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Oscars 2026: All the Movies the Academy Forgot About This Year

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Ignacio Weil

Entertainment - January 23rd 2026, 10:30 GMT+1

Materialists cropped processed by imagy — 15. Materialists

Prestige romance can look like a lock on paper and still get shut out when ballots land, especially when the vibe is “adult, glossy, and extremely aware of itself.” In the middle of all that money-talk and status anxiety, *Materialists* finds its sharper edge in the little social negotiations – who pays, who performs taste, who pretends they’re above it. Celine Song’s follow-up leans into conversation as conflict, with performances that usually earn at least a screenplay nod even when a film isn’t a Best Picture player. That’s why the total miss feels so odd: it wasn’t some tiny underdog hoping for a miracle, it was built like an invite. Even if you didn’t love every choice, you probably expected it to show up somewhere. | © A24

Cropped Wicked For Good — 14. Wicked: For Good

A movie this big usually wins something almost by momentum – craft categories, performances, maybe even a “we can’t ignore it” nod out of sheer scale. And yet *Wicked: For Good* woke up to a blank, which is wild when you consider how much visible work goes into a sequel like this. Sure, second chapters get judged harsher, and plenty of people felt the story didn’t land as cleanly as the first film. But a total shutout still reads like the Academy making a point, not just voting their taste. It’s hard to watch that happen and not feel the disconnect between what sells the year and what gets rewarded. | © Universal Pictures

Amanda seyfried The Testament of Ann Lee 2025 cropped processed by imagy — 13. The Testament of Ann Lee

A Shaker musical sounds like an awards long shot until you see how confidently it commits to its own strange, spiritual intensity. Mona Fastvold directs with discipline and nerve, and the performances don’t try to “explain” themselves to the audience – especially when *The Testament of Ann Lee* asks you to sit with belief, power, and obsession without softening the edges. Amanda Seyfried reportedly goes for broke, the kind of work that often forces an acting nomination even from voters who aren’t fully on board with the film. But projects this singular can split ballots fast: too unconventional for the safe middle, too formally bold for easy tech-category consolation. That’s why the zero-noms outcome feels like the Academy dodging a real swing. | © Annapurna Pictures

Jay Kelly cropped processed by imagy — 12. Jay Kelly

Netflix had a polished, filmmaker-forward drama that looked like easy Academy fuel, then watched it get ignored like it never cleared the noise. Noah Baumbach gives George Clooney a midlife wobble with real bite, and Adam Sandler one of those quietly sharp roles where he’s funny without reaching for jokes; *Jay Kelly* is exactly the kind of character piece that normally sneaks into screenplay or acting. Instead, the season’s attention drifted to louder narratives, and this one never got the push it needed to become a “must check the box” title. The snub isn’t shocking because it’s perfect – it’s shocking because it’s so obviously built for this exact game. | © Netflix

Wake Up Dead Man A Knives Out Mystery — 11. Wake Up Dead Man: A Knives Out Mystery

Rian Johnson knows exactly how to make a crowd-pleaser look effortless, and the wild thing is how this one still manages to feel fresh inside a franchise. In the second act, *Wake Up Dead Man: A Knives Out Mystery* pivots into darker, moodier territory – more gothic and thorny – while still delivering the tight clockwork of clues, suspects, and misdirection. Daniel Craig’s Benoit Blanc remains the anchor, but the ensemble is where the fun lives, because everyone plays like they’re in a slightly different movie and it still clicks. It’s the kind of craft-heavy entertainment the Oscars claim to respect… right until it’s dismissed as “just a mystery.” If you want proof that smart popcorn can also be serious filmmaking, this is it. | © T-Street Productions

Cropped The History of Sound — 10. The History of Sound

*The History of Sound* felt like the kind of prestige romance the Academy usually finds room for, even if it’s not a top-tier Best Picture juggernaut. Oliver Hermanus stages the love story with real patience – less “big moment” filmmaking, more accumulated intimacy – while Paul Mescal and Josh O’Connor keep it grounded in longing instead of grand speeches. It also has that built-in Oscar-language of craft: period detail, music, and the bittersweet ache of memory doing most of the heavy lifting. And yet it vanished on nomination morning, which is extra weird for a film that’s basically engineered to play well with voters who claim they miss grown-up dramas. | © Closer Media

