The films from 2021 that should be nominated for Oscars, but won't

Janicza Bravo’s 2020 Sundance sensation lost its awards momentum due to the pandemic, and never quite recovered in ‘21 despite plentiful raves. Domingo, unforgettable as a no-nonsense pimp, is the film’s most likely Oscar nominee, but he might have to settle for an IFC nod for Best Supporting Actor. There’s no doubt the ultra-talented Domingo will be back this way again, possibly next year in the title role of George C. Wolfe’s “Rustin”.

Could a new “Matrix” movie actually miss the cut in sound and visual effects categories? Amazingly, it wouldn’t be the first time. Yes, 2003’s “The Matrix Reloaded” and “The Matrix Revolutions” were completely snubbed by the Academy, and it’s very likely to happen again what with the less-divisive likes of  “Dune”, “Spider-Man: No Way Home” and “Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings” bucking for nominations. Even in the tech categories, it helps if a lot of people really dig your movie.

No, we’re not arguing this “Jackāss”-ian journey starring prankster Eric André deserves Best Picture consideration (even though it’s probably a better movie than several of the likely nominees). We are, however, demanding that Tiffany Haddish make the cut for Best Supporting Actress. The breakout star of 2017’s “Girl Trip” owns every single one of her scenes as an escaped prisoner hunting down her brother (Lil Rel Howery), who’s unwisely borrowed her car. Haddish menacing an entire chicken-wing restaurant is the real-life equivalent of Eddie Murphy shaking down a redneck bar in “48 Hrs.”

Rodney Ascher’s fascinating, funny, and wholly unnerving documentary about a subculture of very online individuals who believe life itself is a simulation. Your instinct is to brush these people off as nutjobs, but the deeper Ascher probes, you begin to ask the kinds of questions that tear at the fabric of reality and sanity. Ascher’s non-judgmental approach is key to the film’s effectiveness, which was probably too wonkish to win over the Academy’s notoriously staid Documentarian branch (as it failed to make the category's shortlist).

Tsai Ming-liang’s absorbing meditation on human loneliness is the Taiwanese master’s best work since “Goodbye Dragon Inn”. Alas, his country chose another movie as its sole Best International Film representative, so we won’t be seeing Tsai at the Academy Awards this year. We should see his longtime onscreen muse, Lee Kang-sheng, at the Kodak as a Best Actor nominee, but voters would have to actually watch the movie first to know what they’re missing.

When Orson Welles’s long-unfinished “The Other Side of the Wind” was completed and released in 2018, there was a possibility the legendary filmmaker could be nominated for Best Director, even though he’d been dead since 1985. The Academy blew it then, but they could redeem themselves this year by honoring John Liu’s equally brilliant “New York Ninja”. Shot in 1983 and finished by Vinegar Syndrome’s Kurtis M. Spieler last year, this Gotham actioner could make Oscar history! At the very least, makeup f/x artist Carl Morano should receive consideration for bringing the Plutonium Killer to gooey life (and death).

David Chase’s brutally unsentimental prequel film to “The Sopranos” died an early awards-season death due to bait-and-switch marketing and mixed reviews. The notion of James Gandolfini’s son, Michael, playing a young Tony Soprano primed viewers for an in-depth origin story, but the film is really about the Moltisantis. Alessandro Nivola is unnervingly magnetic as Dickie, the sociopathic father Christopher will never get to know. It’s a toxic tale of misogyny, racism, and venality that’s as difficult to shake as the television show. It’ll likely age better than most of the eventual nominees.

Clint Eastwood is the proud owner of four Academy Awards (two for Picture and two for Director), but the ninety-one-year-old legend has always come up short in the acting category. “Cry Macho” is far from Eastwood’s best work as a filmmaker, but he’s rarely been better in front of the camera. Eastwood’s been commenting on his own iconography since the 1980s. What makes this role/performance special is the complete absence of fatalism. This isn’t a film about death; it’s about making the most of whatever time you have left. It’s a wistful companion piece to “The Mule”, and a reminder of why Clint has endured longer than any movie star in the history of the medium.

