Top 15 Movies With the Most Oscar Nominations That Didn’t Win a…

15. Elvis (2022) – 8 nominations, 0 wins

Baz Luhrmann went all in on excess, and that gamble is exactly why this film stayed in the awards conversation for so long. When Elvis works, it works like a stage show that refuses to calm down, with Austin Butler holding the center while the costumes, editing, and production design keep trying to blow the roof off the room. It had the visibility, the box office, and the kind of flashy craft support that usually leads to at least one trip to the podium. Instead, Oscar night turned into a total blank, which still feels odd for a movie that was this loud, this popular, and this hard to ignore. | © Warner Bros. Pictures

The Elephant Man 1980 cropped processed by imagy

14. The Elephant Man (1980) – 8 nominations, 0 wins

The Elephant Man did not need spectacle to leave a mark. David Lynch took the tragedy of John Merrick and shaped it into something deeply humane, with John Hurt delivering the kind of performance that stays raw no matter how many decades pass. The black-and-white photography gave the film a grave, almost ghostly beauty, and the Academy clearly saw it as more than an acting showcase because it landed in major categories across the board. That is what makes the shutout linger: this was not some fringe nominee hanging around the edges, but a fully embraced prestige drama that somehow left with nothing. | © Paramount Pictures

The Remains of the Day 1993 cropped processed by imagy

13. The Remains of the Day (1993) – 8 nominations, 0 wins

Nothing here raises its voice, and that is exactly why the film hurts so much. The heartbreak lives in pauses, glances, routines, and all the feelings that never quite make it into the open, which gave the story an elegance that could have easily turned stiff in less careful hands. What makes The Remains of the Day so devastating is how Anthony Hopkins and Emma Thompson keep the emotion trapped just under the surface until it becomes unbearable to watch. On paper, it looked like textbook Oscar material; in practice, it ran into a brutal field and became one of the Academy’s most famous prestige shutouts. | © Columbia Pictures

12. A Complete Unknown (2024) – 8 nominations, 0 wins

One reason this movie landed so well is that it never treats Bob Dylan like a museum exhibit. In A Complete Unknown, James Mangold keeps the early Greenwich Village years alive and restless, letting Timothée Chalamet, Edward Norton, and Monica Barbaro play real people instead of wax figures built for awards clips. The Academy responded almost everywhere that mattered, with acting support, directing support, writing support, Best Picture support, and enough craft recognition to make a win feel plausible. None of it converted. That clean sweep in the wrong direction only made the film’s Oscar story harsher, because it genuinely felt like a contender all season long. | © Searchlight Pictures

11. The Little Foxes (1941) – 9 nominations, 0 wins

Greed has rarely looked this polished or this poisonous. William Wyler’s adaptation of Lillian Hellman’s play gives Bette Davis one of her sharpest, coldest star turns, and the whole film moves with the confidence of a story where every smile feels like a threat. By the time The Little Foxes is done, it has turned family ambition into something practically venomous, which helps explain why critics and awards voters took it so seriously. It had the pedigree, the performances, and the reputation of a major player, yet Oscar night gave it nothing back. That gap between acclaim and reward is part of what keeps the film in the conversation so many years later. | © Samuel Goldwyn Productions

Peyton Place 1957 cropped processed by imagy

10. Peyton Place (1957) – 9 nominations, 0 wins

For a glossy studio melodrama, this one had a real bite to it. Peyton Place looks polished on the surface, but underneath it is full of hypocrisy, scandal, repression, and the kind of secrets that make small-town respectability feel like a bad joke. Lana Turner gave the film star power, the supporting cast drew serious awards attention, and the Academy clearly responded to the movie’s emotional reach even as its material pushed at the limits of what mainstream Hollywood usually packaged so neatly. Then the ceremony happened, and all of that momentum disappeared in one night. It remains one of the clearest examples of Oscar admiration stopping just short of a win. | © 20th Century Fox

9. The Banshees of Inisherin (2022) – 9 nominations, 0 wins

What made this shutout sting was how many different doors seemed open. The Banshees of Inisherin had a screenplay people loved, Colin Farrell at the center of one of the year’s most delicate performances, and supporting turns from Kerry Condon and Barry Keoghan that never felt like token mentions. Martin McDonagh’s breakup story was sad, funny, petty, and quietly brutal all at once, which gave it the kind of broad admiration that usually leads to at least one Oscar somewhere along the line. It never happened. That 0-for-the-night result still feels a little unreal because this was a film people truly cherished, not one they were merely respecting from a distance. | © Searchlight Pictures

