Oscar snubs, surprises: No female directors, ‘Babylon’ bust

GBNEWS24DESK//

There are always a few big surprises and heartbreaks come the morning of Oscar nominations, as much as awards strategists try to mitigate those. But the batch of nominees for the 95th Academy Awards seemed to have more than its fair share of shockers, good and bad.

Here are some of the major snubs and surprises that have Hollywood talking Tuesday morning.

ANGELA BASSETT GIVES MARVEL A BOOST

There are 30 films in the Marvel Cinematic Universe and no actor has ever been nominated for their performance in one until today, when Angela Bassett broke the mold by getting a supporting actress nod for playing a grieving queen in “Black Panther: Wakanda Forever.” Bassett has been nominated before — in 1994, for playing Tina Turner in “What’s Love Got to Do With It” — and has now joined a small group of Black women to have multiple acting nominations: Whoopi Goldberg, Octavia Spencer and Viola Davis.

‘THE WOMAN KING’ DETHRONED

Gina Prince-Bythewood’s “The Woman King” was entirely shut out from the Oscar nominations, a shocking turn for a well-reviewed blockbuster that at one time had many predicting a best actress nod for Viola Davis as the fierce Agojie leader, a best picture nod and one for best director. No Black woman has ever been nominated for best director, a deplorable statistic that was unfortunately not changed this year.

WOMEN SHUT OUT OF DIRECTING

We should have seen this coming after the directors and producers guilds selected movies that were only directed by men, but the Academy has a different makeup. There was hope that members might acknowledge some of the extraordinary films this year that happened to have a woman behind the camera, especially after two consecutive years of women winning the prize ( Jane Campion and Chloé Zhao ). The would-be nominees included Prince-Bythewood, Sarah Polley for “Women Talking,” and Charlotte Wells for “Aftersun.” I’m not sure anyone was expecting Ruben Östlund ( “Triangle of Sadness” ) to get one of the five directing spots over James Cameron ( “Avatar: The Way of Water” ), Baz Luhrmann ( “Elvis” ) or Joseph Kosinski ( “Top Gun: Maverick” ) either.