The Academy’s horror allergy is well documented. If you want to make noise at the Oscars, your creepshow better receive stellar reviews and gross well over $100 million domestically. James Wan’s Malignant checked neither of these boxes, which means Mike Elizalde is unlikely to get recognition for his spectacular creature and makeup f/x. Disrespect Gabriel at your own risk, Oscar voters!

James Gunn’s forced hiatus from Marvel Studios gifted us with this bizarro adventure that’s basically the R-rated DCEU counterpart of “Deadpool”. Given that “Deadpool” earned a WGA nomination and legitimate Oscar buzz, it’s odd that WB didn’t try to crash the Adapted Screenplay race. The film failed to make the sound and visual effects shortlist, while the superlative film editing by Fred Raskin and Christian Wagner is destined to be ignored.

Another horror triumph that can’t get no Academy respect due to insufficient grosses and a narrow marketing effort only targeted genre fans. Whereas “Malignant” has limited appeal to non-gorehounds, “Werewolves Within” is a nimble horror-comedy romp in the grand tradition of “Fright Night” and “Shaun of the Dead”. Those weren’t nominated for Oscars either, but that doesn’t make it right. Mishna Wolff’s whodunnit script is every bit as fun as Rian Johnson’s “Knives Out”, while Milana Vayntrub proves she’s capable of far more than hawking AT&T wireless plans.

Chris McKay’s entertaining pre- and post-apocalyptic sci-fi adventure fell short of the visual effects and sound shortlists, but the real crime here is the absence of Oscar buzz for Sam Richardson. The hugely appealing star of “Werewolves Within” swipes scenes from Chris Pratt as a nervous nellie conscripted into future conflict against alien invaders on the cusp of wiping out all human life on Earth. Okay, so it’s nothing terribly nuanced, but the man might just break the film record for most consecutive utterances of the word “shıt”. Pretty sure this is why the Academy has special Oscars.

Steven Soderbergh’s brilliantly constructed crime flick proved a bit too cool for awards season, which means Don Cheadle is getting robbed yet again of an Oscar nomination. How is it that one of the greatest actors on the planet only has one (1) Academy Award nod – seventeen years ago for “Hotel Rwanda”??? That’s better than zero for Ed Solomon, co-creator of the “Bill & Ted” franchise and writer of “Men in Black”. Despite a star-studded cast and very good reviews, “No Sudden Move” is due to go lacking when nominations are announced.

Kerry Bishé and Joel McHale are delightful as a blissfully wed couple who alienate their friends because they’re just too much in love. BenDavid Grabinski’s dark comedy is an off-kilter flick that hurls nonstop curveballs because it knows exactly what a seasoned viewer is thinking, and it works because Bishé and McHale sincerely believe they’ve done nothing wrong (spoiler: they haven’t). In any event, Charlyne Yi delivers another one of her patented, beamed-in-from-deep-in-the-cosmos performances that makes you wonder why she isn’t in everything. Her Oscar day will come.

Okay, this is a pretty bad movie, but Wesley Snipes playing a scheming African warlord continues a well-earned comeback that started with his dazzling turn as an alcoholic actor-turned-director D’Urville Martin in “Dolemite Is My Name”. He’s having a ball in every scene, and the writing is actually up to snuff whenever he’s on-screen. Snipes should have a standing Best Actor/Supporting Actor slot available until he finally gets the Oscar he deserved for “New Jack City”.

Lionsgate boned this film’s chances at a single competitive Oscar when they dumped it to streaming in February 2021 before the Pandemic-extended deadline for Academy Awards consideration. This means it’s all ineligible: the brilliantly unhinged performances, “Edgar’s Prayer” and, yes, Mark Jonathan Davis’s scintillating rendition (and reprise) of “I Love Boobies”. We’ll never know the joy of seeing Jamie Dornan sing to seagulls on the stage of the Kodak Theatre, and this is how we know there is no god.