Marty Supreme cropped processed by imagy

8. Marty Supreme (2025) – 9 nominations, 0 wins

Josh Safdie took a table-tennis hustler story and made it feel fast, twitchy, and gloriously unstable, which is a big part of why the movie became such an awards-season fixation. The acting push was real, the craft support was real, and the whole campaign around it made Marty Supreme seem like the sort of film that would absolutely find a way onto the winners list before the night was over. It did not. After all that attention, all that noise, and all those nominations, the film walked out without a single Oscar to show for it. That shutout only adds to the legend of a movie that already felt a little unhinged in the best possible way. | © A24

7. Gangs of New York (2002) – 10 nominations, 0 wins

The movie was built on scale, smoke, and bad blood, with Martin Scorsese treating Five Points like a city-sized pressure cooker ready to burst. In Gangs of New York, Daniel Day-Lewis turns Bill the Butcher into the kind of screen villain who hijacks every frame, while the costumes, sets, and sheer historical sprawl keep the whole thing feeling huge. It had the profile of a heavyweight contender and looked especially dangerous in the craft races, which made its clean miss on Oscar night all the more startling. For a film this ambitious, the Academy’s silence still feels louder than it should. | © Miramax Films

6. True Grit (2010) – 10 nominations, 0 wins

The Coens took a story most people already thought they knew and stripped it down until it felt hard, cold, and wonderfully unsentimental. Jeff Bridges gives Rooster Cogburn real wear and tear, Hailee Steinfeld arrives with the kind of control actors twice her age would envy, and Roger Deakins makes the frontier look beautiful without polishing the danger out of it. Everything about the film suggested broad Academy appeal: prestige western, sharp writing, strong performances, impeccable craft. Then the wins went elsewhere, leaving True Grit with one of the strangest shutouts of its era. | © Paramount Pictures

5. American Hustle (2013) – 10 nominations, 0 wins

Nobody forgot the hair, the plunging necklines, or the nightclub swagger, but the film worked because the cast knew exactly how much fun to have with all that chaos. American Hustle had one of those nomination mornings where it seemed to show up everywhere, including all four acting categories, and that kind of across-the-board support usually points to at least one Oscar somewhere. David O. Russell kept the whole thing moving like a con that might collapse at any second, which gave it a pulse a lot of prestige dramas never find. Ending the night at zero felt strange then, and it has only looked stranger with time. | © Columbia Pictures

4. The Irishman (2019) – 10 nominations, 0 wins

The Irishman was never interested in giving the gangster genre one more victory lap. Scorsese made a long, bruised reflection on loyalty, aging, regret, and the stories violent men tell themselves so they can keep functioning, with Robert De Niro, Al Pacino, and Joe Pesci all playing like they knew the material had curdled into something mournful. The de-aging headlines got attention, but the real power came from how quietly devastating the last stretch becomes. A film this respected across so many Academy branches finishing with nothing gave the whole result a strangely chilly aftertaste. | © Netflix

3. Killers of the Flower Moon (2023) – 10 nominations, 0 wins

The film never lets its evil hide behind style, and that choice gives every scene a sickening moral weight. Lily Gladstone anchors the tragedy with extraordinary control, while Leonardo DiCaprio and Robert De Niro turn greed and cowardice into something so ordinary it becomes frightening. When Killers of the Flower Moon kept popping up on nomination morning, it looked like the Academy understood just how large and painful a piece of work it was. Watching it come away with no wins felt wrong, not because it needed pity, but because movies this major are not supposed to vanish when the envelopes open. | © Apple Original Films

The Turning Point 1977 cropped processed by imagy

2. The Turning Point (1977) – 11 nominations, 0 wins

Adult dramas used to trust performers this much. Shirley MacLaine and Anne Bancroft carry the film with the kind of bruised intelligence that can make old resentments feel immediate, and the ballet world around them adds elegance without softening any of the rivalry, regret, or professional jealousy. The Turning Point understood that missed chances can wound just as deeply as open failure, which is probably why it landed in so many major categories. That also makes the final Oscar result harder to process, because a film that deeply embedded in the race usually does not walk out with a perfect zero. | © 20th Century Fox

1. The Color Purple (1985) – 11 nominations, 0 wins

Prestige recognition was never the problem here; the Academy clearly saw the power of the performances, the scale of the adaptation, and the emotional force running through the whole film. Whoopi Goldberg announces herself with astonishing authority, Oprah Winfrey and Margaret Avery give the story even more weight, and Spielberg directs with a seriousness that marked a real shift in how people viewed him at the time. The contradiction has always been hard to ignore: so much admiration, so much visibility, and not one reward on the night itself. That disconnect is part of the reason the Oscar history of The Color Purple still gets brought up with disbelief decades later. | © Warner Bros.