If you’re like me, this time of the year is when you catch up on all the great movies you might have missed from the last year. Oscar nominations come out and I make my way through the list of nominated films, starting with those I haven’t seen that have the most nominations and working my way down. However, with the 2024 nominations being announced earlier this morning, I wanted to make a quick post and shout out some of the fallen soldiers who were nominated for 0 Academy Awards.

Movies I Recommend That Were Not Nominated

Are You There God? It’s Me Margaret

My fourth favorite film of the year got NO LOVE at the Oscars. In a year with a really strong Best Actress category, I would actually find a spot for Rachel McAdams in my personal ballot this year. Alas, she was running in the weaker Best Supporting Actress category and still got no love. Criminal. Check this out if you like a good coming of age story.

Asteroid City

My sixth favorite movie also got nothing. I really thought Wes would slip in somewhere, but I guess the academy wasn’t feeling it. I thought this movie was incredibly charming and carries with it some powerful ideas and themes. Check this out if you like the Wes Anderson aesthetic and a good, thoughtful story.

John Wick 4

This movie does not have powerful ideas and themes. This movie has one idea – Keanu Reeves looks cool as fuck when he is shooting people with a gun. This idea is, of course, correct and this movie should be checked out expeditiously by anyone who likes action.

Beau is Afraid

The softest recommendation I can give, not because the movie isn’t good, but because it is one of the weirdest movies I have ever seen (and I watch some weird shit). Lots of things about this movie are very impressive, I love Ari Aster as a filmmaker, and I have thought a lot about this movie since I saw it. Check it out if you’re… I don’t know, if you have a complicated relationship to your mother? I’m still processing this one.

Movies I Didn’t Make It To, But Wish I Did

The following movies I regret to say I have not seen. Given that, it will be hard for me to speak intelligently about them, but I was bummed to see them not mentioned in the oscars nominations, because it makes them lest likely to find their way off of my watchlist. I will still be checking these out when I get a chance! They look great and I’ve heard great things

• The Taste of Things (huge favorite on the Big Picture)
• The Iron Claw (huge favorite on Letterboxd)
• How to Blow Up a Pipeline (interesting entry in the leftist climate anxiety genre?)
• Showing Up (an interesting concept movie about the nature of art PLUS Andre 3000, who plays flute on the score apparently)
• Blackberry (dying to see the Glenn Howerton performance that has been lauded but not nominated really for anything)
• Priscilla (Jacob Elordi, Sofia Coppola, a bit of a discovery in Cailee Spaeny, who had a shot at Actress allegedly but missed)
• Talk to Me (A24 horror, say less)
• Dream Scenario (Nicholas Cage in a weird concept movie, say less)
• All of us Strangers (I’m here for Paul Mescal)
• Passages (this is the one I’m most excited to check out, French exploration of relationships and sexuality)
• They Cloned Tyrone (overlooked Netflix blaxploitation homage)
• Bottoms (really excited about Emma Seligman and Rachel Sennot as a young director and star pairing, shades of Greta x Saoirse)
• Dumb Money (honestly I just love Paul Dano)

Movies That Were Nominated, But Still Snubbed

Barbie – No Greta, No Margot

Okay, there is a lot of discourse about this now. A lot of people seem to be pretty upset that Barbie herself was not recognized for her work in Barbie and neither was the female auteur who brought the vision for this film to life. I will say – there is some credit to the argument that this movie made a billion dollars, was critically praised, was HUGE in the culture, and was nominated for 7 Oscars against incredible odds (the general commercial nature of the film magnified by some of the product placement worked against it tremendously). It’s true, the movie got its flowers when it came out and Margot and Greta will both be fine. HOWEVER, it is really unfortunate that these two are missing out, both made my personal ballot on the Letterboxd Oscars, and it does feel weird that we recognize Gosling for his (incredible) work on this film, but not the two artists upon which the film is anchored. It’s a bummer!

Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse – No Best Picture

I knew this was a long shot and was very very unlikely to happen, but I have to mention my favorite movie of the year here, and acknowledge that the academy’s refusal to include animated films in Best Picture is frustrating. The way this film plays with the idea of who gets to decide the story that defines us is inspiring and the way it uses the meta definition of what defines Spider-Man to explore that idea is just brilliant screenwriting. Couple that with the fact that it’s one of the best looking animated movies in recent memory and an absolute lightning bolt ride of a movie and you’ve got… a disappointing omission from Best Picture. Oh well!

The Holdovers – No Dominic Sessa

Best Supporting Actor is absolutely STACKED this year, so I understand why this didn’t happen, but I’m still sad about Dominic Sessa being left out. As a total discovery (apparently he was a student at the school where they shot the film, and won the part when the casting director allowed students to audition), he gives one of the best performances of the year and is a HUGE part of the reason this movie is so effective. Plus now he’s a student at Carnegie Mellon, so that makes it even more sad that he’s skipped. Roll Tarts!

Oppenheimer – No Matt Damon

For reasons unbeknownst to me, this was never even part of the conversation. Again, we have an absolutely stacked Best Supporting Actor category this year, so it makes it tough, but I really don’t get how RDJ is a shoe in to win, and Damon is not even mentioned. It’s true that Matt Damon is in a totally different movie here than everyone else, but it’s also true that the movie desperately needed him and this performance. I truly believe this movie is instantly 25% worse if you don’t have Matt Damon doing what he’s doing in this role. Unsung, deserves to be recognized, and likely never will be. Sad!

Which is the moral of the story of all these omissions – they’re sad. We wish we could nominate everybody. At least everybody who deserves it. And perhaps there are a few people we could have replaced. But after all this is a competition and it is decided by a popular vote of filmmakers and there’s nothing us regular folks can do but write a blog about it. So here I am, and here I will remain. As I watch through the movies I’ll be covering what I think will win and what I think should win, so stay tuned for that!