The Academy is Playing a Wicked Game
Emma Galvan | DEPUTY EDITOR
January 29, 2026
When the new year comes around, it brings with it a wave of joy and celebrations. For football fans, it means the start of the playoffs, college students begin to receive their FAFSA refund, and resolutions are made and quickly forgotten by overachievers. For cinephiles around the world, this marks the beginning of awards season.
Primarily spanning from the end of January to the middle of March, films that were released throughout the previous year are honored through various awards ceremonies that leave thousands at the edge of their living room couches. These ceremonies include the Golden Globes, the Critics’ Choice Awards, and the Academy Awards, popularly known as the Oscars. The Oscars ceremony has been regarded as one of the most anticipated events for moviegoers, with this year’s ceremony taking place on March 12.
The nominations for the 98th ceremony, which were made public on Jan. 22, have been met with mixed reception, and there have been a lot of reactions to the films that were chosen for their respective categories. Some are in support of the nominations made, while others were left confused and even upset at the Academy and its voters.
There is a pink and green elephant in the room, that being how Wicked: For Good did not receive any nominations this year. Wicked, the film adaptation of the novel-turned-Broadway show, was a well-received success in last year’s awards season, receiving 10 Oscar nominations and winning Best Costume Design and Production Design. The sequel, Wicked: For Good, was one of the most anticipated films of 2025, with fans hoping that the sequel would finally claim all of the awards that the first one lost.
One award that fans were expecting was Ariana Grande’s performance as Glinda, which would secure the victory for Best Supporting Actress after losing to Zoe Saldaña’s performance as Rita Mira Castro in Emilia Pérez last year. Predictions left and right were putting the film in the technical categories—Costume Design, Production Design, and Hair and Makeup—and Grande and co-actress Cynthia Erivo’s spot in the acting categories, certain that the sequel would receive the same amount of nominations as the first film. But the film went completely undetected by the Academy voters, and Wicked was left out of the running, for good.
Soon after the nominations were announced, angry fans of the musical took to social media to question the Academy’s decisions. Numerous accounts posted about how the film was “one of the best they’d ever seen,” that the finale “left them in tears,” and there “had to have been something fishy that went on.” There have been other perspectives about the situation, however, which argued that the film was mediocre and weren’t up to the same standards as the movies that were actually nominated.
Wicked: For Good was an alright movie, but there is no denying that it was not the same quality as the first movie. Having split the original Wicked musical into two films gave the hint that the director, John M. Chu, would expand on and fix the problems that the original had, but it did not seem to be the case and instead posed as a “cash grab” to some moviegoers.
Wicked: For Good was exactly like the actual second act; a rushed and confusing mess that almost made it unnecessary to make the split in the first place. The main changes are the two additional songs that were written just for the film. Many pointed out that “Girl in the Bubble” and “No Place Like Home” were not as good as the songs taken from the musical, almost posing as what many call, “Oscar bait,” a term used for aspects added to a film that seemed to be made just to gain the attention and nominations from the Academy voters.
Wicked: For Good resonated with a lot of audiences, and there is no denying the wonderful craftsmanship that went into the production. Each of the props and environments were hand-crafted rather than using CGI, and the costumes from the first film were carefully designed and awarded, so the snub was confusing.
But, the Academy has had a history of not awarding sequels, often under the excuse that they want to highlight originals rather than award the same winner over and over again. The excuse of Emilia Pérez, an awful movie that received a worryingly large number of nominations, also applies here. No, it did not deserve 13 nominations because of its story and songwriting, but last year’s Oscars were different compared to now.
Films such as Sinners, One Battle After Another, Hamnet, and even Marty Supreme are well-loved by voters, as opposed to last year where the Academy focused more on how the films were “in tune” with modern times. Wicked: For Good was also in and out of consideration throughout the awards season; its lack of nomination at the Oscars was obvious, and it does not excuse fans putting down of other actresses and films.
Sinners, the film that took the world by storm upon its release, broke the record for the most nominations in Oscar’s history with 16. The previous record of 14 was held by three films: Titanic (1997), La La Land (2016), and All About Eve (1950). Sinners is the first film of that honor to have an almost fully Black cast and crew. And yet, after this beloved film’s record-breaking praise and cheers, the critiques were sure to follow.
