This is all just to lead into a couple lists I wanted to make to highlight some of my favorite performances that I feel got overlooked by the Academy. I'm splitting this into two top 10s, one for the men and one for the women. I do this just to keep my list from being too much of a sausage-fest, as probably 15 of my top 20 would have been from the men's list. I'm being inclusive, everyone, look at how #woke I am.
First up, I'm gonna go over the list of my top 10 favorite female performances I felt should have been nominated for the Oscar (many of which I believe should also have won), and I will even include which category I would have put it in, and provide a nominee from said category I would have removed to make room. This is a very thorough list. Oh, except for the fact that I threw this list together in about 10 minutes and didn't bother to really dig through all the stuff I've seen to make it. So odds are I missed out on quite a few great ones, but also keep in mind this is just my opinion. Not meant to be taken seriously.
Top 10 - Female
10. Alicia Vikander in Ex Machina
Year: 2015
Category: Supporting Actress
Substitution(s): Alicia Vikander in The Danish Girl, or Rachel McAdams in Spotlight
This one is a bit tricky to include here due to the fact that not only was Vikander already nominated in this category this year, but she even somehow won the Oscar -- just for the wrong movie. The Danish Girl was very standard Oscar-bait which had solid acting, but nothing new was brought to the table and her performance could have been just as good by nearly any other semi-talented actress it had gone to. But in Ex Machina she manages to pull off a very tricky performance that is layered in mystery and tension, as she completely sells her role as an incredibly sophisticated A.I.. It may not have deserved to have won (I likely still would have went with Winslet or JJL), but she still deserved to be included for Ex Machina and not The Danish Girl.
9. Lupita Nyong'o in Us
Year: 2019
Category: Leading Actress
Substitution(s): Renee Zellweger in Judy, or Charlize Theron in Bombshell
In a time when the Oscars are constantly trying to prove how not-racist they are, they still have a few forms of bias that they just can't seem to get past. The big one I'm talking about here is, of course, HORROR movies. An entire genre that has been swept under the rug by the Oscars pretty much every year, with only Get Out managing to break free from this a couple years back, ironically also directed by Jordan Peele and earning Daniel Kaluuya a Best Actor nomination he didn't deserve. So while Get Out is far and away a superior movie, Nyong'o's performance in Us surpasses Kaluuya's in every way, as she tackles two very different characters that both have their share of screen time and memorable moments. Though this movie is just over a year old now, it's already become somewhat iconic, and Nyong'o is a huge reason for that.
8. Carey Mulligan in Shame
Year: 2011
Category: Supporting Actress
Substitution(s): Melissa McCarthy in Bridesmaids, Octavia Spencer in The Help, or Jessica Chastain in The Help
Shame not getting any Oscar nominations when it came out wasn't a huge surprise (considering its NC-17 rating, taboo subject matter, etc.) but it still was a huge...missed opportunity. Just like that obvious joke. But while Fassbender got some attention at the Golden Globes and BAFTAs, Mulligan somehow slipped through the cracks pretty much across the board. Which is kind of sad, but also not unexpected when you consider how many good performances Mulligan has given over the past decade that have gone completely overlooked. This is an emotional, raw performance that I find nearly as powerful as Fassbender's, mostly losing out due to the focus of the movie being on his character and her just not being given quite as much to work with. Either way, had she gotten this nomination, considering the other nominees in the category, I absolutely would have given her the win as well.
7. Brie Larson in Short Term 12
Year: 2013
Category: Leading Actress
Substitution(s): Amy Adams in American Hustle, or Sandra Bullock in Gravity
What a complete and utter disappointment Brie Larson has been. After watching this movie back in 2013, and going to see her even-better performance in Room just 2 years later, I had high hopes for Larson. Then she pulled a Jennifer Lawrence, got wrapped up in her own ego, stopped making movies that were even remotely interesting, and pretty much destroyed any chance of me taking her seriously as an actress again. But this isn't just a rant on wasted potential, this is equal parts a celebration of her fantastic and emotional performance in the indie drama Short Term 12. This is a layered and damaged character that anyone would have struggled to fully bring to life, but Larson pulled it off and did so at a remarkably young age. While I still would have to give the Oscar to Blanchett that year for Blue Jasmine, Larson still definitely deserved a nomination and legitimate consideration for the top spot.
