Adam Sandler Could Get An Oscar Nomination For A Movie Hitting Netflix Very Soon

Despite some genuinely astounding dramatic turns throughout his largely very funny career, Adam Sandler has never scored an Oscar nomination ... but his new Netflix movie "Jay Kelly" might just put him in the race for best supporting actor at the big ceremony next March.

Noah Baumbach's latest movie, "Jay Kelly," features George Clooney as the titular movie star whose career victories have basically upended his personal life for years, but Sandler plays the pivotal role of Jay's longtime manager, Ron Sukenick. Again, while the "Sandman" has definitely tackled dramatic roles before (and I'll come back to those and why he's a particularly phenomenal dramatic performer), the role of Ron in "Jay Kelly" is a departure from recent projects like the "Murder Mystery" franchise and, well, "Happy Gilmore 2." So what drew Sandler to this movie, besides his long-running and recent collaborations with Netflix that include the two projects I just mentioned, as well as family-friendly flicks like "You Are So Not Invited to My Bat Mitzvah?"

According to an interview with Sandler in Vanity Fair back in August of 2025, Sandler, who previously worked with Baumbach on "The Meyerowitz Stories," was approached by the acclaimed writer-director directly. "He just kind of said, 'Yeah, he's writing our next thing.' He didn't even tell me what it's about," Sandler told David Canfield. Apparently, he was an immediate yes once he read the script: "My character loves George's character so much, and I thought that would be fun to do and easy to do with George. And as a guy who's an actor who'd live a similar life to Jay Kelly, it's a crazy depiction — how accurate a lot of it is."

In a different interview with both Noah Baumbach and Adam Sandler in Deadline, Baumbach expressly confirmed that he wrote the role of Ron Sukenick for Sandler because of the way Sandler not only prioritizes his family, but often includes them and his industry friends in his projects. (Sandler's daughters Sunny and Sadie, for example, frequently lead or appear in his recent projects.)

Baumbach essentially said that he and Sandler have this trait in common. "I always use my friends, either depending on their abilities or the roles, I use people in my movies who I've known my whole life, or you know, I bring my own family into it," he shared. "But I felt like with Ron, it would be a way for Adam to sort of play something that I feel is actually quite close to him, but in a character that actually isn't that close to him. Adam obviously lives Jay Kelly's life in reality."

Sandler, notably, does not play the huge movie star, but Baumbach points out that he designed Ron to serve a very specific purpose: "Ron is like Jay's shadow." In that way, Baumbach says, the titular Jay Kelly's struggles with fame and his legacy as an internationally acclaimed actor matter just as much as Ron's commitments to his family and children. "Jay's having a sort of existential dark night of the soul, and Ron's having the more ordinary version of 'I'm away from my family. I'm trying to do a good job at work. I'm also trying to be a good parent, and how do I do this? And this is what I chose, or I need to re-choose this or not,'" Baumbach continued.

When it comes to Adam Sandler's dramatic roles, a few standouts come to mind. "Funny People" is probably the closest in subject matter to "Jay Kelly," but in that Judd Apatow film, Sandler plays the disaffected movie star with a messy personal life, and Paul Thomas Anderson's "Punch-Drunk Love" is another great example. What I'm here to talk about, though, is the dramatic performance I think is Sandler's finest: his turn as despondent jeweler Howard Ratner in "Uncut Gems."

This high-octane, heart-pounding, often horrific thriller, released in 2019 and directed by the Safdie Brothers, gave Sandler his biggest opportunity yet to show off his dramatic chops, and he definitely succeeded — and it's because he's such a great comedic actor, not in spite of it. Yes. Sandler's roles in "Funny People," "Punch-Drunk Love," and even another Netflix drama, "Hustle," show off his talent for more "serious" work, but his performance as the frantic, terrible decision maker Howard in "Uncut Gems" shows off his razor-sharp timing, forcing him to walk an intense tightrope walk for the entire movie's runtime as you watch Howard's life deterioriate more and more drastically.

My point here is that Noah Baumbach is known for his dense, tense, and intense scripts, and after watching Sandler's absolutely bravura turn in "Uncut Gems" and working with him on "The Meyerowitz Stories," it's not surprising that he wrote a role specifically for Sandler that relies on this actor's timing, wit, and sometimes surprising depth. In a just world, Sandler would have an Oscar nomination — and perhaps an Oscar — for "Uncut Gems." Maybe "Jay Kelly" can right this wrong.

"Jay Kelly" hits Netflix on December 5, 2025.