The 20 best performances that didn't win an Oscar

The Academy has a bit of a bias against comedies, which may help to explain the lack of nominations for the extremely funny The Birdcage, starring Robin Williams and Nathan Lane as Armand and Albert, a gay couple who pretend to be straight when their son starts dating the daughter of a conservative senator. Lane is particularly sublime as Albert, whose flamboyance is only matched by his deep emotions. Lane’s brilliance lies in his ability to embrace Albert’s ridiculousness while showing how deeply he loves both Armand and their son and how hurt he is by their rejection of him. Moreover, his performance in drag, in which he pretends to be the mother, is one of the funniest moments in ‘90s cinema. Ultimately, the film only earned one nomination, a truly grievous oversight.  

The late Angela Lansbury was beloved throughout her life, though she received particular acclaim and renown for her character of Jessica Fletcher in the long-running Murder, She Wrote. Arguably, her greatest screen performance was as the scheming, ruthless, and manipulative Eleanor Iselin in The Manchurian Candidate. This was a side of Lansbury that would be overshadowed by her grandmotherly image of later years, but it was still a terrifyingly intense performance and demonstrated how talented and versatile of a performer she was throughout her career. Though nominated for an Oscar, she ultimately lost out to Patty Duke in The Miracle Worker. 

In the annals of Hollywood, few stars shone as brightly or tragically as Judy Garland. Aside from her splendid turn in The Wizard of Oz, arguably her best performance was in the gut-wrenching melodrama/musical A Star is Born, in which she played Esther Blodgett / Vicki Lester, the young ingenue taken under the wing of the established star Norman Maine (played by James Mason). It’s a role perfectly suited to Garland, who not only has the pipes but the acting range, and her heartbreak at Norman’s struggles with addiction is palpable. However, though Garland was nominated, the award for Best Actress went to Grace Kelly for  The Country Girl. 

Most audiences are probably familiar with Andrew Garfield thanks to his role as Spider-Man in the pair of Amazing Spider-Man movies. However, he has shown himself remarkably versatile and gives a particularly poignant and soulful performance in Tick, Tick…Boom!, in which he plays Jonathan Larson, the writer of the original play on which the movie is based and the acclaimed Rent. There’s a richness and depth to Garfield’s performance, and it’s clear he poured all of himself into the role. What’s more, he showed that he was more than capable of carrying the musical numbers, and though he was nominated for an Oscar, he did not win.

Singin’ in the Rain is, in many ways, the paradigmatic Hollywood musical featuring an incandescent performance from Gene Kelly as Don Lockwood, a star of silent cinema who has to make the rocky transition to talkies. The film is a fascinating look at an industry grappling with epochal change, and Kelly, with his megawatt smile, his undeniable charisma, and his inimitable dancing ability, owns the whole film. In a bit of a stunner, he wasn’t even nominated for Best Actor (even though his co-star, Jean Hagen, was), making his snub one of the most notorious in the history of the Academy.

With his debut feature film, Get Out,  Jordan Peele showed that he is undoubtedly one of his generation’s most visionary and daring filmmakers. At the center of the story is Daniel Kaluuya’s Chris Washington, a young Black man whose visit to his white girlfriend’s house turns deadly when it’s revealed they are secretly transplanting the brains of young African-Americans into the bodies of white people. Kaluuya delivers a remarkable performance, one which allows the audience to feel with him as he realizes the terror of his situation. Though he would go on to earn a nomination for Best Actor, he ultimately lost, but he would go on to win the Oscar for Best Supporting Actor for the film Judas and the Black Messiah. 

The murder of the boy Emmett Till remains one of the most horrifying incidents of racist violence in the history of 20th-century America. Though his murder is at the center of the wrenching film Till, it is Danielle Deadwyler’s performance as his mother, Mamie, that provides much of its emotional energy. Deadwyler captures Mamie’s agony at her son’s brutal murder, even as she captures the real woman’s steely and inextinguishable desire to see justice done despite all of the gears of justice in the Jim Crow South set against her. Unfortunately, Deadwyler wasn’t even nominated, even though she surely deserved to be so.

Cate Blanchett has never met a role she couldn’t sink her teeth into, and Carol, the title role in Todd Haynes’ richly-told adaptation of Susan Highsmith’s novel The Price of Salt,  is no exception. Blanchett’s Carol Aird is beautiful, glamorous, and desirable, but there is also a world of hurt and submerged desire, particularly given that she is a woman who loves women living in the progressive era of the 1950s. It’s one of Blanchett’s most achingly human and exquisitely wrought performances, and she adeptly brings the original character to richly breathing life. She ultimately lost out on the award to Brie Larson for Room. 

Glenn Close is one of those actresses whose career has been marked by many great performances, and yet, despite her undeniable talent, she has not won an Oscar. Though many of her roles have earned her acclaim, one of her finest was in Dangerous Liaisons, where she plays the cunning, ruthless, and manipulative Marquise Isabelle de Merteuil. She perfectly captures the personality of a woman very much enmeshed in the poisonous politics of the French court, someone who knows how to pull the strings so that people do what she wants, even if she is, as it turns out, devastated by the eventual outcome of her actions. 

Michael B. Jordan is widely and rightly regarded as one of the finest actors of his generation. His undeniable charisma is very much in evidence in Creed, where he plays Adonis Creed (the son of Apollo Creed from the original series of Rocky  films). Jordan brings out so many of the character’s key traits — particularly his pain — but also shows his softer, gentler side. Unfortunately, the film was very nearly shut out of the Oscars, receiving only one nomination for Sylvester Stallone as Best Supporting Actor. This is a shame, particularly as Jordan would go on to shine further in the two sequels. 

