The Biggest Snubs Of The 2020 Oscars Nominations
In case you missed it, the 2020 Oscars nominations were announced on Monday. And while there's a lot to be excited about (1917! Our queens Laura Dern and Florence Pugh!), we couldn't help but notice who is missing from the announcement. This isn't about the lack of a host, which we learned about last week (based on last year, it seems like that will be fine), but the nominations seem to stick to the Academy's comfort zone, notably shutting out highly acclaimed works in several categories. For starters, the nominations narrowly avoided #OscarsSoWhite, and despite it being a major year for female directors across the board, the Academy decided to follow the Golden Globes' controversial stance and nominate... none of them. We're excited for the talent who did receive nods for the awards, but read on to see those who should have joined them:
When the Golden Globes nominations came out, one glaring fact stood out above all the rest: despite all the acclaimed movies by female directors that came out in 2019, none of them were nominated. There was talk that the Academy would right this wrong by giving Greta Gerwig an Oscars 2020 nod for her much-talked-about take on Little Women, but this was not to be. Even if they weren't going to nominate Gerwig, there were so many other female directors to appreciate this year — Lulu Wang of The Farewell, Marielle Heller of A Beautiful Day in the Neighborhood, Lorene Scafaria of Hustlers, Alma Har'el of Honey Boy, Melina Matsoukas of Queen & Slim — that it really makes no sense to shut all of them out.
Awkwafina just won a Golden Globe for her performance in The Farewell, yet she couldn't get a nomination at the Oscars 2020, despite lots of buzz and landing on many predictions shortlists. In fact, the movie she starred in got shut out altogether, despite lots of acclaim for that too.
Whether you liked the remake of The Lion King or thought it was a weird nature documentary, it seemed that most could agree that Beyoncé's involvement was a huge asset. Aside from playing Nala, the music icon both wrote and performed Spirit for the film, and while the song got a Golden Globes nomination, Queen Bey was unfortunately missing from the Oscars 2020 list. Seriously, how could you shut Beyoncé out? Like it or not, the film made a lot of money, and her talent is a huge reason it's been successful. Plus, we don't know why you would want to actively avoid Bey and Jay-Z rolling into the ceremony with killer looks, but we digress.
J.Lo has been getting a lot of attention for her performance in Hustlers. She got nominations at the Critics' Choice Awards, the SAG Awards, and the Golden Globes, even being buzzed about as a potential winner for the latter before we learned this season was Dern's to lose. Yet despite all these acclaims, the Academy opted against recognising the triple-threat for her work, and by extension, they made the Supporting Actress category entirely white. Sad.
The Best Actress field is really tight this year, and thanks to previous awards nominations, we somewhat anticipated Lupita Nyong'o failing to receive an Oscars 2020 nod. But still, it's hard to look past how incredible her performance in Us was —playing two versions of the same person and mastering a chilling voice for one of them, she gave one of the best performances of the year.
Full disclosure that we're not the biggest superhero movie people, but we included it here for all the Marvel fans. You're welcome. Anyway, we all know how big this movie franchise is, and Endgame serves as a conclusion to the Marvel Cinematic Universe (at least for now). It's the highest-grossing film of all time, so while it did receive a nomination for visual effects, the Oscars 2020 disregarded the public view by shutting it out of the Best Picture shortlist.
While we didn't exactly expect a nod for her this time around, it's pretty rare for Meryl Streep not to get a nomination. Pugh definitely deserved the Supporting Actress slot most, but Little Women would not have been the same without Streep's entertaining performance as Aunt March. It's fine — surely, the talent will be back soon with another performance that has her making the awards rounds.
For a minute there, it seemed like Adam Sandler was reaching a new level with Uncut Gems. The crime thriller has a 92% rating on Rotten Tomatoes and proves its star, who has mainly made his name in projects that lean towards comedy, to be a talented dramatic actor. Alas, the film received zero Oscars 2020 nominations, so it seems like the world is getting Grown Ups 3: Fart Camp, after all.
