Every year since the Academy Awards were invented, somebody has been overlooked, ignored, passed over, disregarded or brushed off. You know what they say about beauty and beholders.
But perceived Oscar omissions — snubs, as we have come to call them — have grown into a frenzied annual conversation, with people left off the nomination list, or nominated but denied a statuette, sometimes receiving as much attention, or more, as those who win. “Barbie” was nominated for eight Academy Awards, but Greta Gerwig’s exclusion from the best director lineup has been the headline (never mind that she is in the running for adapted screenplay). The academy and ABC, which will broadcast the Oscars on Sunday, have been promoting the show with a commercial that pointedly references the lapse.
“I know a few of you are feeling snubbed by the Oscars,” Judd Apatow, host of this year’s Directors Guild of America Awards, said from the stage. “I know how you feel,” he continued, pointing out that he was overlooked for “The 40-Year-Old Virgin,” “Knocked Up” and “Trainwreck.” He explained: “I’ve never even been mentioned in the articles about the people who got snubbed. That’s a double snub! Next time, I’m going to hire a publicist to just get mentioned in articles about who got screwed — a snublicist.”
Snubs can be a serious matter. The #OscarsSoWhite outcries from 2015 and 2016, prompted by all-white slates of acting nominees, led the academy to diversify its membership.But there was also truth in Apatow’s tease: In many ways, the rise of the snub can be traced to Hollywood publicists and modern Oscar electioneering.
Studios have always campaigned for Oscars. In the 1990s, however, Harvey Weinstein turned the pursuit into a blood sport. The game evolved to include squadrons of publicists who, starting months before the ceremony, whisper in the ears of journalists about which actors, directors, writers and other artists are front-runners. Pundits pontificate. Articles are written and rankings posted on sites like Gold Derby. Fans continue the conversation on X and Instagram.
This creates expectations.
“The proliferation of so many other honors and awards and telecasts has also created this sense that there is room for everyone,” said Dave Karger, a Turner Classic Movies host and the author of “50 Oscar Nights.” Karger said he loathed the word “snub,” which makes omissions “sound like a personal attack, when really it’s just math.”
Because vote counts are secret, added Tony Angellotti, a veteran publicist and awards campaigner, “we never know how close one comes to being a nominee or a winner.” (Fun fact: The Variety magazine online archive goes back to 1913. In a search, “snub,” as related to an award, first appears in 1965: “Bob Hope Stunned by Another Emmy Snub.” It doesn’t appear again until 1993.) Some people in Hollywood dismiss snubs as the invention of a clickbait-focused news media. “I think it’s tawdry to play the snub game!” film historian Sam Wasson said in an email. “Not everyone wins. Not everyone is nominated. This brings a lot of anger — mostly to those not in the movie business.”
Still, as soon as the Oscars are over on Sunday night, you can be sure that Hollywood phones will start to ring with gleeful schadenfreude. Can you believe so-and-so lost? Snubbed.
These are the 25 true snubs and unjust losses that New York Times film critics, columnists, writers and editors still can’t get over.
Do the Right Thing’ for Best Picture (1990)
Actual winner: “Driving Miss Daisy”
Some people hated this movie. Others, more ominously, feared it, or claimed to. News articles and reviews imagined riots sprouting in its wake (they never came), seeing in the character of Mookie — who, in a fit of righteous fury, smashes a pizzeria window in the film’s famous climax — confirmation of Spike Lee’s insidious intent. Did academy voters have similar misgivings? Lee, who was shut out of the directing category, did receive a nomination for his screenplay, suggesting at least one branch of the organization had his back. (Danny Aiello was also nominated for supporting actor.) But it’s hard to look at the eventual best picture winner, “Driving Miss Daisy” — a film in which Morgan Freeman plays Hoke Colburn, the patient chauffeur of a bigoted, elderly white woman — and not see a statement of preference. In 1990, it was the Hoke Colburns of the world, not the Mookies, who were welcome on the academy’s biggest stage. — REGGIE UGWU, pop culture reporter
Marilyn Monroe, ‘Some Like It Hot,’ for Best Actress (1960)
Actual winner: Simone Signoret, “Room at the Top”
One truism about the academy is that it’s too, well, Hollywood to recognize genius — like Marilyn Monroe’s turn as Sugar Kane in “Some Like It Hot” (1959). Directed by Billy Wilder, it tracks two musicians (Tony Curtis and Jack Lemmon) who, after witnessing a massacre, slip into drag and hide in an all-woman’s band. Sugar is the group’s chanteuse; Monroe is the film’s tremulous heart and soul.
