moore (Still Alice), Rosamund Pike (Gone Girl), Reese Witherspoon (Wild)
Who Got Snubbed: Essie Davis (The Babadook), Rosario Dawson (Top Five), Scarlett Johansson (Under the Skin)
Who Should Be Dropped: Everyone but Cotillard and Pike
While it was a great year for Best Actor, this might be one of the worst years for Best Actress. That’s why Still Alice is repped here, a movie with a comparatively solid performance from Julianne Moore that was bought at a festival to take advantage of a wide-open Best Actress race. Perhaps the Academy (and the pundits) needs to reevaluate the idea that only prestige dramas (and those who appear in Best Picture nominees) can end up on their ballot because this year, so much of the best work done by actresses was in horror, comedy, sci-fi, and foreign films.
Essie Davis hit all the Oscar-worthy notes in The Babadook: grief for a dead husband, disdain for her son, and a deteriorating mind. Who cares that it all starts because of a creepy children’s pop-up book? Davis was absolutely fantastic, absolutely heartbreaking, and absolutely terrifying in the best horror movie of the year.
It would've been so rewarding to see Davis get some love, as well as Rosario Dawson and Scarlett Johansson for the great work they did in great films, regardless of genre. Honestly, this slate of nominations could use an entire overhaul.
At least Pike was able to rise above the typical thriller genre aversion with her Gone Girl nomination, but that was only achieved because we rightfully treat David Fincher as one of our great directors. His pulp can be recognized (and that’s now four films in a row that Fincher has directed a leading actor nomination). The Academy should’ve followed suit and filled out more of the category that way.
Best Supporting Actor
Who Got Nominated: Robert Duvall (The Judge), Ethan Hawke (Boyhood), Edward Norton (Birdman), Mark Ruffalo (Foxcatcher), J.K. Simmons (Whiplash)
Who Got Snubbed: Cedric the Entertainer (Top Five)
Who Should Be Dropped: Robert Duvall (The Judge)
Speaking of roles that don’t hit the Academy's particular wheelhouse and therefore go under-praised, Cedric the Entertainer was hilarious, disgusting, and totally worthy of best supporting actor praise for being the “motherfucking man in Houston” in Top Five. If Melissa McCarthy can get a nomination for shitting in a sink while wearing a gown in Bridesmaids, surely there’s room for Cedric the Entertainer busting like a volcano after stealing (and not paying for) Chris Rock’s double lady company. Duvall, you've had a great career, but Cedric is the motherfuckin' man.
Best Supporting Actress
Who Got Nominated: Patricia Arquette (Boyhood), Laura Dern (Wild), Keira Knightley (The Imitation Game), Emma Stone (Birdman), Meryl Streep (Into the Woods)
Who Got Snubbed: Tilda Swinton (Snowpiercer)
Who Should Be Dropped: Meryl Streep (Into the Woods)
Supporting roles is the one place where Oscar usually allows some occasional genre fare to crash the party, so it’s disappointing that Tilda Swinton didn’t really have a shot with Snowpiercer. As the androgynous enforcer of the elite who’ve quarantined the poorest survivors on a shared train, she’s quick to switch sides if it means keeping her creature comforts. Fittingly creature-like, Swinton shows her fragility by removing her dentures and doing a whole bunch of other messed up shit. It’s the exact kind of messy, playful performance that would inject some actual fun into this category. Instead, the lazy Academy decided that Meryl Strep needs to be nominated every time she acts. That's now 19 nominations for her.
Best Original Screenplay
Who Got Nominated: Birdman, Boyhood, Foxcatcher, The Grand Budapest Hotel, Nightcrawler
Who Got Snubbed: Force Majeure
Who Should Be Dropped: Foxcatcher
Ever since the Oscars expanded the Best Picture race to up-to ten nominees in 2010, Academy members have been exceedingly less adventurous when filling out the rest of their ballot. They lazily refer to whatever seven-to-ten films they chose to represent Best Picture to fill in most of the nominations in the other categories (except when it comes to Selma, which WHY!?). The biggest loser from this has been foreign film.
Historically, foreign films that couldn’t land in the Best Picture race fared much better by getting recognized with a nomination in the screenplay category. But in the six years since the Academy expanded the Picture field, only two foreign films (A Separation and Amour) have been able to claw their way into the 60 screenplay slots over that time frame. The old model approach of bestowing five Best Picture nominees forced voters to choose more films to herald. And the talky, funny, gender role-attacking Swedish film, Force Majeure might’ve rightfully been placed here. But apparently, voters didn’t care for (or see) the film, since it didn’t even pop up in the Best Foreign Language Film category. SMH.
Best Adapted Screenplay
Who Got Nominated: American Sniper, The Imitation Game, Inherent Vice, The Theory of Everything, Whiplash
Who Got Snubbed: Gone Girl
Who Should Be Dropped: American Sniper
It’s very surprising that Gone Girl didn’t land here. Need any more evidence that the Oscars are a boys club? Look at the screenplay categories—every single film focuses on a male character. Any of the narrative problems of Gone Girl go back to the book (and the film was adapted by its author, Gillian Flynn), but if there is one scene that will be a classic from 2014 it’s in here. You know the one. And so does this year's Oscar host, Neil Patrick Harris.