The biggest snubs and surprises from the 2024 Oscar nominations

Greta Gerwig has received a lot of credit, culturally, for crafting one of the most unique blockbusters of the modern era. But the Academy isn’t giving her credit for directing it. Gerwig and her partner Noah Baumbach were nominated for Best Adapted Screenplay for Barbie, but Gerwig was snubbed in the directing category. While she was previously recognized in that category for her debut feature Lady Bird, she was also snubbed in 2020 for her adaptation of Little Women, a film that, like Barbie, was nominated for Best Picture but somehow missed the Best Director nomination. [Mary Kate Carr]

How does the Barbie movie get nine nominations and none of them are for Barbie herself? Margot Robbie will attend the 2024 Oscars as a producer of the year’s biggest film, but she was snubbed in the Best Actress category. What makes this sting more is that her co-stars Ryan Gosling and America Ferrera both received nominations in the supporting categories. Those are fine performances, to be sure, but Barbie is, obviously, the core of the film. If they’re being recognized, so too should Robbie for developing the interior life of a plastic doll right before our eyes. [Mary Kate Carr]

We already wrote about how Oppenheimer is squeezing Killers Of The Flower Moon out of Oscar contention, but this particular snub proves just how on the nose that prediction was. KOTFM’s screenplay, written by Martin Scorsese and Eric Roth, is a sweeping, nearly four-hour adaptation of David Grann’s book of the same name, simultaneously telling the story of one doomed relationship and an entire community. Any other year, it would have been a shoo-in, but in 2024 the competition was simply too strong. [Emma Keates]

In yet another example of Oppenheimer outpacing Killers Of The Flower Moon, Leonardo DiCaprio failed to score a Lead Actor nomination for his portrayal of Ernest Burkhart, the greedy, bumbling foil to Lily Gladstone’s Mollie Burkhart. While he wouldn’t have beat frontrunners like Cillian Murphy or Paul Giamatti for the statue, DiCaprio still turned in a respectable performance—one clearly outside his comfort zone—that deserves recognition. [Emma Keates]

Nyad is exactly the type of film that gets derisively referred to as “Oscar bait” and Annette Benning is pretty overdue for an Oscar (love it or hate it, she was one of American Beauty’s only losses back at the 2000 ceremony). All this considered, it’s not totally surprising to see her name here, but considering the film and the people she shut out for the spot, it’s a bit jarring. [Drew Gillis]

While we all knew Barbie would be well represented on the Original Song list (they scored 2 noms for “I’m Just Ken” and Billie Eilish’s “What Was I Made For?”), it would have been nice to see a little love for Eilish’s peer, Olivia Rodrigo, as well. Rodrigo’s “Can’t Catch Me Now,” which she wrote for The Hunger Games: The Ballad Of Songbirds And Snakes, is a soaring ballad that remains as listenable on its own as it is in the context of the film. Regardless, it’s clear Rodrigo has a long and successful songwriting career ahead of her. [Emma Keates]

Ridley Scott’s massive historic epic Napoleon didn’t get a lot of love this season, which … isn’t all that surprising. But while the script and performances are all a little anachronistic, the film did look beautiful. Costume designers Janty Yates and Dave Crossman took huge strides to make the movie feel natural and immersive and it’s nice to see that effort recognized. The film also scored well-deserved nominations in the Visual Effects and Production Design categories. [Emma Keates]

Films with big, star-studded ensemble casts did well this year—except for Wes Anderson’s Asteroid City. Released earlier in the summer to less fanfare than the Barbenheimer craze, Anderson’s latest (which starred Jason Schwartzman, Tom Hanks, Scarlett Johansson, and more) somehow managed to fly under the radar. The film received zero Oscar nominations—no acting, no production design, nothing. Anderson did, however, get the nod for his Netflix short film The Wonderful Story Of Henry Sugar, so he does not go completely unrepresented at the 2024 Academy Awards. [Mary Kate Carr]