Ang Lee’s Brokeback Mountain is a remarkable cinematic achievement and a moving adaptation of Annie Proulx’s beloved short story about two cowboys whose forbidden love disrupts both of their lives and sets them on a tragic course. Heath Ledger gave one of his best performances as the deeply closeted Ennis Del Mar, a man so wedded to ideas of Old West masculinity that he finds it difficult to get emotionally close to anyone, whether his wife or his beloved Jack. There’s so much pain and vulnerability in Ledger’s performance. Like many others, he was nominated for Best Actor but ultimately lost to Philip Seymour Hoffman for Capote. 

Ridley Scott’s Gladiator  helped return the ancient world epic to prominence in the pop culture imagination. Though Russell Crowe’s Maximus is the story's center, and his transformation from general to gladiator to freedom fighter is remarkably moving, Joaquin Phoenix’s deranged and petulant Emperor Commodus frequently steals the show. Phoenix is perfectly cast in the role, and he ably gives the viewer a villain it is quite easy to hate, someone whose desperate desire for his father’s love and misplaced affection for his sister makes him as monstrous as politically corrupt. Though nominated for Best Supporting Actor, he ultimately didn’t take home the prize.

Peter Jackson’s The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King is tied with Ben-Hur and Titanic for the most Oscar wins, but, surprisingly, there were no actor wins or nominations. This is truly a shame, as Ian McKellen is masterful as Gandalf the White, who plays a key role in the efforts to defeat the Dark Lord Sauron. McKellen has the potent ability to show Gandalf as incredibly strong yet unafraid to show a softer side — particularly to the hobbit Pippin — and his interpretation of the character is arguably the definitive one. Unfortunately, the Academy overlooked his magnificent performance in one of their more grievous oversights. 

Bette Davis was unquestionably one of the greatest actresses of her generation. She was known for her incredible work ethic and ability and willingness to play unlikable characters. Margo Channing of All About Eve is one of her most indelible creations — a fading Broadway actress who takes Anne Baxter’s Eve under her wing, only to discover she has her eyes on Margo’s fame. Davis’ ability to deliver a withering remark or a zingy one-liner is second to none, but, like Gloria Swanson of Sunset Boulevard, she lost out on the Academy Award to Judy Holliday for Born Yesterday. 

Even though she had been one of Hollywood’s biggest stars during the silent era, by the time Sunset Boulevard was released in 1950, Gloria Swanson had largely moved to success in other venues. Her role as Norma Desmond, the faded movie star who becomes enamored of William Holden’s struggling screenwriter Joe Gillis, catapulted her back into the spotlight, and it’s easy to see why. It’s a magnificently tragic performance. Norma refuses to recognize her own obsolescence and is determined to reclaim her old fame, no matter the cost. Despite the accolades and the fact that she was nominated for Best Actress, she lost out to Judy Holliday for Born Yesterday.

Rosamund Pike has slowly built a reputation as a meticulous actress capable of portraying characters of steely determination and sometimes deeply questionable morals. This is particularly true in David Fincher’s Gone Girl, in which she portrays Amy Elliott Dunne, a woman capable of monstrous deception. It was the role that really catapulted Pike into the popular consciousness, and her skills as an actress are on marked display. She makes her compelling and riveting, even as the audience is horrified at how manipulative and monstrous she really is. It’s thus no wonder she was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Actress, even if she did not win. 

Denzel Washington is one of the most respected actors of his generation. Though he has never given a bad performance, his turn as Malcolm X in Spike Lee’s film of the same name is truly inspired. He brings this remarkable man to fiery life, to such a degree that he seems to simply be Malcolm X. He was ultimately nominated for the Academy Award for Best Actor (one of two noms the film received), his second after his win for Glory. He wouldn’t win another Oscar until he won for Training Day in 2001. However, he would receive several other nominations. 

Alice Walker’s epistolary novel is the inspiration for Steven Spielberg’s film The Color Purple, which stars Whoopi Goldberg as Celie, a young Black woman who endures decades of abuse at her husband’s hands before finally finding her inner strength. It was Goldberg’s breakout role and the one that established her as a bona fide movie star, and she superbly captures Celie’s extraordinary transformation, capturing the many shades of her character. She received justified acclaim for her role, but while nominated for an Academy Award for Best Actress, she lost out to Geraldine Page for The Trip to Bountiful. 

The plays of Tennessee Williams have been adapted for the cinema many times, but arguably, one of the very best is A Streetcar Named Desire. It perfectly captures the Southern gothic feeling of the original play. A key part of the film’s appeal is the performance of Marlon Brando as Stanley Kowalski. Brutish yet undeniably sexual, Brando is magnetic in the role, and it helped to make him one of Hollywood’s biggest stars. It’s a small wonder that he was nominated for an Oscar, even though, unlike his co-stars (Vivien Leigh, Karl Hunter, and Kim Hunter), he didn’t take home the statue at the end of the night.

For quite a long time, Citizen Kane was regarded as the best movie ever made, and even now, it retains its powerful allure. Much of this is due to Orson Welles’ direction, but it can also be attributed to his performance as the title character, Charles Foster Kane (a very thinly disguised reference to William Randolph Hearst among others). It’s one of Welles’ most inspired creations, as he seems to fully inhabit the life, mind, and body of this extraordinarily complicated individual. Unsurprisingly, Welles would receive an Oscar nom for Best Actor, though he would lose out to Gary Cooper for Sergeant York (though he would share the award for Best Original Screenplay with Herman J. Mankiewicz).