The Best Movies Never Nominated for a Single Oscar

Writer-director Lulu Wang's 2019 crowd-pleaser is an autobiographical dramedy (adapted from a This American Life story) starring Awkwafina in a rare (but widely praised) dramatic role as an American who returns to her family's home in China after learning that her grandmother had terminal lung cancer—a fact that the family is keeping a secret from the grandmother. Awkwafina received more best actress awards and nominations in late 2019 than all but three other women, only to get ignored by Academy voters. Similarly, the film as a whole, supporting star Zhao Shuzhen, and Wang's screenplay were all honored multiple times elsewhere but failed to score Oscar nominations.

Not released in the U.S. until 2015, this epic 2012 Bollywood gangster drama spans over 70 years as it tells the stories of three crime families battling to dominate the coal industry in eastern India. But because the final product was over five hours long, it was split into two separate films for screening in Indian cinemas—a fact that probably doomed its already slim Oscar hopes. (And India submitted the much lighter Barfi! instead, perhaps because it didn't paint the country in a negative light.)

One of the most critically acclaimed directors working today, master Japanese filmmaker Hirokazu Koreeda has been churning out quiet masterpieces for decades but has never personally been nominated for an Academy Award. In fact, 2018's Shoplifters is his only feature to date to even receive an Oscar nomination. The best of his non-nominees this century is 2009's Still Walking, which, like all but two of his films, wasn't even Japan's official Oscar submission. This life-affirming drama spends a day with an extended family that reunites to mark the 15-year anniversary of the death of the family's youngest son.

Over the course of six-plus hours, Italian filmmaker Marco Tullio Giordana traces nearly 40 years in the life of an Italian family, beginning in the 1960s. The Best of Youth screened as a single film at Cannes in 2003, where it won the Un Certain Regard, but then was divided into two separate films for its theatrical release in both Italy and the United States. (An even longer version also aired in Italy as a TV miniseries.) Youth ultimately became the highest-scoring film of 2005, when it received an international release. But it never had a chance at an Oscar nomination after Italy opted not to make either part (or the entire film) its official submission for foreign-language consideration (each country only gets one per year)—a factor that will pop up on this list with some regularity.

Director Anna Rose Holmer's impressive feature narrative debut is a psychological portrait of 11-year-old Toni (Royalty Hightower), a tomboy assimilating to a tight-knit dance team in Cincinnati's West End. The indie drama finished 2016 as the year's #9-ranked film by Metascore.

Jim Jarmusch's 2016 dramedy starring Adam Driver as a New Jersey bus driver and would-be poet earned raves from critics, and Driver collected best actor awards and nominations from numerous organizations—but not the Oscars.

The latest stunner from writer-director Andrew Haigh (45 Years, Weekend) is an adaptation of Taichi Yamada's Japanese novel Strangers. Haigh moves the story to London, where Adam (Andrew Scott), a screenwriter, is listlessly struggling on a script about his parents, who died when he was 12. A chance encounter with Harry (Paul Mescal), a drunk neighbor, pulls Adam out of his stupor. As their relationship develops, he decides to visit the suburban town where he grew up, where he discovers his parents (Claire Foy and Jamie Bell) still living in his childhood home, having not aged a day in the 30 years since they passed. Haigh delicately balances this fantastical element and Adam's need to communicate with his parents with his budding romance with Harry.

The Souvenir, Joanna Hogg's 2019 semi-autobiographical coming-of-age tale of first love and a filmmaker finding her voice, was intended to cover just half the story, making it one of the few arthouse films to get a sequel. And this concluding chapter, released in the fall of 2021 after a Cannes debut, wowed critics much like its predecessor did. (It also duplicated the first film's Oscar nominations total of zero.) The sequel follows Honor Swinton Byrne's Julie as she tries to process her love for Tom Burke's Anthony by making her graduation film.

Before moving on to mainstream success with several Bourne films and Captain Phillips, director Paul Greengrass made arguably his best film: a drama about the infamous 1972 shootings in Northern Ireland (yes, the same ones that inspired the U2 hit). The film attracted widespread critical acclaim, shared top honors at the 2002 Berlinale, and won an audience award at Sundance. But it was ineligible for any Oscar consideration due to a technicality: The film was broadcast in the UK on ITV a few days before it opened in theaters.

