Oscar Nominations 2019: 6 Ups & 9 Downs
4. Countless Beloved Indies Get Shut Out
Every year without fail there are a number of much-loved indie films which just don't pick up sufficient momentum to actually make it onto the nominees list.
This year had some especially infuriating omissions, such as Leave No Trace losing out on Best Adapted Screenplay, Best Actor (Ben Foster) and Best Actress (Thomasin McKenzie); Hereditary for pretty much everything but especially Best Actress (Toni Collette); and Eighth Grade for Best Original Screenplay, Best Actress (Elsie Fisher) and Best Supporting Actor (Josh Hamilton).
It speaks to an awards show going through an identity crisis of sorts: it wants to skew towards popular appeal in order to salvage those fast-sinking ratings, but it also wants to purport to be rewarding the greatest artistic achievements of the year.
Without these movies getting even a single nomination among them, the Academy has fallen incredibly short of its apparently prestigious mark.