Best Picture Winner Snub
Mad Max: Fury Road 2015
The #1 overall pick, the snub of snubs. A true-blue genre classic that lost to Spotlight before the Academy learned to honor genre.
The Big Picture · Draft · Review
The Oscars Snubs Draft. Plus: 'Sirāt'!
February 16, 2026/ 171 min/ Sean Fennessey · Amanda Dobbins · Chris Ryan · Joanna Robinson · Katie Rich
A five-person snake draft (Joanna Robinson, Amanda, Chris, Sean, Katie Rich) of the most egregious Oscar snubs across seven categories. One year comes off the board per pick, so 35 years of Academy history get rewritten. It closes with Sean's interview with 'Sirāt' director Oliver Laxe. Note: the full 35-pick rosters weren't recapped on-air; below are the marquee picks that could be confidently attributed.
19 films across 2 segments.
The teams drafting the greatest Oscar snubs in history
Joanna Robinson
Best Director Winner Snub
Rebecca 1940
Finally give Hitchcock a directing Oscar, over John Ford's The Grapes of Wrath. Takes 1940 (and His Girl Friday) off the board.
Best Picture Nominee Snub (21st c.)
In the Mood for Love 2000
Submitted as international but never nominated, a generous read of the 2000 eligibility.
Best Actor Winner Snub
Witness 1985
Give Harrison Ford the Oscar he deserved, taken from William Hurt.
Amanda Dobbins
Best Picture Winner Snub
The Social Network 2010
One of the great miscarriages of Oscar justice: lost to The King's Speech, and Fincher still has no Oscar.
Best Actor Winner Snub
Malcolm X 1992
A forever-actor announcement robbed. Denzel, one of our all-timers, taken from Pacino (who has Godfather II anyway).
Best Director Winner Snub
The Grand Budapest Hotel 2014
Wes Anderson's coronation moment that just passed him by, taken from Iñárritu's Birdman.
Best Picture Nominee Snub (21st c.)
The Dark Knight 2008
The snub that triggered the Academy's Best Picture expansion, 'and then I don't have to hear about it anymore.'
Best Picture Nominee Snub (20th c.)
Bringing Up Baby 1938
Zero nominations for a signature screwball that invents the whole genre.
Chris Ryan
Best Picture Winner Snub
Goodfellas 1990
Over Dances with Wolves, the most egregious one. Scorsese then waited 16 years for The Departed.
Best Picture Nominee Snub (20th c.)
2001: A Space Odyssey 1968
Kubrick, criminally overlooked, never topped as science fiction.
Best Actress Winner Snub
All About Eve 1950
Bette Davis, one of CR's five favorite performances ever, over Judy Holliday.
Best Picture Nominee Snub (21st c.)
The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo 2011
Into one of the worst nominee slates ever, 'closer to Fincher every day.'
Sean Fennessey
Best Picture Nominee Snub (20th c.)
Singin' in the Rain 1952
Should have won outright. Take out The Greatest Show on Earth entirely.
Best Actor Winner Snub
The Last Detail 1973
Give Nicholson his 1973 (from Jack Lemmon, who already had one), a domino chain that ends with the slap never happening.
Katie Rich
Best Picture Winner Snub
Brokeback Mountain 2005
Maybe the worst Best Picture win of all time (Crash), a chalk pick that had to be done.
Best Picture Nominee Snub (20th c.)
Do the Right Thing 1989
The be-all, end-all Spike Lee snub, taken over When Harry Met Sally.
Best Actress Winner Snub
Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind 2004
Kate Winslet, overdue. A chain that eventually frees Glenn Close for Albert Nobbs.
The reviewthe film in the room
Sirāt 2025
Sean's conversation with director Oliver Laxe about his Cannes-awarded, techno-scored desert odyssey: cinema as a place of transformation and healing, the 32-minute-delayed title card, and thinking of films 'like operas.'
Also mentioned raised along the way
Also on the board / debated SpotlightDances with WolvesThe King's SpeechCrashWhen Harry Met Sally...The Squid and the WhaleCitizen KaneThe ExorcistChinatownOrdinary PeopleCoal Miner's DaughterCarrieThe Tree of LifeMoneyballHugoMidnight in ParisThe Big LebowskiMelancholiaShameThe MasterDoubtAlbert NobbsOut of AfricaRanLa La LandArrivalThe Grapes of WrathHis Girl FridayWuthering HeightsGrand IllusionThe Adventures of Robin HoodYou Can't Take It with YouThe Truman Show
From the Sirāt interview It Was Just an AccidentSorcerer
Not films filtered out: TV, games, ads
TV The MandalorianGame of ThronesAndor
Ads White Claw