6. Kirsten Dunst in Melancholia
Year: 2011
Category: Leading Actress
Substitution(s): Meryl Streep in The Iron Lady
After the well-documented and absolutely disastrous Lars Von Trier "I'm a Nazi" joke/admission at the Cannes Film Festival back in 2011, it's no surprise at all that this already-hard-to-digest sci/fi arthouse apocalypse drama wasn't going to be a huge awards contender that year, but that doesn't take away from just how great Dunst was in this film. This is a tough role to pull off with any level of sympathy, as she starts off the movie doing some pretty awful things in the first half, but finds a way to become a voice of reason and a calming presence as everyone collapses around her. It's a total oddity, and not the kind of movie I would expect to gain any serious awards attention, but she still should have landed a nomination over the forgettable and suitably baity Meryl Streep performance that won her her 3rd Oscar, in spite of being the blandest of the entire Best Actress category that year. Oh well.
5. Mila Kunis in Black Swan
Year: 2010
Category: Supporting Actress
Substitution(s): Hailee Steinfeld in True Grit
Okay, I have to admit there's a bit of bias here, because I think Mila Kunis is ridiculously attractive. But I'm legitimately not letting that influence my decision to put her on this list...just how high she landed on it, that's all. While all the attention went to Portman's lead performance, which I mostly understand, during my most recent rewatch I found myself genuinely impressed by Kunis, and was more impressed with her than I was with Portman. Although it certainly isn't a stretch for Mila Kunis to play a very sexual, promiscuous, and outgoing person, the charisma she brings to the role and her ability to perfectly balance the friend-or-foe style mystery that comes with the character definitely requires more than just a pretty face. Additionally, Hailee Steinfeld was straight up awful in True Grit, and after about 3-4 watches I still can't figure out why she was praised so much for that, so Kunis not getting this nomination feels even more like an insult thanks to that. Oh, and my winner still would have been either Leo or Adams for The Fighter.
4. Zhao Shuzhen in The Farewell
Year: 2019
Category: Supporting Actress
Substitution(s): Kathy Bates in Richard Jewell, or Florence Pugh in Little Women
Yeah, it's been less than a year since this fraudulent non-nomination occurred, so it's definitely still pretty fresh on the mind, but Shuzhen's supporting role as this sweet-hearted Chinese grandma was one of the most endearing performances of the decade and I still think it's a crime that she didn't win the Oscar. Yeah, from here on out, all of these performances are ones I think should have won, not just been nominated. Not much to say here, apart from I think the Oscars still have a weird bias against Asian actors/filmmakers that Parasite winning Best Picture still isn't enough to make up for. Shuzhen was robbed, and she was ignored by pretty much every other major award for this movie as well. It doesn't make any sense to me, but that's why I'm here now complaining about this.
3. Tilda Swinton in We Need To Talk About Kevin
Year: 2011
Category: Leading Actress
Substitution(s): ANY (but especially Meryl Streep in The Iron Lady)
For Dunst in Melancholia, I was willing to sacrifice Meryl Streep at the altar of Overratedness, but for Tilda Swinton, I would gladly kick out any of the other Best Actress nominees that year to make space. This was the obvious best pick of the bunch, Swinton gives the performance of her career as a layered and complex dramatic character that never stops impressing me no matter how many times I watch the movie. Additionally, I wanted to make room for a few of the bottom entries on this top 10, but I want to make a special mention for a couple other things Swinton should have gotten nominations for this decade:
Snowpiercer, 2013
A Bigger Splash, 2016
Suspiria, 2018
I won't go on about any of those and why she stood out so much in them, but suffice it to say Swinton has been - and still remains - one of the most talented actors of the 21st century, and deserves far more attention than what she's gotten.
2. Toni Collette in Hereditary
Year: 2018
Category: Leading Actress
Substitution(s): Lady Gaga in A Star Is Born, or Melissa McCarthy in Can You Ever Forgive Me?