The Housemaid cropped processed by imagy — 9. The Housemaid

A twisty crowd-pleaser can still be “Oscar bait” if it looks expensive, stars A-listers, and carries itself like prestige, even when it’s really out to entertain. *The Housemaid* has that glossy, high-tension erotic-thriller sheen, and Amanda Seyfried sells the kind of icy control that usually attracts at least some awards chatter. Sydney Sweeney’s performance gives it a sharper edge than the average holiday hit, and the whole thing moves with the confidence of a movie that knows it’s going to be talked about. But the Academy doesn’t always know what to do with a blockbuster that isn’t pretending to be solemn, so it got treated like pure popcorn – despite all the craft hiding in plain sight. | © Hidden Pictures

Sound of Falling cropped processed by imagy — 8. Sound of Falling

Some films don’t “campaign” so much as haunt you, lingering in the brain as a mood you can’t shake. The setup is deceptively simple – generations of girls tied to one place – but it turns into a slow, eerie study of inheritance and trauma, with images that feel etched rather than staged. Halfway through, you realize *Sound of Falling* is doing something quietly radical with time and memory, and it’s the kind of formal confidence that critics love and voters sometimes avoid. It doesn’t hand you an obvious acting-reel breakdown or a clean moral bow; it just keeps tightening its grip. That’s probably why it ended up admired from afar and then forgotten when the nominations were counted. | © Studio Zentral

Cropped Die My Love — 7. Die, My Love

This one had all the ingredients that usually translate into nominations: a major star, a bold director, a “serious” psychological subject, and the kind of intensity that turns screenings into debates. Jennifer Lawrence goes for a performance built on volatility and raw nerve, and the film doesn’t soften the uglier emotions to make them palatable. It’s also not polite about its tone – sometimes it’s ferocious, sometimes it’s darkly funny, sometimes it’s just brutal – which can make voters recoil even when they respect the craft. The snub stings because it’s exactly the kind of risk-taking prestige cinema people claim the Oscars exist to reward, especially with *Die, My Love*. | © Black Label Media

Cropped Sorry Baby — 6. Sorry, Baby

A small, sharp indie can win critics over and still get lost when the Oscar conversation turns into a volume contest. Eva Victor’s voice is the hook here: funny in the way real people are funny when they’re trying not to fall apart, with scenes that land because they’re awkward, specific, and human. The film avoids easy catharsis and lets healing look messy, which makes it braver than a lot of “issue” movies that chase inspirational beats. It’s also the kind of writing-forward project that should’ve at least sniffed screenplay attention, because the dialogue does so much heavy lifting without announcing itself. Instead, it stayed a word-of-mouth favorite – exactly why it hurts that the Academy didn’t make room for *Sorry, Baby*. | © Tango Entertainment

Cropped eddington — 5. Eddington

Ari Aster didn’t exactly come to play it safe here, and the result is the kind of movie that sparks arguments before you’ve even left the theater. Set in 2020 and fueled by small-town paranoia, *Eddington* turns a local political standoff into something uglier and more American: neighbors choosing sides like it’s a sport, then realizing the game has real casualties. Joaquin Phoenix is the engine of the tension, jittery and coiled, while Pedro Pascal plays the kind of public-facing confidence that makes everything feel even more combustible. It’s sharp, timely, and deliberately uncomfortable – so of course it’s the type of “talked about” film that can still get blanked by the Academy. You don’t forget the mood it leaves you in after *Eddington*. | © A24