Critics raved about this provocative, well-acted Israeli drama about a religious woman (Ronit Elkabetz, who also wrote and directed the film along with her brother Shlomi) who spends years before a tribunal of rabbis seeking permission to divorce her husband. But while it ranked among the 10 best-reviewed films of 2015, and was Israel's official Oscar submission that year, no nominations followed.

The third feature from Berlin-based, Lesotho-born filmmaker Lemohang Jeremiah Mosese stars the late Mary Twala Mhlongo (you may have seen her in Beyoncé's Black Is King) in her final film role as an 80-year-old woman in a small Lesotho village who, while preparing for her own death, must deal with her only son's death in an accident and the pending relocation of her lifelong home due to the construction of a dam that will flood her family's burial ground. It may not be the most cheerful film of 2021, but critics praised Mosese's mastery of composition.

Like father, like son. While he still has quite a ways to go to match the continued excellence of father Jafar Panahi, first-time Iranian director Panah Panahi appears to have a similar talent for achieving sky-high Metascores: In fact, both Panahis had a film score in the 90s in 2022—and both failed to receive a single Oscar nomination. (Blame their government: Iran opted to boycott the Oscars and failed to submit either film to the international feature competition.) The younger Panahi's triumphant, genre-blending debut follows the road journey of an Iranian family of four as they attempt to reach the border with Turkey and smuggle their elder son out of the country. Critics praised Road's humor and warmth and the director's fresh approach.

Claire Denis has the sad distinction of being the only director with two entries on our list. It certainly doesn't help that her own country, France, has never submitted one of her films for foreign-language Oscar consideration. Yes, not even this 2000 French Foreign Legion drama (set in Djibouti and loosely based on Melville's Billy Budd) that took first place in the Village Voice's critics poll that year. It also scored 13 points higher than the film France did submit to the Oscars that year, The Taste of Others.

Not a documentary but also not far from the truth, Jafar Panahi's 2015 piece of guerrilla filmmaking finds the director (then in the middle of a 20-year ban on filmmaking by his government) driving a taxi through Tehran and engaging in possibly scripted conversations with his diverse group of passengers (played by actual anonymous locals rather than professional actors). Taxi won the Golden Bear at the 2015 Berlinale but failed to attract any attention from the Academy.

Divided into two separately released films (both Part One and Part Two scored 91) but available as a combined DVD set, these under-the-radar 2018 releases from economist-turned-director Patrick Wang (In the Family) captivated those critics who saw them. Spanning four hours in all, the two episodic and often comedic films follow a large cast of characters (with an ensemble led by a terrific Tyne Daly) involved with a small-town community arts center. Variety's Owen Gleiberman called the result "as if Eric Rohmer had made a Christopher Guest film."

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.

After collecting awards on the international festival circuit for her 2021 documentary We, Alice Diop took home the Silver Lion Grand Jury Prize (second place) as well as the Luigi De Laurentiis Award for best debut at the 2022 Venice Film Festival. Based on true events from 2016 and using actual trial transcripts (similar to the aforementioned Reality), Diop and co-writers Amrita David (who also edited), and Marie N'Diaye take a shocking event and show the complex humanity of those involved. The film follows Rama (Kayije Kagame), a novelist attending the trial of Laurence Coly (Guslagie Malanga), a young woman accused of killing her 15-month-old daughter by abandoning her to the rising tide on a beach in northern France. Though it was France's official Oscar submission in 2022 (the year it was released outside the U.S.), it failed to score a nomination.

This 2004 Senegalese drama about female genital mutilation by esteemed writer-director Ousmane Sembène (his final film, arriving just a few years before his death) was not submitted for Oscar consideration by his home country. In fact, Senegal didn't submit any film to the Academy until 2017.

