“And the OSCAR won’t go to…”

If you’ve been keeping an eye on movie news lately, you’ve probably started seeing some trailers for fall and winter heavyweights. The likes of Manchester By The Sea, Queen Of Katwe, Denial, and The Birth Of A Nation are getting quite a bit of hype lately, and all look like possible Best Picture contenders.

This is what the beginning of Oscar season really looks like. While the actual awards shows don’t occur until the early months of each calendar year, it’s these months (October- December) that tend to bring about the majority of the contenders. From now through the holiday season, we’ll likely get our first look at all the films that will be under consideration for the Academy Award for Best Picture, as well as most of the other major awards.

Those select few that secure Best Picture nominations become immortalized in a certain way among film fans. However, one of the biggest stories that surrounds the Academy Awards every year is also that of which performers and movies got “snubbed.” Those projects tend to make for big stories for a few days online, but once the show comes and goes, the nominees usually prove to be the most memorable. So sometimes it’s nice to look back and remember some of the near misses or “snubs” that many thought were just as good as the Best Picture contenders! Read on for some of the most impressive Best Picture snubs from recent years….

Ex Machina

The 2016 Oscars left out a lot of films that some felt were deserving. Creed and Straight Outta Compton came up frequently, and some even thought that Star Wars: The Force Awakens deserved a Best Picture nod. But if one film sticks out as one that should have been considered, it’s Ex Machina. A haunting tale of the coming age of AI and the debate of consciousness in autonomous bodies, it had one of the year’s better scripts and was an exceptionally good-looking film.

Unfortunately, the film now seems destined to be thrown into an increasingly crowded category of AI movies, when in reality it was so much more. This article argued earlier this year that Ex Machina deserved all the Oscar nominations it could get, largely on the grounds that it just stuck with you long after you saw it. That was certainly the case for this writer.

Nightcrawler

In 2015, the Oscars came with fewer snubs, at least in the eyes of most fans and critics. But Nightcrawler was one that some felt deserved more consideration. Telling the story of a young man who dives into nighttime crime and disaster journalism, essentially chasing sirens for stories, it was breathtakingly shot and featured a career best turn from Jake Gyllenhaal. As one review put it, the film was so effective in its social commentary, and its “disembowelment of television newsgatherers,” it will leave you craving a shower. That’s an oddly powerful statement.

Rush

2014 was a loaded year in the Best Picture category, with Dallas Buyers Club, 12 Years A Slave, The Wolf Of Wall Street, and Gravity dominating the conversation. But Rush, the true story of a 1970s Formula 1 rivalry between Niki Lauda (Daniel Bruhl) and James Hunt (Chris Hemsworth), is one of the biggest snubs of the past 10 years.

It was a spectacular film in every sense, but unfortunately failed to resonate with American audiences, due in part to lack of familiarity with F1. A few years later, most Americans still know Hemsworth primarily through his role as Thor, though Rush supplied his best work. And while this site has a bingo room that appears to be designed with the film in mind, there are few other lingering attachments to the project. The bingo room, titled “Rush” as well, uses F1-like tracks to create a fun and high-stakes environment, but doesn’t directly invoke the film. But in a borderline-unfortunate sense, it’s a good representation of how the film itself has become somewhat obscure. A lot of people missed it, and it was probably one of the best of its year.

The Impossible

2013 was loaded as well. Between Argo, Lincoln, Django Unchained and several other contenders, this year’s Oscars celebrated some of the current decade’s most memorable projects. But The Impossible should have been included. A horrifyingly realistic depiction of a 2004 tsunami in Thailand, it was about the most hard-hitting true disaster film you could imagine. Naomi Watts earned a Best Actress nomination, at least, and incidentally this was the first film in which a lot of people saw Tom Holland, the boy who is now Marvel Studios’ brand-new Peter Parker/Spider-Man.

So who WILL the Oscar go to next year? We’ll have to wait until that star-studded night to find out!

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