With major accolades and just as many (if not more) complaints, the nominations for the 95th Academy Awards are finally out.
Oscar hopefuls to embrace fan-favorite blockbusters got their wish Tuesday as Joseph Kosinski’s “Top Gun: Maverick” and James Cameron’s “Avatar: The Way of Water,” both sequels, entered the tight race for best picture. . . Their competitors include Martin McDonagh’s The Banshees of Inisherin, Baz Luhrmann’s Elvis, Steven Spielberg’s The Fabelmans, Todd Field’s LIBRARY, Ruben Östlund’s Triangle of Sadness, Sarah Polley’s Women Talking, Edward Berger’s . Quiet on the Western Front,” and Dan Kwan and Daniel Scheinert’s “Everything Everywhere All at Once,” which leads the major competition with 11 Oscar nominations.
The films that didn’t get nominated are just as interesting as the ones that did. Although Polley’s Amish drama made it to the top prize, women were once again shut out of the Best Direction category. Worse, Gina saw Prince-Bythewood’s box office success and critical meltdown completely frozen.
“It’s shocking to see crowd-pleaser ‘The Woman King’ come up empty-handed, with not even Oscar winner Viola Davis in the Best Actress category,” writes IndieWire’s Marcus Jones of Prince-Bythewood’s widely praised epic historical drama. “A number of factors may have contributed to the debacle, from a bias against action films in Best Picture to a last-minute grassroots campaign by Andrea Riseborough that likely knocked out perennial contender Viola Davis.” Other black films excluded from the Oscars include Jordan Peele’s “No” and Chinonye Chukwu’s “Till.”
Park Chan-wook’s “Decision to Leave” (Korea’s entry) and Davy Chou’s “Return to Seoul” (Cambodia’s entry) were also not recognized in the Best International Feature Film competition. That puts “All Quiet on the Western Front” (Germany’s entry) in position to win two major awards if it were to win Best Picture.
Of course, this is only a fraction of what is still shaking out of Tuesday’s nominations. Without further ado — culled from a combination of IndieWire’s favorites and past predictions before the Academy’s announcement — here are 26 great movies that the 2023 Oscars completely snubbed.
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