Just in time for the 89th annual Oscars ceremony Sunday, Feb. 26, let us look back on ten films that failed to get the attention from the Academy they believed they deserved. Three of our top picks just came out last year, and two of them star Will Smith. Here they are, in no particular order:
Schindler’s List scribe Steve Zaillian wrote and directed this remake of a 1949 Best Picture winner, inspired by Robert Penn Warren’s Pulitzer Prize winning novel about the rise and fall of a corrupt politician. How could this not score a home run? Critics cited a weakly conceived narrative and a lack of political insight as why. All of this talent, including Sean Penn, could not attract the Academy’s attention again.
Christopher Nolan has done it again. With The Odyssey, Nolan takes one of the oldest…
The deadites are back in the latest installment of the Evil Dead franchise in Sébastien Vaniček’s Evil Dead Burn. To say the…
Cross words and crossed swords meet with tragic results in Opera Theatre of Saint Louis’ Romeo and Juliet. The…
Southern charm meets emotional harm in Opera Theatre of Saint Louis’ A Streetcar Named Desire,…
Love is in the air in Florence, but not everyone is happy about it. This…
Pressure is the kind of war film that succeeds not through explosions or battlefield spectacle,…
View Comments
I would argue against this being included in the list, not for any actual quality, but because Lawrence did get the Best Actress nomination. So in that sense, the Oscar-baiting did not fail.
True, but considering Russell had been on a roll getting multiple nominations and a few wins for several films in a row, I imagine Lawrence's sole Best Actress nomination must have been a sore and unexpected disappointment for him. That is why I considered "Joy" a failure