Seemingly surefire Oscar hits that failed to make the BP cut

Said this in that other thread but one more time:

AG and its Oscar tank job is where my reputation as a DW "hater" comes from among the sub-mental Zelbot Nation ......and my reputation as level headed truth teller started for those with far better musical taste known as the Cool Kids Club.....neither is deserved but the latter is far closer to the truth.

Saw it a week before its general release and posted that while I liked it (7+) I said it flat out wasn't getting a lot of nods, that I expected Denzel and Scott to both miss and BP obviously in a weak year......... the crowd I saw it with was a normal crowd, this was not at a festival and you just felt the air go right out of the theater in its last 1/3rd. 

Anyway, another one like this but not as obvious would be Beloved (1998) huge book, huge and long movie that goes for it (172 minutes!) .........timely cultural story on slavery and race, starring Oprah Winfrey (the cross-promotional Lady Gaga of her day!) directed by the guy who had pulled off a coup with Silence of The Lambs........the tide turned against that movie badly and Disney bailed on the film too - the way that movie was treated would be called racist in today's climate actually - but for a time it was highly rated at first and praised for being non-commercial too you figured the Academy would go to bat for it even though it tanked at the box-office.

I mean you know WHY it missed but on nomination day no one thought it would miss everywhere and no one would say it and now people forget it exists.

If Beale Street Could Talk?

It still won an acting Oscar, and was probably very close to getting a BP nomination, but it seemed disappointing after the success of Moonlight.

Maybe also The Farewell?

To be fair it did underperform during awards season, and unfortunately I think Parasite stole most if not all of its thunder, I guess because some voters can only think about one "Asian" film at a time, but it did well at the box office for how small it was, and did well with critics, but couldn't even get any traction in Best Supporting Actress.

Revolutionary Road?

It did get an acting nomination, and Winslet likely would have won for it if The Reader didn't exist, but I feel that it underperformed to expectations for it before the start of the season.

Although maybe I'm confusing this topic with something like "This had buzz" with films that had buzz, but when they came out it was clear that they sucked like The Shipping News.

Speaking of a Judi Dench movie though, maybe Victoria & Abdul at least for Best Actress. It did seem like the 5 nominees were locked in, but it's still surprising to me that Dench couldn't even get a BAFTA nomination teaming up with Stephen Frears in a movie where she's playing Queen Victoria.

First Man?

I was mainly talking about the Best Picture nomination and overall Oscar success, I'll clarify that in the title

First Man missing Score still makes absolutely no sense to me. It made it in for 4 other techs, it won at both the Globes and BFCA and Justin Hurwitz is a past winner. Plus it's just a fucking amazing score anyway.

Unbroken
Alexander
The Lovely Bones

The Ides of March.

It was the movie with the most noms that year.

Nobody has mentioned Cold Turkey? I mean, Cold Mountain?

Absolutely! The reviews were solid enough, it did decently at the box office and of course the pedigree behind it was insane - Nichols + Sorkin + Hanks + Roberts. Five GG nominations too. Looking back at it, one definitely has to wonder how it didn't make more of a splash.

I can be very petty lol, so after the dominance the year before by Harvey, I was so happy that Cold Mountain missed. He still did pretty well though with Meirelles getting a BD nomination. Anyhow I do wonder if that played into it a small bit, but it was probably mostly the backlash of the production not taking place in America. 

I guess I should have taken Seabiscuit more seriously at the beginning of awards season because it did have that Americana appeal in contrast to the takedown of Cold Mountain. Plus, it was a classic underdog story. 

Then you had Master and Commander and ROTK most likely getting a lot of the steak eater vote. So in hindsight, I could see how CM ended up not getting enough #1 votes to be nominated. If there were 10 nominees, I would say that it, City of God, In America, and then maybe some combination of Whale Rider, 21 Grams, The Station Agent, Finding Nemo or POTC would make up the rest of the 10.