The Oscars continue to be a point of contention, and with so many fantastic movies produced every year, the Academy can't reach a conclusion that satisfies everyone. However, sometimes it feels like certain types of movies will continue to be overlooked and are destined to remain snubbed, despite their obvious quality.
Theses are often genre films, such as sci-fi, which continually fail to receive the recognition they deserve. While things are getting better, the Academy has a long and storied history of ignoring these excellent and influential films. With this in mind, here are 10 fantastic science-fiction films that were snubbed by the Oscars.
Eternal Sunshine Of The Spotless Mind
While it's true that Jim Carrey wasn't even nominated. It could be argued that his performance as Joel Barish is the best of his career, and his heartfelt and emotionally rich performance was undoubtedly one of the best of the year.
However, both Bafta and the Golden Globes did recognize Carrey's great work, where he received nominations alongside his co-star. While Carrey is an excellent comedic performer, his work in more dramatic roles brings out an entirely different side of his characters, and like many comedians, he thrives in these serious parts.
2001: A Space Odyessy
The Oscars don't always get it right, and in 1969, at the 41st Academy Awards, Stanley Kubrick's best films.
While the film was nominated Best Director, Best Writing, and Best Art Direction, other aspects of its production went overlooked, including its score, sound design, and beautiful cinematography. 2001's win that night marked the first and only time Kubrick took home an Oscar throughout his entire career, despite numerous nominations. While it's not all about the awards and his films stand up on their own, it would have been nice to see him receive more recognition.
Blade Runner
Blade Runner presented a vision of the future unlike anything seen before and its influence continues to be felt today, but it was tragically overlooked by the Oscars and only picked up a mere two nominations and failed to win either award.
Harrison Ford's fantastic portrayal of Rickard Deckard wasn't enough to earn him a nomination, or any other member of the cast. Blade Runner's score was also overlooked. However, Bafta showered the film with eight nominations and awarded it three awards. The huge disparity between organizations goes to show how subjective these nominations are.
WALL-E
Although WALL-E indeed received numerous nominations at the Academy Awards, the fact that it only took home one award is telling. Being both a sci-fi film and an animated movie, WALL-E had the deck stacked against it more than most, with both science-fiction and animation continually overlooked. WALL-E took home the Oscar for Best Animated feature, not uncommon for Pixar who constantly produced outstanding movies, but failed to win any of the other five awards it was nominated for that night.
The award for Best Animated Feature was first awarded in 2002 and continues to be a point of contention, where outstanding animated films would previously receive nominations for Best Picture, they are now sidelined to this other award. WALL-E remains one of Pixar's best and most unique films and not only did it deserve more wins, but it also deserved to be nominated for Best Picture.
Moon
Made on a tiny budget of only $5 million, Sam Rockwell not being nominated, who delivers one of the finest and most complex performances of his career as an isolated astronaut becoming undone by his three-year stay on The Moon.
While the film was never going to take home the award for Best Visual Effects, there are plenty of areas the film shines and deserved more recognition. Giving the spotlight to the small production would have, no doubt, done a lot for the film and boosted its viewership.
V For Vendetta
Based upon the graphic novel of the same name, 2005's V For Vendetta presented a dystopian future like nothing ever seen before and starred Hugo Weaving and Natalie Portman, who deliver two of the best performances of their esteemed careers. Despite their outstanding performances, both actors failed to receive a nomination.
Also, V For Vendetta received no Oscar nominations whatsoever, not uncommon for a comic book movie, which during this period continually failed to receive recognition. While things are certainly changing for the better, genre movies such as this continue to be overlooked in favor of more traditional films.
The Thing
The Thing's influence continues to be felt today and its monstrous alien is undoubtedly one of the most iconic monsters in horror movie history. However, upon its release, not only did The Thing received mixed reviews, it also failed to earn any Oscar nominations. To add salt to The Thing's wounds, while it failed to earn an Oscar nomination, it did earn a Razzie nomination for its score.
The real tragedy is its brilliant special effects, which more than deserved recognition, While that year was a strong year for visual effects with both E.T and Blade Runner receiving nominations, The Thing was not nominated and deserved a place alongside them. While it may have been sidelined in its time, The Thing has gone done in history as one of the best sci-fi-horror movies in history.
A Quiet Place
Horror movies also continue to struggle to gain the recognition they deserve, and so A Quiet Place's combo of sci-fi and horror gave it an even more difficult task of receiving the recognition it rightfully deserved. While the film did receive one nomination for its sound editing, all other aspects of the film were completely ignored.
The film's often silent and tense atmosphere made it one of the most unique movies of the year and forced A Quiet Place to pay extra attention to its sound design. In addition to this, not one member of the cast received a nomination, all of who go through large sections of the movie without being able to speak and must deliver their performances entirely through their actions.
Annihilation
Annihilation remains one of the most unique science-fiction films of recent memory and sees a team of women head into a mysterious alien glimmer, from which no one has ever returned. The film offers some of the most interesting and distinct visuals of any science-fiction tale and it's surreal and introspective story saw it receive rave reviews.
However, it failed to receive any recognition from the Academy for its visual effects, which range from the beautiful to the terrifying, or for Natalie Portman's outstanding performance as Lene, which remains one of her best to date.
Logan
Superhero movies continue to be ignored by the Oscars, with only the most serious and grounded movies managing to receive anything other than the obligatory Best Visual Effects nomination. While Hugh Jackman failed to receive a nomination for his final performance as Logan.
Jackman shows a different side to Wolverine in his final outing as the iconic character and leaves the Stephen Merchant, and Dafne Keen, all of who failed to earn any recognition.
