9 of the 2022 Academy Award nominations’ biggest snubs and best surprises

came out of the Hollywood oven earlier this morning, and the scent of sweet excitement cut with the bitter smell of disappointment is wafting over the hills of Los Angeles as we speak. When it comes to the Oscars, the behavior of voters is just predictable enough to make critics’ eyes roll to the back of their heads every February. At the same time, it’s inscrutable enough to spawn a sub-industry of bloggers dedicated to following fortunes of different films and performers on the awards circuit.In the end, though, it’s all just betting—particularly in recent years, when a rapid expansion of AMPAS membership has prompted a shift in the awards body’s activities (mostly for the better). Still, Oscars gonna Oscars. And so there’s a distinction to be made between mere acceptance (see: the presence of the critically drubbed and on this year’s nominee list) and true disappointment when it comes to the Academy Awards. On the more positive side, worthy films can also make a strong showing that surprises no one: ’s performance in the lead-up to the Oscars made it a safe bet, but that doesn’t detract from the film’s quality. (Speaking of positive movement, not being shocked to see Jane Campion, for a Best Director Oscar, on this year’s ballot is a new and nice feeling.)With this wiggle room in place, writing a list of the biggest snubs and surprises has room for both personal taste and professional prognosticating. We’re favoring the former on our list.

Taking a first-time actor and sweeping them off their feet with an Oscar nomination is a time-honored Academy tradition: Anna Paquin, Lupita Nyong’0, Jennifer Hudson, Julie Andrews, and Barbra Streisand all won acting awards for their first movie roles. Like Hudson and Streisand, Alana Haim was a celebrated musician before making the transition to the big screen. And her performance in Licorice Pizza displayed such easy charm and natural star power, it’s surprising that the Academy didn’t induct her into its celebrated first-timers’ club this year.

True, Parasite broke the of subtitles by winning Best Picture in 2020. But that film is a certified crowd-pleaser full of wild twists and turns, and Drive My Car is a three-hour meditation on grief that devotes a good chunk of that running time to actors rehearsing a multilingual production of Uncle Vanya with as little inflection as possible. With that in mind, the best explanation for Drive My Car’s incredible four Academy Award nominations—including one for Best Picture, —is that steadily growing critical momentum and an affectionate reception from the Academy’s acting branches (actors love movies about actors) revved it over the finish line. That, and the fact that it’s just a really good movie.

Okay, so maybe Zola was a bit too wild to break into the upper echelon of Oscar nominations. (We would have loved to have seen a movie with a penis montage nominated for Best Adapted Screenplay, but still—we get it.) But the lack of diversity in this year’s Best Supporting Actor category stings, given the obvious solution to that particular problem: Nominate Colman Domingo, you cowards! And while you’re at it, nominate Riley Keough for Best Supporting Actress. Between the two of them, Zola had the most dynamic, exciting supporting performances of the year, and it would have been nice to see the Academy recognize that.

Films about “messy women” are having a moment. (See: Best International Feature nominee The Worst Person In The World.) But it’s unexpected of the Academy to extend that grace to Jessie Buckley in The Lost Daughter, however, for two reasons: First, because Buckley’s character expresses the film’s theme of ambivalence about motherhood at its most challenging. Second, , this is a classic supporting performance, one that is more about creating context for Olivia Colman’s lead performance than it is about stealing scenes—a technique that, traditionally, is more likely to get you an Oscar than Buckley’s enigmatic work here.

Asghar Farhadi is a major international director. He’s been nominated for an Oscar before, garnering a Best Original Screenplay nod for his 2011 masterpiece A Separation. And A Hero, like all of Farhadi’s films, is a major work that’s been hailed by critics and feted at festivals around the world. It won the Grand Prix at Cannes, for goodness’ sake! So perhaps the Academy could have cleared one of the spots reserved for Drive My Car and Flee—no disrespect to those films, but they’re well represented in other categories—for this subtly devastating, brilliantly written and performed character study?

Although The Power Of The Dog was all but guaranteed to get some Academy Awards nominations this year, seeing it lead the race with 12 nods is a pleasant surprise. Of those 12, the most unexpected is Jesse Plemons’ nomination for Best Supporting Actor, given his subdued straight-man performance in the film—and the fact that most of the buzz thus far has focused on his co-stars Benedict Cumberbatch and Kodi Smit-McPhee. It’s sweet that Plemons’ real-life partner and fellow nominee Kirsten Dunst , though.

Absolutely nothing for Wes Anderson, huh? Not even a nomination for Best Production Design, a category that was basically made for him and his meticulously, lovingly designed films? Or how about Best Original Screenplay? The anthology format Anderson uses in his loving tribute to midcentury magazine journalism suits his storytelling style especially well. Ah, well—the cast and crew of The French Dispatch Of The Liberty, Kansas Evening Sunwill just have to settle for being .

A flurry of crafts nominations was a given for Dune, Denis Villeneuve’s sumptuously detailed adaptation of the inconclusive first half of Frank Herbert’s 1965 sci-fi classic. And it got them, picking up nods for Best Cinematography, Best Costume Design, Best Original Score, Best Sound, Best Film Editing, Best Makeup And Hairstyling, Best Production Design, and Best Visual Effects. With those types of numbers, a Best Picture nomination may have been inevitable—at least, in a post-Black Panther world where sci-fi blockbusters are considered serious awards fare. But Best Adapted Screenplay came as a surprise, given that the film’s abrupt ending annoyed many critics and viewers. But hey, at least this guarantees that they’ll resolve that nagging cliffhanger in part two.

This was never going to happen, but wouldn’t it have been fun if it did? At least France got the message, awarding Julia Ducournau’s visionary second feature the Palme d’Or at last year’s Cannes Film Festival and selecting it as the country’s official entry for Best International Feature. The weirdo, gender-bending, feminist body-horror future is coming whether you like it or not, Academy—resist at your own peril.