Overall, the 2018 Oscars pool was pretty weak, but the Best Actress category wasn't too bad. That being said, Collette walking away empty-handed has nothing to do with how strong that category was and all comes back to what I was talking about earlier with the Oscars being racist against horror movies. Which is kind of funny, since Collette's only other nomination has come from her appearance in, you guessed it, a horror movie. So why couldn't they do that for her again? I don't know. Seriously, I can't explain it. This is Ellen Burstyn in The Exorcist level good. It's one of the best performances of the decade, and even amongst Collette's impressive filmography still sits firmly at the top. She also has had some ignored performances - like her comedic turn in Knives Out - that should have landed her some nominations, but this one is just too good and too obvious for me to ignore.
1. Scarlett Johansson in Her
Year: 2013
Category: Supporting Actress
Substitution(s): Jennifer Lawrence in American Hustle
I have made abundantly clear my love for this movie, so it shouldn't really come as a surprise that I'd include Johansson's voice-only performance on this list. But some people probably look at voice acting and scoff, as if that doesn't require talent. To which I'd say "shut up, you're wrong". When you consider the tools Johansson had to work with, this performance becomes even more impressive. Not only did she have to sell her character without any visual aid (even cartoon characters get at least some kind of visual to help convey emotion), she manages to pull that off so well as to make you feel a wide array of emotions for an A.I. operating system to the point where it's not hard to see why Joaquin Phoenix's character manages to fall in love with her in the first place. The fact this movie was able to work on any level at all is miracle enough, but Johansson's character is probably the biggest hurdle, and she pulls it off. Somehow. To me, there's no reason at all why this shouldn't have won her an Oscar, or in the very least gotten the conversation started to make a category for voice and motion capture acting.
Okay, so that's all I've got for the ladies, now on to the gents.
Top 10 - Male
10. Albert Brooks in Drive
Year: 2011
Category: Supporting Actor
Substitution(s): ANY (except Christopher Plummer in Beginners)
2011 was a weirdly bad year for the Oscars, with only a handful of the movies they nominated really standing out (or holding up at all years later), but the gift of hindsight isn't all that made this omission so unforgivable. I actually made a post about 9 years ago where I detailed several of the reasons why Brooks deserved to not only receive a nomination, but win the whole thing. An against-type dark, villainous performance by a primarily protagonistic comedic actor, this was not just a great performance/character, but one of the major highlights of a movie that stands among the best of the entire decade. Supporting Actor was a huge disappointment in 2011, but Brooks would have drastically increased the value of that particular pool of performances.
9. Mads Mikkelsen in The Hunt
Year: 2013
Category: Leading Actor
Substitution(s): Christian Bale in American Hustle
There was some strong competition for Best Actor in 2013, with a few notable performances like Tom Hanks in Captain Phillips and Robert Redford in All Is Lost missing out on nominations, but far more than both of those movies Mikkelsen was robbed of this one. While I still feel, of the actual nominees, Chiwetel Ejiofor was slightly better in 12 Years A Slave, I think my #2 slot (had he made the cut, of course) would have been Mikkelsen. A subtle and powerful performance that goes far beyond simple emotional outbursts to convey strong emotions and deep suffering, Mikkelsen manages to express a lot throughout the entire movie without relying on cheap actorly tricks to fake his way through it. It's as genuine and affecting a performance as you could ever hope from an actor, and will most likely stand as the finest work of his entire career, even when looked back on it 30 years from now. Also, Bale wasn't a standout in his movie, so his nomination was a huge waste. Just like American Hustle as a whole.
8. Song Kang-ho in A Taxi Driver
Year: 2017
Category: Leading Actor
Substitution(s): Denzel Washington in Roman J. Israel, Esq.
I could fill an entire countdown with performances by Song Kang-ho that were unjustly overlooked by the Academy Awards, but it all really came down to two: this and Parasite. But to avoid being totally obvious, and considering how well-received Parasite was already, I won't beat that dead horse (even though he totally deserved to get something for that movie) and instead I'll focus on this deeply emotional action-drama. It's a familiar story that could easily be compared to Hotel Rwanda or Schindler's List, not in scope, but more in terms of the arc of its lead character. He manages to bring his usual charm and physicality to the role, but has more than a few opportunities to utilize that expressive face of his to emote when the story calls for it. It's a full, balanced, and incredible performance that doesn't seem to have found much attention outside of small film circles. Which is a huge shame, because not only is Song terrific in it, but the movie as a whole is a roller coaster of emotions, and I loved it. Also, Washington, as much as I love the guy, didn't deserve this nomination at all.
