Oscar Nominations 2024 Snubs and Surprises: Greta Gerwig and Margot Robbie Are Out, America Ferrera and Annette Bening Are In

The 2024 Oscars nominations are here, and boy, are people mad about it. Hey, it wouldn’t be the Oscars if there weren’t a bunch of people on social media getting mad at the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences.

The nominations for the 96th annual Academy Awards were announced on Tuesday morning, hosted by Zazie Beetz and Jack Quaid, which you can watch on the Oscars YouTube page. Eligible films for the 2024 Oscars include titles released from January 1, 2023, to December 31, 2023, and had to have at least a 7-day qualifying run in theaters in a major U.S. city as its first form of public exhibition or distribution.

The 2023 movie event of the year was “Barbenheimer,” aka the simultaneous release of Greta Gerwig’s Barbie and Christopher Nolan’s Oppenheimer, which brought movie goers to theaters in droves for an unusual double feature. Both Gerwig and Nolan’s films picked up quite a few nominations, including Best Picture. Other big awards-bait films included Martin Scorsese’s Killers of the Flower Moon, Yorgos Lanthimos’s Poor Things, Alexander Payne’s The Holdovers, and Justine Triet’s Anatomy of a Fall. (That last one was snubbed by France as the country’s entry for Best International Film, but still managed to nab a nomination for Best Picture and Best Director.)

But again, it wouldn’t be the Oscars if people weren’t unhappy. Read on for a breakdown of the 2024 Oscar snubs and surprises, and check out the list of 2024 Oscar nominations on Decider.

OSCAR SNUBS 2024:

Greta Gerwig for Barbie: This one really hurts. Barbie was the biggest, most celebrated film of the year. The Academy nominated for Best Picture and Best Adapted Screenplay, but not Best Director? After everything Gerwig did to create that film? Literally what the hell?

Margot Robbie for Barbie: Another big Barbie snub: Most of us thought Margot Robbie was a guarantee for Lead Actress. She gave a heart-wrenching, nuanced performance as a doll for Pete’s sake! That’s not easy to do! Apparently the Academy wasn’t impressed. At least Margot and Greta have all that box office money to comfort them.

Celine Song for Past Lives: It’s par for the course for the Academy to snub deserving female filmmakers—especially non-white female directors— when it comes to the Best Director category. Celine Song, unfortunately, was one of these snubs, for her gorgeous, poignant, semi-autographical debut.

Greta Lee for Past Lives: Another snub for Past Lives: The Academy completely overlooked that funny, moving lead performance from Greta Lee. Not our sweet birthday baby!

Penelope Cruz in Ferrari: Oh, Cruz stans are not happy about this one. Penelope Cruz acted circles around the rest of the cast in Ferrari as Adam Driver’s bitter wife, and yet she saw no love from the Academy. Sad!

Zac Efron for The Iron Claw: Look, it was always a long shot for Efron to nab a Best Actor nomination for Sean Durkin’s sports biopic, but damn if he didn’t deserve it. As ’80s wrestler Kevin Von Erich, Efron delivered a gut-wrenching performance of a man who slowly loses the only thing that was ever important to him: his brothers. Get your head in the game, Academy!

Charles Melton for May December: Charles Melton did not break my heart in that roof scene in May December for this! Maybe it was a long shot for the former Riverdale actor to nab a nomination, but there was a moment early in the awards season where Melton looked like a shoo-in for Best Supporting Actor. But the Academy ripped that dream away.

Leonardo DiCaprio for Killers of the Flower Moon: It wasn’t Leo’s year for his big role in the Martin Scorsese epic, but that’s OK. He has his Oscar already, for fighting that bear in The Revenant.

Dominic Sessa in The Holdovers: There was no love from the Academy for my favorite New England schoolboy troublemaker, sadly. Think of how good he would have looked on the Oscars red carpet! This one is a loss for the culture.

Killers of the Flower Moon for Best Adapted Screenplay: Killers of the Flower Moon did nab a Best Picture slot, but it was left out of the writing category. Hmph!

Julianne Moore in May December: No Best Supporting Actress for Moore? Do you think that hot dog line would have worked in the hands of a less talented actress? No, no it would not! C’mon, Oscars!

Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse for Best Visual Effects: Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse was nominated for Best Animated Feature, but snubbed for Best Visual Effects. Anyone who saw the film knows what an egregious snub that is—that film was beautiful.

OSCAR SURPRISES 2024:

America Ferrera in Barbie: While Margot Robbie didn’t manage to nab a lead actor nomination, there was a pleasant surprise for Barbie Fans: America Ferrera for Best Supporting Actress. No one else could have pulled off that speech about womanhood!

Sterling K. Brown in American Fiction: Another pleasant surprise—the Academy recognized Sterling K. Brown’s tender performance as Jeffrey Wright’s troubled, chaotic brother in the touching family comedy, American Fiction. Bravo!

Annette Bening for NYAD: I didn’t think it was Annette Bening’s year, but the Academy proved me wrong. This is Bening’s fifth nomination over her career, though she’s yet to have a win.

Golda for Best Makeup and Hairstyling: Look, I did not see the Golda Meir biopic. But I have heard it is not great. I have also heard that the make-up, in particular, is not great. So the fact that Golda is now an Oscar-nominated film has tickled a lot of cinephiles’ funny bones.

Justine Triet for Anatomy of a Fall: Thank god the Academy nominated at least one woman for Best Director. Triet definitely deserved it for her compelling French courtroom drama about a woman who maybe, possibly killed her husband.