But those who aren’t nominated aren’t necessarily discarded into cinema’s dustbin.
The more we watch, the more we recognize the Academy’s recurring myopia.
Yes, there are always inexplicable Oscar oversights recognized immediately assnubs.
Credit: Everett Collection
Entertainment Weeklydug into the scores of great performances that have been overlooked by Oscar.
(Really?Ingrid Bergmanwasn’t nominated forCasablanca?)
Many of the clips below are not censored for language.]
Then, in 2013, it was thatlove is really, really hard.
Zhang Ziyi
Jen Yu,Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon(2000)
She fights!
It’s a role Zhang plays to the hilt.Darren Franich
51.
Remember her losing her robe in the bushes?
Excuse me while I throw on a black suit and some thick glasses.Kevin Sullivan
49.
Uma Thurman
The Bride,Kill Bill: Vol.
2(2004)
What more do you want fromThurmanin both volumes ofQuentin Tarantino’s epic revenge fantasy?
She doesn’t just own the part: She kills it.Jeff Jensen
48.
How else to explain that in the same year he was recognized forNocturnalhe also produced two other stellar performances?
(He shared a nomination for Best Adapted Screenplay with four others.)
‘“Kyle Ryan
46.
The actor bites down hard on the role, leaning into the character’s unsavory aspects chin first.
But in Wong Kar-wai’s masterpiece of minimalism, everything is internal.
Cheung plays Su Li-zhen, a not-so-desperate housewife in early-’60s Hong Kong.
It should feel like overacting (it is), but Wallach finds something sublime in Tuco’s debauchery.
Oscar doesn’t tend to reward action movies, comedic performances, or unfamous actors playing unrepentant maniacs.
Too bad: We could use more Tucos.D.F.
(Her costar,Talia Shire, nabbed a Best Supporting Actress nod.)
In the original film, Kay was a naif, but events in the sequel break her.
If her “It was an abortion!”
Joe Miller doesn’t have a character hook no limp, no childhood trauma, no speech impediment.
He’s just a hustling Philly attorney who loves his family, his job, beer, and sports.
That there’s nothing average about this Average Guy is a credit to Washington’s talent.
“Jeff Labrecque
41.
It’s one of those rare moments when you might actually see a star being born.
There’s no turning back.
“You know how to whistle, don’t you, Steve?
You just put your lips together and…blow.
“Chris Nashawaty
39.
Locked into a wheelchair, Stewart has to work purely off of his chops.
This being Hitchcock, there’s still that “You’ve to go believe me!”
suspense, which Stewart deftly handles.
“I can’t help myself,” she says at one point.
“I am lost.”
Wayne admirably transformed Edwards into a man for whom the search had become everything.Neil Janowitz
35.
And she does it while fending off the magnetic, scenery-hogging presences of bothKevin CostnerandTim Robbins.
Here’s a hint: The answer is no.K.A.
(See:Steve Carellas the deranged millionaire inFoxcatcher.)
His Truman Burbank is a square guy who’s the unwitting star of his own TV show.
“Was nothing real?”
Truman asks a godlike figure he cannot see.
Truman could be a Scientologist; he could be a citizen of North Korea.
This became a trend withJeremy Irons’ deliriously creepy turn inDead Ringers.
Within that lurid context, Irons' disturbingly calm performance stands out.
He doesn’t work with the usual chicanery of twin roles.
Technically speaking, Patrick Bateman is an investment banker by day and serial killer by night.
Each spitted syllable hits bone.
That’s just how powerful a movie can be.
I can’t hear you, maggot!K.S.
Bill Murray
Phil Connors,Groundhog Day(1993)
Don’t drive angry.
This is just one of many lessons to be gleaned from 1993’s sly, philosophical romantic comedyGroundhog Day.
Murray’s deadpan wit and sad clown face arguably have never been better.
Bibi Andersson is great as initially serene nurse Alma but it’s Ullmann who quietly steals the movie.
Literally quietly: Ullmann plays Elisabet, an actress rendered mute by some inexplicable mental/emotional illness.
Ullmann’s performance is by turns sweetly innocent and insidiously cerebral.
She givesPersonaa Rorschachian rewatchability.
Who is Elisabet, really?
What is she thinking?
“What isanyonethinking?”
Existential misery shouldn’t feel this exciting.D.F.
So who better to play him than one of the goons who messed with James Dean?
Reese Witherspoon
Tracy Flick,Election(1999)
PICK FLICK.