7. Patrick Stewart in Logan
Year: 2017
Category: Supporting Actor
Substitution(s): Willem Dafoe in The Florida Project, or Christopher Plummer in All The Money In The World
I've said it about a million times before (and I've probably prefaced the following statement with those exact words about half a million times before) but I am tired of superhero movies. So when I say this was one of the best performances I saw in the entire year of 2017, that should mean at least something. Patrick Stewart, in spite of being one of the most beloved and celebrated actors of the past 40 years, has never gotten any serious awards attention, and while Logan still managed to score an Oscar nomination, I really hoped this would be the movie to earn Stewart his first nomination. It didn't happen, and apart from the obvious (superhero/action movies don't traditionally do very well at the Oscars), I can't really imagine why. This is a powerful, affecting performance, that even without the context of previous X-Men films still stands as an excellent bit of acting that runs circles around 99% of all acting within the genre(s). No, he wouldn't have realistically won, but a nomination in the very least should have happened for him.
6. Daniel Radcliffe in Swiss Army Man
Year: 2016
Category: Leading Actor
Substitution(s): Andrew Garfield in Hacksaw Ridge
While I could just as easily argue that Radcliffe could/should land in the Supporting Actor category, I consider the quality of this performance to be strong enough, as well as prominent enough, to land in the Best Actor category and still earn that nomination. This is one of those performances much like Vincent D'Onofrio's in Men In Black, where the actor is able to sell the audience on a concept so foreign and absurd, and does so without ever giving us reason to second-guess it. D'Onofrio managed to convince us without pause that he was indeed a giant space cockroach using a human hick as a body suit, and Radcliffe manages to convince us that he's a talking, farting corpse with seemingly endless useful abilities -- including having a compass for a dick. Not only does he sell this unusual concept, but does so in a way that makes you genuinely care for him. Additionally, his comedic timing is absolutely perfect, with a loud, croaking delivery that makes every joke land regardless of the quality of the joke itself. This is an uncommonly good performance that I wouldn't expect to receive nominations, but is the kind of thing I would have loved to have seen get more attention.
5. Jake Gyllenhaal in Nightcrawler
Year: 2014
Category: Leading Actor
Substitution(s): Bradley Cooper in American Sniper
Unlike the last performance on this list, this is one where I genuinely don't understand how it didn't wind up with a nomination. Everything about this character/performance works, from the physicality to the dialogue and delivery of every line. Although he wound up with BAFTA, Golden Globe, and SAG nominations for this one, Gyllenhaal was yet again ignored by the Oscars in favor of Bradley Cooper's passable-but-forgettable biographical propaganda war movie performance. A disappointment, to say the least, but for now I want to focus on just how underrated Gyllenhaal's career has been over the past decade or so. With movies like this, Prisoners, Enemy, End Of Watch, Nocturnal Animals, Stronger, and The Sisters Brothers just in the 2010s alone, Gyllenhaal has somehow walked out of this decade without any new Oscar nominations (or wins, obviously) to his name. It doesn't make any sense, but is yet again evidence of the ineptitude of these award shows.
4. Michael Fassbender in Shame
Year: 2011
Category: Leading Actor
Substitution(s): Brad Pitt in Moneyball, or Demian Bichir in A Better Life
While I do love Moneyball for what it is, and A Better Life does feature a strong lead performance, this is the one movie I felt most deserved to win Best Actor back in 2011. And while my opinion on the movie as a whole has diminished upon rewatching it, the fact still remains that Fassbender put everything he had into this movie and gave one of the most revealing (figuratively and literally), emotionally bare, and dare I say brave performances I've ever seen. It's hard for me to praise this one enough, and while I did like all of the Best Actor nominations of 2011, he deserved to win for this, and the fact that he wasn't even in the pool of nominees is ridiculous. At least he got a few other major award nominations, but still.
