2021 Oscars: Ranker’s Top 5 Snubs

NOTE: Readers are still voting on this list all the time, and the ranking changes frequently. The list you see on this blog has changed several times since its publication. Changes in the list ranking may not immediately be reflected in this blog.

We won’t know the winners of the 2021 Oscars until April 25, but now that the Academy has officially announced this year’s nominees, we can now be certain about who isn’t going to walk away with a trophy on Oscar night. As speculation around who will win awards like “best picture” and “best director” heats up, film fans are also taking note of the artists and films who weren’t deemed worthy of an Oscar nod. That’s why hundreds of fans took to Ranker to voice their opinions on the people and movies who got stiffed hardest this year.

Our Biggest Snubs Of The 2021 Academy Awards list features 41 of the biggest absences from this year’s list of nominees. We’re taking a look at the snubs that our readers deemed most outrageous to give you a sense of where the Academy and the movie-viewing public differ most.

#1: Tom Hanks

Category: Actor in a Leading Role

Movie: News of the World

Tom Hanks is a two-time Oscar winner and six-time nominee, so it’s possible that the Academy decided he’s already decorated enough. Or it could be that his turn in Greyhound, another movie the actor starred in last year, split the votes among Academy members. Either way, Ranker voters have registered their frustration with the snub of their favorite actor of all time.

#2: Mads Mikkelsen

Category: Actor in a Leading Role

Movie: Another Round

When Another Round director Thomas Vinterberg nabbed a nomination for best director, it was something of a pleasant surprise — few considered the Danish-language film to be a huge Oscar contender. But while Vinterberg was vindicated, the movie’s lead, Mads Mikkelsen, wasn’t so lucky. Ranker fans who grew to love Mikkelsen in his roles as Le Chiffre in Casino Royale and Hannibal Lecter in the TV series Hannibal are clearly bummed out on his behalf.

#3: Elisabeth Moss

Category: Actress in a Leading Role

Movie: The Invisible Man

As with Tom Hanks, Elisabeth Moss’s shot at this Oscar might have been compromised by a split ticket: her roles in both The Invisible Man and Shirley were being considered for the award. In the end, it looks like Moss will have to make do with her two Emmys, two Golden Globes, and two SAG awards.

#4: Andy Siara

Category: Best Original Screenplay

Movie: Palm Springs

The indie rom-com Palm Springs was likely an outside contender for gold — it was released in July of 2020, well before Oscar season. Those who did have hopes for this unique twist on the plot device in Groundhog Day pinned them all on the original screenplay category. Ranker voters are duly disappointed that screenwriter Andy Siara was overlooked.

#5: Bo Burnham

Category: Actor in a Supporting Role

Movie: Promising Young Woman

Well before Bo Burnham’s directorial debut Eighth Grade in 2019, his stylings as a stand-up comic and musician had built him a considerable following in the entertainment world. But now, as in 2019, when Eighth Grade was denied a best picture nomination, that following failed to net Burnham a nod for his turn as a pediatric surgeon in Promising Young Woman. It did, however, help get him a spot in the Top 5 of this list!

Drumroll please…

Last year, we correctly predicted who would take home the Oscar for best picture by identifying the “middlebrow.” What does that mean? The Academy exists to celebrate the best movies of the year, so they’re not going to pick the big-budget crowdpleaser that broke the box office. But they’re also not a snooty art film organization, so they usually won’t pick the boring, intellectual movie that was basically written for critics. They usually pick a movie in the middle of those extremes.

Ranker basically tells us where that middle is. We pull all the best picture nominees out of our list of Best Movies of 2020, which has over 35K votes on it from movie fans across the country, and look at the movies in the middle of the list: not too popular with theatergoers to be considered lowbrow, not too unpopular to be considered highbrow.

If you take all the best picture nominees from this list, Promising Young Woman is closest to the top at #3. The nominated movie that sits lowest on the list is Mank. If Promising Young Woman is the lowbrow choice and Mank is at the highbrow, our middle brow choices are The Father, The Trial of the Chicago 7, and Nomadland.

This is a really hard year to predict. It’s difficult to know how the Academy will respond to a year with little to no actual box office attendance, and this is the first year in a while where there hasn’t been a favorite to win best picture. But just going off what the data says, we think the smart money is on Nomadland.

These stories are crafted using Ranker Insights, which takes over one billion votes cast on Ranker.com and converts them into actionable psychographics about pop culture fans across the world. To learn more about how our Ranker Insights can be customized to serve your business needs, visit insights.ranker.com, or email us at insights@ranker.com.

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