Easily one of critics' favorite films of 2018, this drama from Korean filmmaker Lee Chang-dong is a loose adaptation of Haruki Murakami's short story "Barn Burning." A enigmatic tale of love and class, the film revolves around a love triangle between deliveryman Jongsu (Ah-in Yoo), Haemi (Jong-seo Jun), a local girl he falls for, and Ben (a universally praised Steven Yeun), the man she brings back home with her after a trip to Africa. South Korea submitted the film for Oscar consideration, and it made the preliminary shortlist but did not ultimately become that country's first-ever Academy Award nominee. (That achievement would happen one year later with Parasite.)

One of 2019's best-reviewed movies, this semiautobiographical, 1980s-set drama from British writer-director Joanna Hogg (Unrelated, Archipelago, Exhibition) follows a young cinema student (played by Tilda Swinton's daughter Honor Swinton-Byrne, delivering what could be a star-making performance) who falls for the troubled Anthony (Tom Burke) in the 1980s. The film began collecting acclaim early last year, when it won Sundance's World Cinema competition, and it landed on dozens of year-end top-10 lists but has been mostly ignored by awards bodies. (And not just the Oscars; The Souvenir was also somehow shut out of BAFTA nominations in its country of origin.)

Not submitted by Hungary for foreign-language Oscar consideration (instead, the country opted for the little-known Abandoned, which failed to earn a nomination), the languid but unsettling Harmonies is a collaboration between filmmakers Béla Tarr and ígnes Hranitzky. They compose the 145-minute, black-and-white film—loosely based on László Krasznahorkai's novel The Melancholy of Resistance—out of just 39 long takes, adding to the tension of a story set in a Communist-era Hungarian village gripped by a crisis.

One of the best-reviewed films of 2020, writer-director Eliza Hittman's third feature offers an intimate portrait of Autumn (newcomer Sidney Flanigan, honored by a variety of critic organizations), a quiet teenager growing up in rural Pennsylvania who has no viable options to terminate an unintended pregnancy. When her cousin Skylar gathers up enough money to get to New York City, their journey only gets more difficult.

Esteemed French director Claire Denis never received better reviews than for this 2008 drama about the evolving relationship between a widower and his college student daughter. Only two films had a higher Metascore in 2009 (when Rum arrived in theaters) but, as was the case with Denis' previous high-water mark Beau Travail, the film was not even submitted by France for Oscar consideration.

The film's star, Mati Diop, is now a director herself, and no stranger to Oscar snubs. Her recent debut film, Atlantics, failed to receive a nomination despite critical acclaim and a Grand Prix win at Cannes.

A co-winner of the third-place Jury Prize at Cannes, this 2021 feature from lauded Thai filmmaker Apichatpong Weerasethakul (Uncle Boonmee Who Can Recall His Past Lives) finds the director filming outside his native country for the first time. Set in Colombia, the meditative, allegorical Memoria stars Tilda Swinton as a woman obsessed with finding the source of a sound that only she can hear. It's another film with long, slow takes and little action—with an added dose of weirdness—so it's not for everyone. But you can definitely count critics among Memoria's fans. While some reviewers were disappointed in the ending, most found the film to be spellbinding and transcendent.

Metacritic's highest-scoring international feature of 2022 is just the latest triumph for dissident Iranian director Jafar Panahi, though an Oscar boycott by the Iranian government meant that his film was not submitted for consideration. Awarded a Special Jury Prize in Venice, the latest from the now-imprisoned auteur is another slice of piercing meta-fiction in which he finds a version of himself making a film in the Iranian village of Jabbar and causing a bit of trouble for the locals after they accuse him of taking a photo of a pair of young lovers, which he denies.

Nina Paley's highly praised animated 2008 musical adaptation of the ancient Indian epic known as the Ramayana features music from 1920s jazz singer Annette Hanshaw. The film played mainly on the festival circuit but did get a brief theatrical release in late 2009 courtesy of GKIDS. Still, a lack of awareness probably doomed the film's Oscar hopes even though the 2009 nominee list in the animated feature field was expanded from three to five titles.