(Editor's note: Be proud of the lack of "what a shame" jokes included in this and the Carey Mulligan segment. The omission of the aforementioned hack jokes caused the writer near-insurmountable pain, so be grateful.)
3. Issey Ogata in Silence
Year: 2016
Category: Supporting Actor
Substitution(s): Dev Patel in Lion, or Lucas Hedges in Manchester By The Sea
One of the reasons I didn't throw Radcliffe into the Supporting Actor category for 2016 was this guy right here. Back in 2016 when all the awards discussions and endless predictive speculations were circling prior to the release of this film, pretty much everyone (myself included) suspected Liam Neeson would walk away with something, or perhaps even Andrew Garfield. Little did we know, the movie would wind up being stolen by this elderly Japanese man, unknown to the west, who doesn't even show up or play an important role in the film until about halfway through. But this is the type of odd, specific, and absolutely perfect performances that I love more than any showy biographical Oscar-bait. With slow, calculated and almost dweeby line delivery, and one of the all-time great disappointed sighs in the history of cinema, Ogata's villainous performance is something no one else could have pulled off. I found myself rooting for him he was so great. Even though he doesn't really play a part in the story until the second half, he is what carries the movie through what could have easily been the most tedious portion of the story, and winds up being the major highlight of the whole film for me. As great as Mahershala Ali was in Moonlight, I still would have probably given the Oscar to Ogata.
2. Willem Dafoe in The Lighthouse
Year: 2019
Category: Supporting Actor
Substitution(s): Al Pacino in The Irishman, Anthony Hopkins in The Two Popes, or Tom Hanks in A Beautiful Day In The Neighborhood
After I made this list, and with no real doubts in my mind going into it, I watched The Lighthouse for about the 4th time and found myself once again totally drawn in, blown away, and completely entertained and engaged by Dafoe's crabby lighthouse keeper. Even though I loved the movie the first time I saw it, I still find more things to enjoy about it as I watch it again and again, and while Pattinson more than holds his own as the more central focus of the film, Dafoe totally steals the show. When I woke up the day the Oscar nominations were announced, I found myself getting nervous at the thought of Dafoe getting his much-deserved nomination for this movie. When he didn't get it I wasn't surprised, but I was still very disappointed. The 2-minute unblinking sea curse monologue alone would be enough for me to love this performance, but the nuances and complete transformation Dafoe undergoes as an actor (without the aid of tons of prosthetics) just push it all over the edge to the point of being one of the most complete, entertaining, and wonderful performances of the decade. While Hopkins and Hanks were both solid nominees, Pacino's "hoo-ah, I'm Jimmy Hoffaaaaa" in The Irishman didn't need to be there and stood no chance of actually winning. Dafoe, however, should have won.
1. Joaquin Phoenix in Her
Year: 2013
Category: Leading Actor
Substitution(s): ANY (but, again, especially Christian Bale in American Hustle)
You sick of hearing me talk about how incredible this movie is yet? Because, honestly, I don't think I could talk quite enough about just how perfect so many aspects of this movie are. But I will spare you, and just mirror previous statements I've made about how much emotion and depth Phoenix brings to a role in which he basically has to act opposite a speaker phone, and still manages to make you care. I laugh, cry, feel pain, awkwardness, frustration...just about every emotion is contained within this movie, and none of it could have landed without Phoenix there to carry you through it. Even in the incredible filmography Phoenix has amassed over the past 25 years, this is still my #1 pick for the best he's ever done, and I would be genuinely shocked if he ever surpassed it. Maybe someday I'll write a 100,000 word scene-by-scene analysis on this movie. I probably should, actually.
There's a ton of other choices I sadly had to omit, but maybe I'll think about doing a follow-up list with some other great Oscar-less performances later on down the road. Michael Shannon in Take Shelter, in particular, I feel bad about leaving out, but meh. It's just a dumb list anyway, nobody should care that much. Anyway, I hope you enjoyed the list. Keep watching good movies, stop supporting Disney, and see you next time.
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