With the awards season flurry finally over, and the campaigns complete, the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences has released their nominations for the best films, performances, and technical achievements of the year. Now while there are often many deserving nominees and winners,there is also just as many films and performances that did not get the recognition they deserve. This is partially due to the fact that the majority of the Academy is old, white males; meaning that they often don’t take a liking to the unusual, new, or different very often. They tend to stick with the safe and comfortable films when selecting their winners (evident when Crash took home the Best Picture trophy over Brokeback Mountain). However, the nomination process is something entirely different in itself (you can learn about it here), but still tends to go away from often the most daring and different films of the year. I think it goes without saying that both the voting and nominating processes need revising, but that’s for another article. So without further delay, here are the Oscar snubs for this year, with the Academy’s nominations in bold, and my snubs following after:

Best Picture:

American Hustle 

Nebraska

Philomena

Captain Phillips

Dallas Buyers Club

12 Years a Slave

Gravity

The Wolf of Wall Street

Her

Snubbed: The Grandmaster, Inside Llewyn Davis, Spring Breakers.Though I’m very pleased to see The Wolf of Wall Street and Her included in the running, there was room for one more nominee with the Academy nominating only nine of the possible ten slots for Best Picture. With this one extra spot I would have liked to have seen any one of three snubbed films here get in. It’s shocking that Academy favorites,the Coen Brothers, didn’t even get a nomination for the heavily campaigned for Inside Llewyn Davis. The other two were both long shots, one being a foreign film and the other being simply ‘too weird and out there’ for the Academy. However they are both great films and deserve to be on this list.

Best Actor in a Leading Role:

Christian Bale, American Hustle

Bruce Dern, Nebraska

Leonardo DiCaprio, The Wolf of Wall Street

Chiwetel Ejiofor, 12 Years a Slave

Matthew McConaughey, Dallas Buyers Club

Snubbed: Joaquin Phoenix, Oscar Isaac, and Christian Bale (sort of). This is a very packed category, and I do not wish to pin artists against artists and say who should be in and who should be out. But these two performances by Isaac and Phoenix were magnificent and are just as worthy as these other nominees. As for Bale, his performance in American Hustle was not even his best of the year, and he should not have been nominated for it. In lieu of American Hustle, I would’ve liked to see him get a nod for his stellar work in Scott Cooper’s Out of the Furnace, a much more powerful and reserved role that he gave an amount of held back anger and depth to that most actors couldn’t.

Best Actress in a Leading Role:

Amy Adams, American Hustle

Cate Blanchett, Blue Jasmine

Judi Dench, Philomena

Meryl Streep, August Osage County

Sandra Bullock, Gravity

Snubbed: There’s not much in the Best Actress category this year that would make me jump out of my seat to say “How dare they!”. Having said that, Scarlett Johansen’s voice work for Her was a key part to the movie and was a heart breaking performance.

Best Director:

Alfonso Cuaron, Gravity

David O. Russell, American Hustle

Martin Scorsese, The Wolf of Wall Street

Alexander Payne, Nebraska

Steve McQueen, 12 Years a Slave

Snubbed: Spike Jonze, Wong Kar-Wai. Seriously? How did Spike Jonze not get a nod for his elegant direction on Her. His work has always been strange and out there (especially for the ancient relics that make up the academy) but his work in Her is beyond exceptional. And with a best picture nomination I had hoped that they would have recognized his direction to. Wong Kar-Wai was a bad bet to be nominated being that he made a foreign film, but if you see this film you realize you’re watching a director completely in control of his art, which is surely deserving of some recognition.

Special Mention: James Franco. Though I was going to cover only the major categories, I had to call attention to the biggest snub of all. James Franco’s work in Spring Breakers is incomparable. His performance is part drugged out psychotic prophet, and part money grubbing, drug-dealing pimp. It was perhaps the most difficult role to play of the year, and he excited beyond any expectation at filling it. His role is one that will go down in cult-movie history, proving the Academy messed up these nominations one again.