After all the love heaped on Fallen Leaves at the Golden Globes, it was a bit surprising to see it completely shut out by the Academy. Sure, Alma Pöysti may not have had much of a shot in the already super-competitive best actress category, but Leaves didn’t even get a nomination in the Best Foreign Language category. The Taste Of Things, which France submitted over Anatomy Of A Fall for the category (and a favorite of this writer) was also cruelly ignored. [Drew Gillis]

In a year where everything Ayo Edebiri touched turned to gold, her voice acting in Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Mutant Mayhem didn’t help the movie cross the Oscars finish line. The Seth Rogen-produced film clearly owes stylistic inspiration to Spider-Man: Into The Spider-Verse, but it didn’t benefit from the innovation or hype that movie got—especially since it had to compete in the Best Animated Feature category against the Spider-Verse sequel. Despite a fair amount of critical acclaim, the movie missed out on an Oscar nomination in a tough category that included heavy hitters like Spider-Verse, Pixar’s Elemental, and Hayao Miyazaki’s The Boy And The Heron. [Mary Kate Carr]

While Past Lives failed to score nominations for Greta Lee in the Best Actress race, and failed to secure nominations Best Director or Best Actor categories, the film still got a surprising and welcome nomination in the biggest category of all, Best Picture. In a year so defined by huge blockbusters like Barbie and Oppenheimer, it’s nice to see a quieter, lovely film like Past Lives make a little noise as well. [Emma Keates]

It’s always nice to see an unexpected name pop up in a nomination list, and Sterling K. Brown’s work in American Fiction is certainly deserving of a shout. Still, this nomination is notable considering how fierce the competition surrounding this particular prize was this year. May December’s Charles Melton, Poor Things’ Willem Dafoe and The Holdovers’ Dominic Sessa all turned in exemplary performances in their respective films, but couldn’t quite make the cut. With only five spots up for grabs, this one is always filled with big swings and surprising snubs. [Emma Keates]

It’s a murder on the Academy floor. Saltburn, Emerald Fennell’s wildly divisive film, didn’t score a single nomination this year despite generating a lot of heat online. While acting nominations for Barry Keoghan, Rosamund Pike, or Jacob Elordi would have been a welcome surprise, there won’t be any bathtub clips playing from the Oscars stage. That’s probably for the best. [Emma Keates]

Early in awards season, it looked like May December’s Charles Melton was a shoo-in for the Supporting Actor category, earning a spate of critic-forward trophies (and a Gotham Award) and nominations for the Critics Choice Awards, Independent Spirit Awards, and Golden Globes. Unfortunately, the Academy must be prejudiced against Riverdale alumni, because Melton didn’t receive a nomination for the 2024 Oscars. Or maybe it’s May December’s subject matter—the nature of predators, and the film industry’s involvement with them—that the Academy was rejecting, because director Todd Haynes and stars Natalie Portman and Julianne Moore were also snubbed. Beyond a screenplay nomination for Samy Burch, the Netflix movie was shut out altogether. [Mary Kate Carr]

On the surface, Elemental getting nominated for Best Animated Feature is not a huge surprise. It’s a Pixar movie, after all, and Pixar holds the records for most nominations in the category. But Elemental opened to lukewarm reviews, and was widely regarded as one of the studio’s most lackluster offerings in recent years. Nevertheless, it was still one of the biggest animated releases in 2023, and Pixar has enough goodwill to nab another nod. [Mary Kate Carr]

It’s not just that Michael J. Fox is one of Hollywood’s most likable guys, and that alone seemed to give Still: A Michael J. Fox Movie good odds for a Best Documentary Feature Oscar nomination. What also makes this a snub is that Still was critically acclaimed (currently sitting at 99% on Rotten Tomatoes) and already won awards, including the Primetime Emmy for Outstanding Documentary Or Nonfiction Special. Maybe it was the blurring of lines between television and film feature, or maybe it was the film’s sentimental core (following Fox in his Parkinson’s journey), but Still was snubbed in its category. [Mary Kate Carr]