Any effort to analyze Oscar snubs and surprises will contain some degree of arbitrariness, since there are so many different ways of cutting the cake. Over the last year or so, my brother Mitchell and I have built a mathematical model that predicts both the Oscar nominations and wins. One of the really fun things we recently found that we can do with this math is to take as much of the arbitrariness out of the discussion of snubs and surprises, since it’s the Model’s job to quantify these things in direct comparison to each other in a way that is mathematically rigorous.
Still, though, one has to choose (to some extent) the data that we use to reach this conclusion. For this particular examination, I chose to look at films ranked as the likeliest nominees in their respective categories – according to our Model – that did not end up being nominated (going back to 2011). That is to say, maybe these hopefuls weren’t necessarily major heavyweights as much as other notable snubs, but they were at least the top contenders in their specific categories, in their specific years. In fact, three of these ten aren’t even the biggest snubs in their category across all the years in our Model. (I’ll draw attention to those below). There’s also the possibility that the upcoming Oscar ceremony this Sunday may result in a snub that’s so shocking, it would warrant a place on this list. Of course, that’s what makes tuning in every year so fun.
Before we get into the results, one other caveat: These results do not take the awards season timeline into consideration, meaning that the data we use for this does not necessarily reflect the exact state of the race on nomination morning, but rather that they reflect the state of things for the category when all things are said and done. (For example, a BAFTA win for a contender post-Oscar nomination snub will still affect the numbers). As we look at our top 10, I’ll go from the bottom to the top as far as most statistically surprising. Let’s dive in!
- “Project Nim,” Best Documentary Feature – 2012
(DGA win, BAFTA nomination, PGA nomination, Critics Choice nomination, NBR mention, IPA nomination, CEH nomination)
Starting this list off with a good example of the drawbacks of this method of cutting the cake: While “Project Nim” was the most likely nominee of the 2012 field, a film with its precursor haul should only enjoy a just-over-50% chance of getting nominated. It was a very weak field that year, with little consensus. To quantify it further, this snub is the 14th (!) most egregious snub in the Best Documentary category over this timespan (think “Apollo 11,” “Jane,” “Still: A Michael J. Fox Movie,” among others), but it makes our list due to its weak competition in the 2012 race. In an uncertain year, “Project Nim” was the only somewhat clear frontrunner in a hazy race – the 6th most likely film to be nominated (mathematically, it shouldn’t have even made the cut!), “Undefeated,” ended up taking home the Oscar.
- “In the Fade,” Best Foreign Language Feature – 2018
(Critics Choice win, Golden Globe win, IPA win, HCA nomination)
Germany’s 2018 submission for the Oscars and Cannes Best Actress winner Diane Kruger vehicle was the number one contender of the year in our Model, in what was a bit of an unconfident year. “In the Fade” seemed like an undeniable contender and should-be nominee, with major industry wins and nominations in the category. It ranked just barely above eventual Oscar nominees “The Square” and “Loveless,” and substantially above even eventual Oscar-winner “A Fantastic Woman” in our Model. With strong in-category industry awards performance and an acclaimed Best Actress contender as well (Kruger ranked 8th most likely for a nomination in our Model), in hindsight it looks like the surest bet of the category, but came up short for Germany receiving the Oscar nod. This is the fifth-biggest recent mathematical snub in the category; we’ll see the biggest one later in the list.
- “American Hustle,” Best Makeup and Hairstyling – 2014
(BAFTA win, Critics Choice win, MUAHS win [Period Hair])
Ah, the old days of only three nominees in Best Makeup and Hairstyling! Even with the smaller selected field, we should have all been confident in predicting “American Hustle” here. Not only did it lead the pack in the category in our Model that year, but it wasn’t especially close; number two in line was eventual Oscar winner “Dallas Buyers Club,” but it was over a full 10 percent less likely than “American Hustle.” The hair of it all (and what hair it was!) seemed to be the driving force: It was not nominated for makeup at MUAHS, where “American Hustle” won, giving an indication of the very simple rule-of-thumb that this Oscar category is more about makeup than hair in most cases. “American Hustle” is one of the most notable Oscar disappointments of recent history (going 0-for-10 in its nominated categories), and this snub makes it even more glaring.
