There’s always a frontrunner for the biggest Oscar categories. We all suspect that Matthew McConaughey is going to win Best Actor of Dallas Buyers Club, and that Jared Leto is going to win Best Supporting Actor for, well, Dallas Buyers Club. But that attitude leads to many worthy nominees getting overlooked.
For these worthy actors, writers and filmmakers we like to say that “the nomination is their reward,” which is a nice way of suggesting that there’s no way that the Academy will vote them en masse. True, their names and films are now on the record books as Oscar nominees, and as such they will at least live on as a note of trivia, but sometimes even brilliant work that defied the odds and earned a place amongst the Oscar contenders has a way of getting overshadowed in the years that follow. When was the last time you heard someone bring up Il Postino in casual conversation? What about In the Name of the Father, or Quiz Show?
Time is the only critic that matters, which means that the films which endure over the years are the real “winners” whether or not they took home a golden statue. But even time can be overly harsh. Even over the course of the last ten years you can find a lot of Oscar nominees who did great work in amazing movies that are already slipping into obscurity. Let’s give them a hand with that by reminding audiences that their nominations weren’t a fluke. These are just 14 of the Best Oscar Also Rans of the last ten years.
William Bibbiani is the editor of CraveOnline’s Film Channel and co-host of The B-Movies Podcast. Follow him on Twitter at @WilliamBibbiani.
14 of the Best Oscar Also-Rans
They were never going to win, but they still earned their nomination.
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Best Actress: Naomi Watts, 'The Impossible' (2013)
Lost To: Jennifer Lawrence, Silver Linings Playbook
Perpetual Oscar bridesmaid Naomi Watts had to settle for a nomination in 2013, even though her performance as a mother risking her life to save her only surviving child after a devastating tidal wave was a masterstroke of melodrama.
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Best Actor: Demian Bichir, 'A Better Life' (2012)
Lost To: Jean Dujardin, The Artist
Demian Bichir earned one of the most unexpected Oscar nominations in years for his noble turn in A Better Life, playing an immigrant making one sacrifice after another to build a better future for his son.
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Best Original Screenplay: J.C. Chandor, 'Margin Call' (2012)
Lost To: Woody Allen, Midnight in Paris
First-time writer/director J.C. Chandor turned Margin Call into the most intelligent and suspenseful motion picture about the modern economic crisis, with an all-star cast that featured the best performances from Kevin Spacey, Jeremy Irons and Demi Moore in recent memory.
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Best Original Screenplay: Mike Leigh, 'Another Year' (2011)
Lost To: David Seidler, The King's Speech
Mike Leigh's intimate setting and rich characters couldn't compete against the gooey underdog heroism of The King's Speech, but is one of the frequently nominated writer/director's most sensitive and likable movies regardless.
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Best Animated Feature: 'The Illusionist' (2011)
Lost To: Toy Story 3
The director of The (also snubbed) Triplets of Belleville returned to the Oscars in 2011 with The Illusionist, a mostly silent, totally beautiful story of a sleight of hand artist who risks everything to prevent a helpless young girl from losing her faith in magic. The Illusionist was based on a screenplay by beloved French comedy icon Jacques Tati.
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Best Supporting Actor: Woody Harrelson, 'The Messenger' (2010)
Lost To: Christoph Waltz, Inglourious Basterds
Woody Harrelons earned his second Oscar nomination for The Messenger, a striking character study about American soldiers assigned to tell families that their loved ones have fallen in battle. It's one of Harrelson's best performances, but it wasn't the type scene stealing role the Academy usual goes for.
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Best Animated Feature: 'The Secret of Kells' (2010)
Lost To: Up
Nothing was going to beat Pixar's Up for Best Animated Feature, but The Secret of Kells certainly earned its surprise nomination with a gorgeous animated style that evokes the illustrated religious manuscripts that inspired the film's fantastic fantasy plot.
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Best Actor: Richard Jenkins, 'The Visitor' (2009)
Lost To: Sean Penn, Milk
Another quietly beautiful performance that was overshadowed by a conventional showstopper. Richard Jenkins plays a solitary man who comes out of his shell after befriending an immigrant couple he finds squatting in his apartment.
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Best Actor: Ryan Gosling, 'Half Nelson' (2007)
Lost To: Forest Whitaker, The Last King of Scotland
Before he became a beloved internet meme, Ryan Gosling starred in Half Nelson, a moving drama about a beloved schoolteacher who forms a close bond with one of his students after she discovers he is secretly a drug addict.
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Best Actress/Supporting Actress: Judi Dench/Cate Blanchett, 'Notes on a Scandal' (2007)
Lost To: Helen Mirren, The Queen; Jennifer Hudson, Dreamgirls
Richard Eyre's creepy yet enthralling drama about a teacher who sleeps with one of her students, and the fellow teacher who uses that information to quietly destroy her, gave us two of the best performances of both Judi Dench's and Cate Blanchett's careers. They both lost to more conventional crowdpleasers.
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Best Supporting Actress: Amy Adams, 'Junebug' (2007)
Lost To: Rachel Weisz, The Constant Gardener
Nevermind that nobody remembers The Constant Gardener anymore. Focus on the fact that Amy Adams' first Oscar-nominated performance (of many) is still one of her best, playing the pregnant, meerkat-loving heart of an eccentric Southern family.
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Best Actress: Catalina Sandino Moreno, 'Maria Full of Grace' (2005)
Lost To: Hilary Swank, Million Dollar Baby
Catalina Sandino Moreno gave a stunning performance - made all the more impressive that it was her first - in Maria Full of Grace, playing a pregnant drug mule who perserveres through genuine horrors to come to America. She was overlooked in favor of Million Dollar Baby, because the Oscars have an unspoken agreement to give Hilary Swank an Oscar once a decade.
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Best Original Screenplay: Denys Arcand, 'The Barbarian Invasions' (2004)
Lost To: Sofia Coppola, Lost in Translation
Although technically a sequel to the Decline of the American Empire (which by Academy rules today would make it an "Adapted Screenplay" by default), Denys Arcand's moving, funny and honest story about the reactions of friends and family to the last days of a dying patriarch is one of the most lovely depictions of anyone's death ever captured on camera. (It's not nearly as depressing as it sounds.)