A House of Dynamite cropped processed by imagy — 4. A House of Dynamite

*A House of Dynamite* is built like a nomination magnet: Kathryn Bigelow, a high-stakes political thriller setup, and a cast stacked with “serious movie” credibility. The movie’s hook – officials scrambling after an ICBM targets Chicago – turns into a pressure-cooker of chain-of-command decisions, media panic, and moral compromise, the kind of material that usually earns at least a screenplay or acting conversation. Idris Elba and Rebecca Ferguson give it that grounded, procedural intensity Bigelow does so well, where the drama comes from process rather than speeches. But Netflix titles can get weirdly lost in the shuffle when the season picks its favorites, and this one felt like it never became the “must-check-the-box” movie. It’s hard not to see the shutout as the Academy dodging a cold, modern nightmare. | © Netflix

Bring her back cropped processed by imagy — 3. Bring Her Back

It’s the kind of horror that doesn’t just want to scare you – it wants to unsettle you for the rest of the night, especially once you start thinking about what the characters *can’t* unsee. In *Bring Her Back*, the Philippou brothers double down on the emotional punishment side of supernatural horror, turning grief and family into the real boogeymen long before anything occult shows up. Sally Hawkins is the secret weapon, playing the foster-mother figure with a sweetness that feels a little too practiced, like she’s auditioning for trust while hiding the knife behind her back. The film’s nastiest moments aren’t cheap jump scares; they’re the slow-burn decisions that make you whisper “don’t do that” at the screen, knowing they’ll do it anyway. It’s grim, mean in a deliberate way, and weirdly sad underneath the blood – exactly the sort of crowd-pleaser that still leaves you feeling bruised. | © Causeway Films

Warfare 2025 movie cropped processed by imagy — 2. Warfare

It plays less like a “war movie” and more like getting dropped into someone’s worst ninety minutes with no exit sign. In the second sentence, you can already feel what *Warfare* is doing differently: the tension isn’t built around speeches or hero beats, it’s built around procedure, confusion, and the horrible math of seconds. Co-directed by Alex Garland and Iraq War veteran Ray Mendoza, the film stays brutally close to the platoon’s point of view, making the smallest sounds – radio chatter, footsteps, breathing – feel like threats. The performances lean into teamwork rather than showboating, which is exactly why it lands: you don’t watch individuals “perform courage,” you watch a unit trying to function while the plan collapses. When people say it’s intense, they mean it in the physical sense – you come out feeling like you’ve been clenched for the entire runtime. | © DNA Films

No Other Choice cropped processed by imagy 1 — 1. No Other Choice

Park Chan-wook turning a corporate-downsizing story into something violent and darkly funny sounds like a joke – until you see how cleanly he lands it. Lee Byung-hun plays a man whose life gets quietly erased by layoffs, and the movie tracks the humiliation in a way that’s both grotesque and painfully recognizable: the polite smiles, the forced optimism, the rage that keeps getting swallowed until it finds a worse outlet. The satire is sharp, but it’s also a thriller, and Park stages the escalation with that elegant control that makes the ugliness feel even more cutting. This is exactly the sort of international heavyweight that can get praised in headlines and still miss when votes are cast. The Academy didn’t make room for *No Other Choice*. | © CJ Entertainment

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Every Oscar season leaves a trail of “wait, that didn’t get in?” titles – movies that felt like obvious nominees until the Academy’s list dropped. Some were genuinely great and got ignored anyway; others were the kind of big, shiny, Oscar-bait swings that still somehow missed the cut.

We’re talking the full range here, from overlooked gems to the would-be prestige plays that face-planted (yes, the Wicked: For Good and Materialists type of vibe). Either way, if you’re tracking the 2026 race, these are the films worth revisiting – or at least arguing about.

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Every Oscar season leaves a trail of “wait, that didn’t get in?” titles – movies that felt like obvious nominees until the Academy’s list dropped. Some were genuinely great and got ignored anyway; others were the kind of big, shiny, Oscar-bait swings that still somehow missed the cut.

We’re talking the full range here, from overlooked gems to the would-be prestige plays that face-planted (yes, the Wicked: For Good and Materialists type of vibe). Either way, if you’re tracking the 2026 race, these are the films worth revisiting – or at least arguing about.