The Best Movies Never Nominated for a Single Oscar

by Jason Dietz, Metacritic Features Editor – February 4, 2020

Last updated: January 24, 2023

Judging from the complaints that pour in each year, the Academy gets many things wrong—including, with surprising regularity, completely ignoring some of each year's most acclaimed films. In the gallery above, you can find the 30 highest-scoring films since 2000 that did not receive any Oscar nominations (in any category). They are ranked by Metascore, but all of these films scored 89 or higher—suggesting massive critical acclaim.

Note that documentaries are excluded (since there are fewer opportunities for those films to receive nominations). Also excluded are movies that qualified for Emmys rather than Oscars (such as the Small Axe films).

Additional content by Keith Kimbell

15 of 38 photo by Lot 47

91 #16 (tie): Atanarjuat: The Fast Runner

Canada's foreign-language Oscar submission for 2001, this Inuktitut-language epic (at the time the only film ever made that was completely acted, written, and directed in that tongue) was subbed by the Academy, which instead nominated five films with far lower Metascores (though some, like that year's Oscar winner No Man's Land, were quite good). Based on a centuries-old Inuit legend and filmed north of the Arctic Circle, The Fast Runner was actually our second-highest-scoring film of 2002 (when it reached theaters) and was later named the best Canadian film of all time.

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