Monroe’s myriad problems helped make for a famously troubled set, but movies aren’t produced in isolation. Curtis compared kissing her to kissing Hitler, and some of Wilder’s later comments about her are startlingly nasty. None of this tension is evident in Monroe’s performance, which is sublime, so of course the academy ignored it. “Some Like It Hot” received six nominations, though not for best actress (it won for costumes). Nobody’s perfect, but Monroe comes close. — MANOHLA DARGIS, chief film critic
‘The Dark Knight’ for Best Picture (2009)
Actual winner: “Slumdog Millionaire”
The Oscars often get a bum rap for excluding hit action films from the best picture race, but one blockbuster snub proved so seismic that it changed the contours of the category entirely. In 2009, when Christopher Nolan’s “The Dark Knight” failed to make a best-picture lineup that included the middling dramas “Frost/Nixon” and “The Reader,” the outcry was so loud that the academy changed its rules the very next year to expand the number of nominees from five to 10. The result? A best-picture category that more often includes populist fare and the occasional superhero films alongside the usual prestige dramas. — KYLE BUCHANAN, The Projectionist columnist
Barbra Streisand, ‘Prince of Tides,’ for Best Director (1992)
Actual winner: Jonathan Demme, “The Silence of the Lambs”
Barbra Streisand is a two-time Oscar winner (for best actress and original song), but the academy still loves to rain on her parade. She won best director at the Golden Globes for “Yentl” (1983). At the Oscars? No nomination. But that didn’t sting as much as when she was passed over for directing “The Prince of Tides.” Since her drama about a man reeling from trauma was nominated in seven other categories, including best picture, the snub was taken as a sign of how hard it is for female directors to get the recognition they deserve — even when they’re as famous as Barbra Streisand. — ESTHER ZUCKERMAN, film journalist
Alfred Hitchcock, ‘Vertigo,’ for Best Director (1959)
Actual winner: Vincente Minnelli, “Gigi”
When it comes to the master of suspense, the biggest shocks in his career might be just how frequently he was overlooked by the academy. A filmmaker who consistently operated at a level of craft high above many who have ever practiced it, he was passed over for director Oscars each of the five times he was nominated. And in the case of what many have argued was his finest work, not even nominated at all. “Vertigo,” a film that will always haunt my consciousness and has teetered at the top of critics’ all-time lists for decades, was not in the director running in 1959 (it only got two nominations, for sound and art direction). The fact that Vincente Minnelli won that year for “Gigi” might be enough to make you dizzy. — MEKADO MURPHY, assistant film editor
David Oyelowo, ‘Selma,’ for Best Actor (2015)
Actual winner: Eddie Redmayne, “The Theory of Everything”
Oscar voters love nothing more than a transformative biopic performance, so when David Oyelowo failed to earn a best-actor nod for the Martin Luther King Jr. drama “Selma” in 2015, a year when all 20 acting nominations went to white actors, the glaring optics led the activist April Reign to coin the hashtag #OscarsSoWhite. The very next year, the Oscars once again snubbed actors of color and Reign’s hashtag resurfaced with a vengeance, prompting the academy to make long-overdue changes to diversify its voting body. — BUCHANAN
‘In the Mood for Love’ for Best Picture (2001)
Actual winner: “Gladiator”
There are movies and songs, books and paintings about the most timeless of subjects: love and heartbreak, longing and desire. And then there’s “In the Mood for Love,” Wong Kar-wai’s masterpiece. Every frame feels as if it is, in real time, inventing the very concept of romance — all without capturing a single kiss! But the academy was too cloistered to recognize those sensuous wisps of smoke and steam wrapped around this Hong Kong love story and shut the film out entirely: Nothing for Wong, the sumptuous cinematography or Maggie Cheung’s sensitive performance. — BRANDON YU, film journalist
Charlie Chaplin, ‘City Lights,’ for Best Actor (1931)
Actual winner: Lionel Barrymore, “A Free Soul”