Frank Oz’s film of Derek DelGaudio’s theatrical sensation exists in that strange netherworld of filmed stand-up comedy that’s way more cinematic than your garden variety HBO special but doesn’t really qualify as a documentary – at least, not to the extent that the documentary branch would ever consider nominating it. And yet it’s hard to think of a 2021 movie that evoked more delight and sorrow and surprise than DelGaudio’s magic act. It’s a work that connects with the individual and binds them to their fellow viewer. If everyone can agree on one shared experience, DelGaudio’s delivered the grandest prestige of them all.

At some point, the AMPAS will do the right thing and honor the essential work of stunt performers. Sadly, this would’ve been the right year to do it, given the untimely passing of master stunt coordinator Brad Allan, whose tutelage under Jackie Chan is evident in every single one of this film’s exhilarating fights. Other films that would’ve earned some love from the Academy include “Black Widow” and “No Time to Die”. Get this done already, Oscars!

It’s been twenty-seven years since Nicolas Cage won Best Actor for his bravura turn in “Leaving Las Vegas”, and nineteen since he was last nominated (for “Adaptation”). There’s been a lot of uninspired studio products and DTV dreck in the interim, but Cage proved via his heartrending performance in this sui generis drama that he can still deliver the goods when the material demands it of him. He should be a lock for a nomination, but absent a big awards push there’s no way Academy voters will take a chance on a movie about a kidnapped pig. And that is a shame.

Sketch-comedy maestro Bob Odenkirk has been dazzling us as a serious actor for over a decade as shady attorney Jimmy McGill/Saul Goodman on “Breaking Bad” and “Better Call Saul”, but those series couldn’t prepare us for his shocking transformation into a world-class āss-kicker in “Nobody”. The film itself is a fairly standard, adrenalized action flick, but Odenkirk takes it to another level by being wholly believable as a very dangerous man – and there’s nothing funny about it!

Writer-director Nia DaCosta and producer-cowriter Jordan Peele invest the disreputable slasher genre with rare intelligence and pay it off with a stunning finale that would’ve provoked more discussion had the movie been released in a less-noisy, non-pandemic world. The ambitious screenplay tackles explosive topics like gentrification and police violence and pursues the latter issue all the way to its inevitably bloody, yet kinda righteous end. We don’t get many heightened slashers, so we should encourage them via awards consideration every chance we get.

Edgar Wright’s masterful mod thriller should be up for just about all the major awards, but the film failed to attain the blockbuster bona-fides that put “Baby Driver” on the Academy’s map (to the tune of three Oscar nominations). Though the film made the Sound category shortlist, it seems unlikely that Wright will get his long-overdue first nominations for Director and Original Screenplay. It’ll happen one of these days.

Paul Schrader’s “First Reformed” was one of the most acclaimed movies of 2018, earning awards and nominations from critics groups and the Indie Spirit Awards. Despite this, the film could only eke out a Best Original Screenplay nod from the Academy. Schrader’s back this year with another classic character study, but it never attained the prestige momentum of his last picture. It’s crazy to think Schrader, Oscar Isaac, and Tiffany Haddish will go unrecognized this Oscar season, but movies like this don’t break through without a heapin’ helpin’ of hype.

When the Screen Actors Guild snubbed Fran Kranz’s shattering drama about two couples attempting to heal in the wake of a school shooting, its Oscar hopes plummeted. If actors don’t support an actors’ piece, there is very little chance the actor-heavy Academy will come through with a different result – especially when “Mass” screeners have been available since screener season began. The four principals (Jason Isaacs, Martha Plimpton, Ann Dowd, and Reed Birney) are all hugely deserving of nominations.

If Apichatpong Weerasethakul Palme d'or-winning masterpiece, "Uncle Boonmee Who Can Recall His Past Lives", couldn't even make the Academy's International Film shortlist a decade ago, his equally odd "Memoria" is destined to go ignored by voters. Though the film stars former Best Supporting Actress honoree Tilda Swinton, its distributor's decision to only play the movie in one U.S. theater at a time greatly limited access. Whatever. It's the Oscar's loss.