This is also one of the three on this list that aren’t the biggest snubs in their categories across the whole history of our Model. In fact, “Rocketman’s” snub in this same category in 2020 was even more severe in our Model; but, in a very strong year, “Rocketman” was actually ranked third most likely for a nomination, behind eventual Oscar winner and nominee “Bombshell” and “Joker,” respectively.
- “La Llarona,” Best International Feature – 2021
(NBR win, HCA win, IPA win, Critics Choice nomination, Golden Globe nomination)
This one surprised me, since I remember the feeling of eventual Oscar winner “Another Round” being the far-and-away front-runner throughout the whole season. Indeed, it was extremely close; but, in our Model, the handful of smaller wins and a couple of industry nominations puts the Guatemalan entry first in line for a nomination that year. In the year of the inappropriately-placed “Minari” picking up some major precursor prizes in this category, there weren’t as many eligible awards to go around for our data, leading to this somewhat surprising inclusion on the list. But, it is a genuine snub, in fact the largest in the category going back as far back as we look; according to the math, a movie with its haul should have nearly an 85% chance of being nominated. It’s an easy one to blame on the Academy’s horror bias, but looking objectively at the math, it should have made it in.
- Lady Gaga in “House of Gucci,” Best Actress – 2022
(NYFCC win, BAFTA nomination, SAG nomination, Critics Choice nomination, Golden Globe nomination [Drama], HCA nomination, IPA nomination [Drama])
The 2022 Best Actress race sticks in my mind as one of the most uncertain and topsy-turvy acting races in recent memory. Across the major awards, the five nominees varied drastically (including at BAFTA, when no eventual Oscar-nominee was even nominated). The only actress to appear at the four big industry awards was Lady Gaga. Even though she won none of these, that consistency alone put her ahead of all the others, just barely above Oscar winner Jessica Chastain for “The Eyes of Tammy Faye.” “House of Gucci” had a rollercoaster of an awards season, and the Academy clearly wasn’t so repulsed by it as to keep it from being an Oscar nominee in general (it made it into Best Makeup and Hairstyling, as our Model predicted). One would have thought, though, that Lady Gaga would have been your surest bet to at least be nominated in the field of actresses, but no dice.
- Kathryn Bigelow for “Zero Dark Thirty,” Best Director – 2013
(NYFCC win, NBR win, DGA nomination, Critics Choice nomination, Golden Globe nomination, BAFTA nomination, LAFCA nomination, NSFC nomination, IPA nomination)
Incredibly, this season alone was responsible for the top two biggest snubs in recent Best Director history (by a significant margin). While I can’t help but feel that Ben Affleck’s snub for “Argo” is talked about more often as a historic whiff – probably because the film went on to win Best Picture – Kathryn Bigelow’s snub was (according to our Model) an even greater mathematical injustice, by a hair. Bigelow, the first woman to ever win this category and looking for her second nomination in it, had received hefty recognition from critics groups and industry groups alike, and had one of the year’s strongest movies which earned an acting nod (Chastain) and a screenwriting nomination. If there were two sure bets that year, it was these two directors, but both were passed up, allowing for Ang Lee (“Life of Pi”) to eventually become a two-time Oscar winner.
- “Whiplash,” Best Sound Editing – 2015
(BAFTA win [Sound], IPA win [Sound], MPSE nominations [Dialogue and ADR, Editing in a Musical])
While the precursor haul of “Whiplash” leaves a bit of uncertainty, it’s surprising no matter that the eventual Oscar winner of Best Sound Mixing couldn’t even manage to make it into the top five in Best Sound Editing. These categories usually avoided going totally in lockstep; but still, this kind of one-but-not-the-other is surprising. Much of the Model’s confidence in “Whiplash” in this category comes thanks to wins at both BAFTA and the IPA Satellite awards, where Sound was awarded under one single category, rather than splitting into Editing and Mixing. I’m happy to admit that a large portion of the Model’s surprise boils down to that, but it is still notable. It even garnered two nominations at the MPSE awards, which would have suggested it would be a player for the Oscar category. This haul was enough to put it at the top of the pack in our Model, above “Birdman” and eventual winner “American Sniper.” If you felt like cherry-picking data to support reinstating the two separate sound categories, pointing to “Whiplash” is a good place to look, in the case that the branch was genuinely so discerning to give it gold in one category while ignoring it entirely in the other.