AndWitherspoon’s Tracy Flick will stand atop that ruin forever, raising her fist in the air.
It’s a pity there isn’t a golden statue clenched in it.A.B.
(And scorekeepers, while we have you, he was also pretty great inMolly’s Game.)
(Hoffman’s character, meanwhile, doesn’t evolve so much as reveal hidden talents.
marooned in the Deep South, missed the cut.
At that moment, the whole movie crackles with genuine danger, all thanks to Poitier’s power.J.M.
Beautiful, ice cold, and fueled relentlessly by ambition, Stone dreamed of being a world-famous news anchor.
We feel so deeply for Rosemary.
When she finally realizes what’s happening, her horror finally joins our own.
We stayed with her and she sent us over the cliff alone.A.B.
(It did take home a consolation prize for its sole other nom, Best Original Song.)
If that sounds depressing, it isn’t.
Henry Fonda
Juror No.
There’s a reason he was cast so frequently as a U.S. president.
Fonda’s compassionate Juror No.
8 never raises his voice or loses his cool even as tempers flare.
He never insults his colleagues or chastises them for their ignorant prejudices.
He just shows them the path toward doing the right thing.
He is to tough-talking shamuses what Marilyn Monroe was to sex.
It was a turning point in Bogie’s career the moment he went from playing villains to heroes.
And it’s easy to see why.
Still, his most memorable character will always be Fredo Corleone.
“It ain’t the way I wanted it!”
he says, his voice cracking as he screams at his kid brother and boss, Michael.
“I can handle things!
Not like everybody says…like dumb!
I’m smart and I want respect!“C.N.
And in one spectacular audition for a B-movie, she’s all of them at once.Stephan Lee
- you’re able to fit how we feel about it on four knuckles: LOVE.K.S.
To be fairer, the early Oscars were almost entirely focused on domestic products.
Really, there’s not even dialogue or story.
Falconetti had a difficult life she never acted on screen again but her Joan belongs to the ages.D.F.
In fact, she wasn’t even directorHoward Hawks' third or fourth choice.
Jack Nicholson
Jack Torrance,The Shining(1980)
How could this performance be snubbed?
It’s one ofJack Nicholson’s most fearsome roles in one of the greatest horror movies ever made.
(Which, incidentally, collected not a single nomination except contemptible Razzie mentions for Shelley Duvall andStanley Kubrick.
Maybe the Academy was very confused.
Maybe they just needed time to think things over.
Then again,The Shiningcame out in May of 1980.
So they had SEVEN MONTHS to think things over.
Darling, Oscar…LIGHT of my LIFE.
I said, I’m not gonna hurt you.
I’m just going to bash your brains in a little.
So give me the bat!
GIMME THE BAT!A.B.
AndHackmanis the key to every haunting frame.
Here, he isn’t within a city block of the cocksure Popeye Doyle.
Of course, there’s more to Dorothy Gale than one indelible tune.
Cary Grant
Roger Thornhill,North By Northwest(1959)
It was always easy to underrate Grant.
Pretty much every thriller protagonist lives in the long shadow of Grant inNorth by Northwest.
Maybe she was already too big a movie star.
How much of that is thanks to the actress herself, and how much is her acting?
Their loss is cinema’s gain becauseShawis devilish perfection as the snarling old salt, Quint.
He’ll catch that 25-foot great white that killed the little Kintner boy or die trying.
But go back and watch Shaw’s famous speech about the USSIndianapolisagain.
It’s as good as acting gets.C.N.
It’s the chaos of irony, of pretending to be someone or something you’re not.
What is casual about Norman is actually meticulously practiced; every smile is both genuine and phony.
The misdirection of the movie makes it hard to appreciate Perkins' work after only one viewing.
Jimmy Stewart
John “Scottie” Ferguson,Vertigo(1958)
Watch Jimmy Stewart’s eyes.
Watch how he watches.
Early in Hitchcock’s dreamy masterpiece, there’s that famous sequence where Stewart follows Kim Novak.
Her husband has hired Stewart to investigate her.
Watch Stewart watch Novak.
Stewart was America’s Nice Guy before the war; after, his roles skewed darker, stranger.
But the movie is never a stunt.
Not when Stewart descends into mourning, and then frantic fear.
Not in its final moment of salvation and doom.
And not in all those close-ups of Stewart, watching.
That’s what a movie star looks like; that’s what acting is.D.F.
