Some Of The Biggest Movies Of 2025 Were Shut Out At The Oscars

Hollywood's biggest night is nearly upon us. The Academy has now made its voice heard by revealing the full list of 2026 Oscar nominations. As always, it's a mixed bag of big movies and smaller titles that have been embraced by the film community. However, it's hard not to notice while looking over this year's nominees that several of 2025's biggest movies were completely shut out of the ceremony, not earning a single nomination.

For starters, the Chinese animated smash hit "Ne Zha 2," which became the biggest animated movie of all time last year, taking in a staggering $2.25 billion at the box office, wasn't nominated for Best Animated Feature. In that case, however, Gold Derby has reported that it wasn't submitted for Oscar consideration to begin with.

Elsewhere, director James Gunn's "Superman," which made $616 million at the box office and was by far the biggest superhero movie of 2025, didn't land any nods, either. Still, while it was never going to compete for the night's top prizes, a Best Visual Effects nod would have felt warranted. Similarly, all of Marvel's 2025 movies — "Captain America: Brave New Word," "Thunderbolts*," and "The Fantastic Four: First Steps" — were shut out of all of the technical categories.

Nothing, however, stood out more than the fact that "Wicked: For Good" didn't earn a single Oscar nomination this year. The first "Wicked" nabbed an impressive 10 nominations, including Best Picture. "For Good," notably, made less at the box office and is currently sitting at $525 million worldwide, well below its predecessor's $758 million. All the same, it's a decidedly popular sequel to a movie that had a major showing at the Academy Awards last year. Still, critics and audiences didn't like this one as much, as evidenced by the shut out.

The 2026 Oscar nominations were full of snubs and surprises. That's just the nature of the beast. I'm not suggesting that the Academy should arbitrarily vote for bigger movies. But there's no denying that having popular movies in the ceremony can help make more casual viewers care about the Academy Awards, which is sorely needed.

Viewership for the Oscars has struggled in recent years. Hollywood still cares about the Oscars, and it's a big reason why movies like "One Battle After Another" or "Hamnet" are even made in the first place, as studios want to take home these prizes. They still mean something. But they mean less if the audience isn't there for them. Granted, the "Favorite Cheer Moment" debacle at the 2022 Oscars, which honored Zack Snyder's "Justice League," is a fine example of what not to do in an attempt to increase engagement.

On the plus side, both "F1" and "Sinners," which were huge hits, earned Best Picture nominations. Moreover, "Sinners" actually secured a record-breaking 16 nods overall, which is a huge deal. Even so, this year's show could've used some more additional heavy-hitters in bigger categories to increase investment. Case in point, even though it did earn some nominations, James Cameron's "Avatar: Fire and Ash" was left out of the Best Picture race. Meanwhile, Paramount didn't get a single nomination, not even in the technical categories for "Mission: Impossible — The Final Reckoning." It wasn't the right year for many of these blockbusters. Nevertheless, the problem of getting the average person to care without moments like Ryan Gosling singing "I'm Just Ken" from "Barbie" or seeing if "Top Gun: Maverick" can go the distance persists.

The 2026 Academy Awards air Sunday, March 15 on ABC and Hulu.