- “Top Gun: Maverick,” Best Cinematography – 2023
(Critics Choice win, NBR win, HCA win, IPA win, NYFCC win, BAFTA nom, ASC nom, Camerimage nomination)
This one obviously is fresh in mind from just a couple years ago, and it was truly a shock. In the early parts of the season, “Top Gun: Maverick” performed so strongly in this category that, by the time Oscar nominations came around, it barely allowed much oxygen in the room at all for other Best Cinematography contenders to really emerge. In our Model, “Top Gun: Maverick” led the second-place “Elvis” by essentially a 20-point margin. It wasn’t even close! Due to this dominance too, the rest of the pack was pretty tight and unpredictable at least by the time nominations came around. (Eventual category winner “All Quiet on the Western Front” hadn’t even cracked our predicted top five in the category). By the time all things were said and done, “Top Gun: Maverick” had basically every nomination that matters except BSC. This one truly was a head scratcher for past Oscar winner Claudio Miranda and Best Picture contender “Top Gun: Maverick.”
- “Furious 7,” Best Original Song (“See You Again”) – 2016
(Critics Choice win, HMMA win, GMS win, Golden Globe nomination, IPA nomination)
In a year where things otherwise turned out very much as expected in Best Original Song – at least, according to our Model – the frontrunner from “Furious 7,” the literal chart-topping hit “See You Again” from Wiz Khalifa and Charlie Puth, was somehow passed over by the Academy. It had a small but significant lead in the math over Sam Smith’s eventual Oscar-winning Bond song from “Spectre,” seeming like almost a sure lock. “Spectre” won the Golden Globe in the category; but, “Furious 7” took home almost every other major award, with nominations everywhere else it mattered. It’s hard to point to genre/franchise fatigue with Bond taking it all the way that same year, but Bond songs seem to be in a field of their own in this category. The output from our Model got the next four in line correct as Oscar nominees, but a fifth slot somewhere was snatched from frontrunner “Furious 7” in favor of the precursor-less longshot “Manta Ray” from the documentary “Racing Extinction,” ranked 18th in our Model.
- “Roma,” Best Film Editing – 2019
(IPA win, BAFTA nomination, Critics Choice nomination, ACE nomination [Drama], HCA nomination, LAFCA nomination)
In a category where one of the best precursors is success in Best Picture (as a very loose rule), Alfonso Cuaron’s “Roma” seemed like a lock, leading the pack for a nomination here in our Model’s estimation with about a five-point gap over eventual nominee “The Favourite.” Even by the time the dust had settled on nomination morning, this omission really stuck out; “Roma” received ten nominations, including in a number of categories that strongly align with Best Film Editing. One can’t help but wonder what the presence of a juggernaut like “Roma” in the 2019 Best Film Editing race could have meant for eventual winner – and general laughing stock, editing-wise – “Bohemian Rhapsody.” Even with 20/20 hindsight, there are truly no warning signs I can see (even if I squint!) as to why “Roma” didn’t appear in Best Film Editing. The Model tells us that a film with its strength and precursors should be nominated almost 99.5% of the time; its snub here left both predictors and our Oscars Model stumped.
All of these films defied the mathematical odds and taught important lessons to Oscar predictors and mathematical models alike. These kinds of snubs are always going to happen, and the fact that we human experts and predictors were flummoxed by these validates our Model’s confusion on them, too. As we all get ready for the 97th Academy Awards, let these be evergreen reminders that even the top contenders in a category can still come up short at the Oscars, despite the precursors and the math. As always, embrace uncertainty.
What Oscar snubs throughout history surprised you the most? Do you think we’ll see any shocking snubs this Sunday? Please let us know in the comments section below or on Next Best Picture’s Twitter account.
You can follow Cole and hear more of his thoughts on the Oscars & Film on Twitter at @CurtissOnFilm
