10 Oscars The Marvel Cinematic Universe Should Have Won In A Fair World

4. Best Supporting Actor - Tom Hiddleston

With Kenneth Branagh helming the project, things were always likely to get a bit Shakespearean in Thor. And perhaps Branagh's greatest contribution, to the MCU and to humanity, is introducing Tom Hiddleston to a wider audience, having cast him in the none-more-Shakespearean role of Loki. There's arguably been no greater star-making performance in the MCU than Hiddleston's in Thor, and it's easy to see why. Loki may have since become a pantomime villain of epic proportions, but Hiddleston is in Thor a subtly conflicted bad guy, ambitious and power-thirsty as a way of proving himself in a society where he doesn't belong, and both hissable and sympathetic where he could've just come across as just another duplicitous thug. The Academy isn't opposed to handing its Best Supporting Actor statuettes over to compelling villains - in the past decade it handed the golden guy over to Javier Bardem, Christopher Waltz and Heath Ledger for that very reason (though ask yourself whether Ledger's comic book bad guy would've won if the actor hadn't tragically passed away prior to the ceremony). Hiddleston will likely win an Oscar one day, but there was no reason he shouldn't have been in the running for Thor.