“City Lights” was a silent comedy released a full four years after “The Jazz Singer” and the subsequent takeover of talkies, which may explain why the academy did not bestow a single Oscar nomination on this pitch-perfect mixture of comedy and pathos. But that’s no excuse for ignoring Chaplin’s magnificent performance, culminating in one of cinema’s greatest close-ups, in which his Little Tramp encounters the blind girl whose sight he restored — the slightest nod, a warm expression, a flood of emotion and a reminder that great acting does not require the use of words. — JASON BAILEY, film journalist
Adam Sandler, ‘Uncut Gems,’ for Best Actor (2020)
Actual winner: Joaquin Phoenix, “Joker”
Adam Sandler whipped out some serious chops for “Uncut Gems,” in which he plays a fast-talking jeweler addicted to gambling, pulled as tight as an overstretched rubber band and on the verge of snapping. It’s a stunning performance that somehow seems just right for a guy known largely for goofier comic roles, and Sandler picked up some steam over awards season, including an Independent Spirit honor. But the academy didn’t even nominate him, settling ultimately on Joaquin Phoenix for his “Joker” performance. — ALISSA WILKINSON, movie critic
Pam Grier, ‘Jackie Brown,’ for Best Actress (1998)
Actual winner: Helen Hunt, “As Good as It Gets”
If Pam Grier had been nominated for best actress in Quentin Tarantino’s “Jackie Brown,” it would have been a triumphant moment for a film icon. Unfortunately, we don’t live in a world where the academy is that cool; instead, it routinely overlooks the contributions of Black performers. Tarantino cast Grier, a blaxploitation legend, as the title character in his Elmore Leonard adaptation about a flight attendant caught in a bind. While her co-star Robert Forster got a supporting actor nomination, Grier was overlooked in a year when the Oscars went gaga for “Titanic.” — ZUCKERMAN
‘We Don’t Talk About Bruno’ for Best Original Song (2022)
Actual winner: “No Time to Die”
Sometimes studios snub themselves. In 2021, Disney chose not to submit the “Encanto” earworm “We Don’t Talk About Bruno” for best song. The rules allow multiple entries per film, but Disney submitted only the Spanish-language ballad “Dos Oruguitas.” The studio, consulting with Lin-Manuel Miranda, who wrote both tunes, decided that “Dos Oruguitas” had the best chance of winning. It was serious (unlike “Bruno”), moved the plot ahead and showcased diversity, an ultrahot topic with voters at the time. Disney also worried about splitting votes. “Dos Oruguitas” lost to the far more popular “No Time to Die” (popularity matters!) by Billie Eilish and Finneas O’Connell. — BROOKS BARNES, Hollywood reporter
Ben Affleck, ‘Argo,’ for Best Director (2013)
Actual winner: Ang Lee, “Life of Pi”
Affleck’s snub for best director may have been a result of doing his job too well. “Argo” is a tricky mixture of political thriller, Hollywood satire and action-adventure, requiring deft juggling of potentially incongruent tones and styles, and modulating the performances of a large ensemble cast (including himself). Yet Affleck pulls it together with seemingly effortless professionalism and verve. The shock that he was not rewarded with even a nomination may have ultimately worked in the film’s favor in other categories. Affleck, as one of the producers, ended up taking home an Oscar for best picture. — BAILEY
Jennifer Lopez, ‘Hustlers,’ for Best Supporting Actress (2020)]
Actual winner: Laura Dern, “Marriage Story”
Whenever “Hustlers” works, it works because of Lopez, as the top earner at a strip club who masterminds a plan to bilk rich players out of their cash. But that’s all plot: It’s Lopez, dancing, with the kind of strength and stamina to make your eyes pop, that we really remember. Or it’s her incandescence, unwrapping in that fur coat, making space for her protege. She oozed all the charisma of one of the great pop stars of our age, garnering awards from critics’ groups and even a Golden Globe nomination. The academy left her in the cold. — WILKINSON
Song Kang Ho, ‘Parasite,’ for Best Supporting Actor (2020)
Actual winner: Brad Pitt, “Once Upon a Time ... in Hollywood”
When Bong Joon Ho’s “Parasite” became the first movie not in the English language ever to win best picture, the victory highlighted the appalling lack of nominations for its stars, especially the chameleon-like South Korean star Song Kang Ho. In his engrossing performance as the patriarch of an impoverished but scheming household, Song’s nonchalant effervescence slowly morphs into rage as the experience of chauffeuring a wealthy man ultimately drives him to violence. His complex turn steers this class satire that academy members adored, but they still ignored him. — CARLOS AGUILAR, film journalist
Martin Scorsese, ‘Taxi Driver,’ for Best Director (1977)
