The Best Movies Never Nominated for a Single Oscar
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 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
The best of the three excellent films from German director Christian Petzold (Transit, Barbara) in the past decade, this 2015 drama follows a concentration camp survivor and nightclub singer who has facial reconstruction surgery to correct damage from a bullet wound. When she learns that her husband no longer recognizes her after her surgery, she is able to spy on him—and discovers an unsettling secret. Germany opted to submit the much less discussed Beloved Sisters instead, dooming Phoenix's Oscar hopes, though the film landed on numerous year-end top 10 lists.
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