One of four 2015 releases on our list (though it dates back to 2013 when it made its first festival appearance), this artsy and grotesque Russian sci-fi film finds a group of scientists heading to a planet populated by human-like beings who are stuck in a period resembling the middle ages. The second film based on the novel by Arkady and Boris Strugatsky, it was also the final feature by director Aleksei German, who died while completing work on the film. Russia failed to submit the film for Oscar consideration.

One of the past year's biggest Oscar snubs, this Safdie brothers crime thriller isn't just a rare good Adam Sandler movie—it is by far the best movie the former SNL star has ever been in. Only two actors (Adam Driver and Joaquin Phoenix) have collected more awards and nominations over the past few months, but Sandler was surprisingly omitted from the Oscar field—as was the film as a whole. The lack of a best picture nomination is especially glaring in a year in which two of the nominees (that would be this one and this one) didn't even have good reviews.

Céline Sciamma is very quickly becoming one of the most consistently great filmmakers working today. Her fairytale-like fifth film, following the critically acclaimed Portrait of a Lady on Fire, returns the director to her roots, as she crafts another revealing look at childhood and growing up as she did in her previous films Water Lilies, Tomboy, and Girlhood. The focus in this 2021 drama is on eight-year-old Nelly, who is recovering from the death of her grandmother but discovers a treehouse that provides a magical connection to her mom's own childhood.

Here's one snub for which Academy voters are completely blameless. Even though Olivier Assayas's five-hour look at the life of terrorist Carlos the Jackal (played by í‰dgar Ramírez) screened in theaters in North America (and, indeed, around the world), this 2010 project first made its world premiere as a miniseries on French television. This fact rendered it ineligible for any Oscar consideration, though it did pick up a pair of Emmy nominations (and a Golden Globe win) when it later aired on cable on Sundance.

It's actually on the short side when you compare it to the previous standout film from the El Pampero Cine collective: the 13-plus-hour La Flor. Technically released as two separate two-hour films (Parte I and Parte II, though they were reviewed by critics as a single film and thus have identical Metascores), Trenque Lauquen is named after the city of the same name in Argentina. It is there where a botanist (Laura Paredes) goes missing while cataloging plant species, and the search for her leads to mystery upon mystery in an episodic, ever-changing film that ultimately serves as a celebration of storytelling.

Taiwanese director Edward Yang's 2000 drama (sometimes subtitled "A One and a Two") spends three hours chronicling the daily lives of members of a middle-class family. The film premiered to acclaim at Cannes, where Yang won the festival's directing award, and it went on to collect additional awards from critic groups in Los Angeles and New York. But Yi Yi had the misfortune of debuting in the same year as Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon. Per Oscar rules, Taiwan could only submit one film for consideration, and the latter was the country's obvious choice (and a good one: it won the foreign-language Oscar).

Nominated for seven BAFTA awards (among other honors), Sarah Gavron's coming of age drama centers on a homeless teenage girl (widely praised newcomer Bukky Bakray) who must care for her younger brother after they are abandoned by their mother. After debuting at TIFF in 2019, the film played in theaters in the UK in 2020 and arrived in the States on Netflix in February 2021—within the extended eligibility window for the 2020 Oscars.

Here's another omission that is only partially the Academy's fault. Currently within a fraction of a point of overtaking Parasite as the #1-ranked film of 2019 (and it could get there if it picks up additional reviews when it returns to theaters later this month), Céline Sciamma's 18th century lesbian romance was not submitted by France as its official selection for foreign-language Oscar consideration. (Instead, the country submitted the good but less impressive Les Miserables.) Of course, Oscar voters could have nominated Portrait in other categories—indeed, many other groups did, recognizing Sciamma's direction and screenplay, Claire Mathon's cinematography, and Adèle Haenel's performance.

Winner of the Palme d'Or at Cannes in 2007, Cristian Mungiu's abortion drama set in the waning days of Communist-run Romania was our highest-scoring film in 2008 (when it finally reached North American theaters) and remains one of the best-reviewed films of the current century. The film's omission from the foreign-language Oscar field (where it didn't even make the shortlist) sparked controversy (at least in the film critic community) at the time and led to some minor reforms of the Academy's nominating process.