Actual winner: John G. Avildsen, “Rocky”
This disturbing story of a dangerously alienated Vietnam veteran at loose ends on the streets of 1970s New York originated with its screenwriter, Paul Schrader. But it’s Martin Scorsese’s unflinching vision (and unhinged cameo) that makes a city on edge feel palpable and the terrible events inescapable. The film demanded attention, and it did land four nominations, including best actor for Robert De Niro’s pretty vacant cabbie and supporting actress for Jodie Foster’s preteen prostitute. But where would they be without Scorsese’s eye? The academy didn’t want to know. It went with John G. Avildsen for “Rocky” instead. — STEPHANIE GOODMAN, film editor
‘Hoop Dreams’ for Best Documentary Feature (1995)
Actual winner: “Maya Lin: A Strong Clear Vision”
Omitting “Hoop Dreams,” about two high school athletes aiming for the NBA, from a list of the greatest documentaries of all time would be a huge oversight, full stop. But not even nominating Steve James’ monumental work — which Roger Ebert described as “one of the best films about American life I have ever seen”? The oversight was egregious enough to prompt an internal academy audit of votes. It also may have played a part in the retirement of a certain outlandish nomination process that involved voters with flashlights. — YU
Jim Carrey, ‘The Truman Show,’ for Best Actor (1999)
Actual winner: Roberto Benigni, “Life Is Beautiful”
Academy voters loved to reward comic actors who showed their versatility in dramatic roles — witness Tom Hanks for “Philadelphia” and Robin Williams for “Good Will Hunting.” The latter win came just a year before the rubber-faced slapstick Carrey went respectable in Peter Weir’s comedy-drama, with a performance that wisely turned down the volume on his broad antics but retained his considerable charisma, while adding brushstrokes of melancholy and discovery. But academy voters were apparently too hung up on the image of Carrey talking out of his hindquarters and left him empty-handed. — BAILEY
THE UNJUST LOSSES
It’s not always an honor just to be nominated.
1995 | Best Picture
‘Pulp Fiction’
Winner: ‘Forrest Gump’
This predictable outcome (the earnest “Forrest Gump” won) is evidence that with the Oscars, unlike a box of chocolates, you often know exactly what you’re going to get. — UGWU
1986 | Best Picture
‘The Color Purple’
Winner: ‘Out of Africa’
Whoopi Goldberg gave the performance of her career. Oprah Winfrey did, too. Both should have won. End of story. — MURPHY
2006 | Best Picture
‘Brokeback Mountain’
Winner: ‘Crash’Put aside the wrong done to Ang Lee’s indelible story of heartbreak — for any nominee to lose best picture to “Crash” of all movies is reason to question the very ideals of democracy. — YU
1988 | Best Actress
Glenn Close, ‘Fatal Attraction’
Winner: Cher, ‘Moonstruck’She’s now at eight losses, but she should have at least collected a little gold man for this iconic performance. Even Susan Lucci has won once. — GOODMAN
2019 | Best Picture
‘Roma’
Winner: ‘Green Book’Against their better judgment, sometimes people choose a reheated, unhealthy snack that doesn’t challenge their palates, instead of a gourmet meal of international cuisine. — AGUILAR
1997 | Best Supporting Actress
Lauren Bacall, ‘The Mirror Has Two Faces’
Winner: Juliette Binoche, ‘The English Patient’Be nice to the little people on your way up: Lauren Bacall, who rubbed a lot of people in moviedom the wrong way (to put it mildly), lost to Juliette Binoche, the affable “English Patient” star. One awards publicist recalled of Bacall, who died in 2014, “She once whacked me twice with her perfume-filled purse because I accidentally bumped into her.” — BARNES
1969 | Best Picture‘2001: A Space Odyssey’
Winner: ‘Oliver!’
When loved ones are in danger of taking the Oscars too seriously, try this simple intervention: Remind them that Stanley Kubrick’s “2001: A Space Odyssey” — one of the most influential films in history, and which has inspired both Greta Gerwig and Christopher Nolan — received just four nominations and a single award (for special visual effects ... won by Kubrick). — DARGIS
1993 | Best Actor
Denzel Washington, ‘Malcolm X’
Winner: Al Pacino, ‘Scent of a Woman’Look, the “career achievement Oscar, given for a lesser performance” is a tale as old as time for academy watchers, but that’s still no excuse for passing over Washington’s thorny, brilliant performance for Al Pacino’s broad, scenery-chewing caricature. — BAILEY
The New York Times News Service
