16 Great Recent Movies The Oscars Outrageously Snubbed
7. Rush
Nominated For:
Nil.
This one is definitely an Oscar-bait movie. It's a biopic about sports and personal struggles made by a company (Working Title) which has produced a lot of Oscar favorites in the past and a director (Ron Howard) who's often been an Academy darling. Yet it didn't get any nominations at all, which was very strange and surprising.
Not only is this extremely odd, but it's a huge shame. Rush is one of those movies which is undeniably Oscar-bait, but is actually great. It's got awesome performances, strong visuals and plenty of emotional depth, and it's continued placement on the IMDb Top 250 is well-deserved.
While not a great year for films the 2013 had a terrific Oscar line-up, with nearly all of the films involved deserving their nominations. However, there was space for Rush. To this day, no-one knows why the enjoyable and competent but empty American Hustle got 10 nominations and there is no doubt most felt pretty satisfied when it won nothing. Rush could easily have taken its place.
Chris Hemsworth could have replaced Christian Bale for American Hustle while Daniel Bruhl should have replaced Bradley Cooper in the Supporting Actor category. As well as this, technical awards, a screenplay nomination and a Best Picture slot should've been flying in Rush's direction. Sadly, it wasn't to be.