Every year the Oscar nominations are filled with controversy and complaints. One person’s favourite actor wasn’t nominated, and another’s favourite film failed to be nominated. Often the nominations do not provide too many surprises, but it seems this year that quite a few poorchoices were made in the process of nominations. The best picture nominations are filled with strange choices and unfair admissions, and it seems apparent that a few of the choices were made on popularity and possibly an attempt for the Academy to ensure relevancy and improve falling ratings over recent years.Not only that, but it also seems as if the Academy failed to see or realise thequality of other films and performances during the year, which raises the question also of the Academy’s ability to properly nominate the correct films and performances.

     The Best Picture nominations for this year are some of the weakest in recent years. Admittedly, the Academy doesn’t always reward the best films with the actual award, but they have nominated some brilliant films over recent years. Last years nominees; Dunkirk, Get Out, Call Me By Your Name, Lady Bird and Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri were all highlights, although the eventual winner, The Shape of Water was, yet another, indication of the Academy’s failings to reward the best films and performances. This year’s nominees are not up to the standards of the last four years, that included a mass of incredible films. However, despite some of the lack of quality, Roma, The Favourite and BlacKkKlansman are undeniable high points of the year, with Roma being one of the best films of the last decade, with Alfonso Cuarón proving to be an early favourite to earn his second Oscar for Best Directing. It is on the other end of the scale that things do not live up to these standards. Black Panther, Bohemian Rhapsody and A Star Is Born show the lack of quality or films this year, or, the Academy’s ignorance towards the quality films released this year. Both Bohemian Rhapsody and A Star Is Born are not Best Picture films, somehow, they have found themselves on this list at the expense of some incredible films this year, such as First Reformed and You Were Never Really Here, the latter being one of the biggest snubs of the year. Black Panther’s selection seems to be the culturally relevant pick of the bunch. The nomination for Black Panther just adds to the whole Best Popular Movie controversy, with the nomination seeming to be, alongside Bohemian Rhapsody and A Star Is Born, the popular choice of the nominations, in an attempt to improve ratings and relevance.
Although it was a solid film, it was not a best picture film, and only because of its cultural importance on social media was it selected, for the Academy to choose a film that promotes diversity. Yet, their diversity seemed to run out here with their massive exclusions of films such as If Beale Street Could Talk, Widows and Sorry To Bother You, all of which deserved to be on the list for best picture, and were, in fact, snubbed in almost every category that they should have been nominated in. It is not a surprise, however disappointing it may be to see them miss out. One film that missed out, also, is Burning, which did not even get a nomination in the Foreign Film category, despite being one of the most critically acclaimed films of the year.

     Another area with major snubs was the actor categories, with both Timothée Chalamet and Daniel Kaluuya missing out on nominations in supporting roles, the former being hugely overlooked. In a category with nominations for Sam Elliot and Sam Rockwell, it seems odd that these two actors missed out on nominations for stellar performance. Sam Rockwell was not in Vice for long enough and did not have enough impact on the film to warrant a nomination. Both Timothée and Daniel were superb in both their films, and, just like last year, with their unrewarded performances in Call Me By Your Name and Get Out, they have been overlooked by the academy. Not only that, but in the leading actor category Ethan Hawke was severely overlooked for his role in First Reformed, one of the films that was disappointingly overlooked by the Academy in several categories. Although none of these mentioned would have won anyway, it does not affect the fact that they have been overlooked for roles that do not deserve nominations, as the Academy continues to ignore newer performers, in favour of older actors who could have won Oscars previously. In my personal opinion, this exact thing happened last year with Gary Oldman winning best actor over Timothée Chalamet and Daniel Kaluuya, who definitely deserved it more.

The female acting categories are one, which, surprisingly, does not have a major snub or disappointment, aside from Toni Collette in Hereditary, which was a major shock, but there are several actresses who could win the awards, making it the most interesting of the categories in this year’s awards as Olivia Colman and Glenn Close both battle it out for Best Actress for their performances in The Favourite and The Wife respectively. The supporting actress category is one that could go either way, although Regina King is the most likely, and deserving to win. Any of them could win, however, and deservedly so.

  In the technical categories, there are, as always, several poor choices, with the biggest snub of all being the huge lack of nominations for First Man, which seemed an obvious choice for the majority of technical categories in categories such as Film Editing. Bohemian Rhapsody’s nomination in Film Editing makes you wonder if the academy even watched some films as this was, by far, one of the films weakest points.

       The directing category is lacking a single woman this year, which is, of course, a major disappointment.However, it must be noted that there were not many films directed by women that were outstanding moments of directing. Suggestions of Marielle Heller for Can You Ever Forgive Me do not seemed warranted, with it not being an outstanding film this year. However, Lynne Ramsey’s work on You Were Never Really Here was completely overlooked, however, it seemed the case that the film itself was never in contention for any awards due to a lack of a promotional push and campaigning, as it was not just Ramsey that was not rewarded, but the film as a whole. It seems not to raise on issue that women were not rewarded this year, but more that women are not provided the opportunity to direct the best films, and that more opportunities are needed for women. It is no surprise that when given the chance, they shine, with examples such as Greta Gerwig’s Lady Bird, and Kathryn Bigelow’s The Hurt Locker, proving the quality of women directors, and their ability to provide a different perspective in films, in a male dominated industry we need to provide more opportunities for women in directing and producing roles. However, the Oscar Nominees this year in directing are less of an actual issue.

       This year does not seem to be a year for ground breaking winners, or anything spectacular, but hopefully the Academy can make the right decisions with the actual awards and avoid any drama, such as the La La Land debacle, which massively undersold the importance of Moonlight’s Best Picture victory. Although the Academy, as always, is caught up in picking Oscar bait films and not rewarding the quality films out there that are deserving of nominations, we can hope that they can simply pick the right winners, and move on to next year’s awards. There will be no historic moments, but as long as the right nominees are rewarded it can be classed as a solid year, for the Academy that is.