10 Incredible Performances The Academy Ignored This Year
8. Eddie Murphy (Dolemite Is My Name)
Netflix's ever growing legitimacy as a distributor capable of releasing Oscar-worthy features is becoming more apparent as each year ticks by.
We've seen the likes of Roma, Mudbound, The Ballad of Buster Scruggs, Icarus and others all receive wins/nominations over the past few years. However, this year felt like the real coming out party for the streaming service, with the likes of Marriage Story, The Irishman, Klaus and The Two Popes all getting a share of the Academy spotlight in 2020.
Yet, despite all that exposure, a few performances and films under the Netflix banner still went completely unappreciated by the Academy.
Dolemite Is My Name was one such movie, even though Eddie Murphy's career revitalising performance as filmmaker/comedian Rudy Ray Moore drew praise from critics all around the world when the feature first dropped on Netflix.
The comedic legend did land a Golden Globe nomination for Best Actor, but Murphy's Academy nomination was not forthcoming and he (along with the entire film) was snubbed by the event.
A performance labelled as 'beautifully and carefully crafted' by John Podhoretz from the Washington Free Beacon, surely must have been more deserving than yet another nomination for Leonardo DiCaprio for his good-but-not-Oscar-good turn as Rick Dalton in Once Upon a Time in Hollywood, right?
Apparently not.