“Sinners is just okay,” “It didn’t deserve all of that,” “It’s just a summer film, who cares.” And even “this mid movie got nominated, but Wicked, a masterpiece, didn’t get any?” It’s disheartening to see a film that was built with so much love and passion by Ryan Coogler and the crew to be put down seemingly because a white woman (Grande) was not nominated in an already white-dominated field.
For Michael B. Jordan, Wunmi Mosaku, and Delroy Lindo, this was their first-ever Oscar nomination, and for Lindo it is the first one he’s gotten in his long 50-year acting career. All the nominations were rightfully earned for their hard work in a beautifully executed film that people only hoped Wicked: For Good would achieve.
Sinners brought people back time and time again, and people continue to be amazed, myself included. Saying that “it’s just okay” because of such an achievement doesn’t make the person unique or different from others; it makes them appear contrarian and not appreciative of what good cinema truly is.
Although, there are rightful concerns about Sinners getting the most nominations. Despite the fact that the Academy made the right calls, there is still fear from fans that the film will get snubbed out of their categories in favor of other films, especially in Best Actor. Timothée Chalamet and Michael B. Jordan are the clear front-runners of the campaign race, and yet, nearly every award ceremony has given Chalamet the award over Jordan. Chalamet is a great actor, getting three nominations back-to-back is no easy feat at his young age, but to some, it seems suspicious.
Marty Supreme was released later than the other remaining Best Picture nominees, having premiered on Christmas Day in the U.S. But Jordan’s performance doesn’t get as much recognition as Chalamet’s, despite Sinners being out longer. Jordan not only plays two characters, but brothers that have different personalities and mannerisms that he must maintain throughout the entire film.
Both performances deserve their recognition, but if the Academy goes with Chalamet over Jordan, it’ll understandably be a bit disappointing in the end. Only time will tell who will win the Best Actor race, but there’s a clear winner in sight for Best Original Song.
Sinners’ soundtrack was full of captivating songs, both lyrically and melodically. But, “I Lied To You” has once again been nominated alongside KPOP Demon Hunter’s “Golden,” and it might be the loser like it has been for the past ceremonies.
“Golden” is a song about overcoming hardship and learning to embrace yourself and what you’ve overcome. It’s the classic “I want” song in every musical, and it’s one that deeply resonates with the cast and crew of KPOP Demon Hunters.
It’s popular for a reason, so much so that it reached number one on the Billboard Global 200 for several months upon its release. On the other hand, “I Lied To You” is a piece that is meant to move you; it’s an integral part of Sinners, with the different melodies coming together in a seamless flow that shows the passage of time. It has a good chance, but with the worldwide popularity of “Golden,” there’s a possibility that Sinners might not be able to win in this category.
The biggest shock of the nominations has to be F1 sneaking into Best Picture. F1 is a film based on Formula One, one of the highest levels of single seater racing. The film’s nominations in the technical categories such as Best Editing and Best Sound were given. But, for it to be nominated next to Sinners, One Battle After Another, Frankenstein, and Hamnet, it makes the movie a clear outlier.
Like Wicked: For Good, the movie itself is a good time and fun watch, just one that is very forgettable. It’s a standard action blockbuster starring Brad Pitt that follows the storyline of two unlikely companions who clash but overcome their differences, becoming friends.
It has the blockbuster formula: there are action scenes, a romance that doesn’t make sense, an arrogant male protagonist, some emotional scenes about past trauma that is constantly foreshadowed with “since the incident,” some impressive editing here and there, and then they win and everything is okay in the end. To have F1 be nominated for Best Picture is confusing, because it feels so out of place alongside the other nominees.
Other movies came out that felt like a near certainty for Best Picture. It Was Just An Accident is a thriller film about former Iranian prisoners and was made by someone who filmed the movie without permission from the Iranian government; No Other Choice, a crime comedy film done by Oscar winning director Park Chan-Wook; and even somehow Avatar: Fire and Ash, one of the biggest film series that always gets a Best Picture nomination, doesn’t get one because they decide to give it to F1? It simply doesn’t stand toe to toe with the other nominees.
It’s not going to win, but the nomination feels like a slot was wasted. And to even say it’s a better movie than Sinners is abysmal and unrealistic. People joke that there’s always a “villain” of the awards season, a film that nobody really wanted to be nominated for, and I believe we found ours this year.
The nominees have been picked out, and there is nothing that can be done. Whether we like it or not, this year was very stacked for filmography. It might be “the same five films over and over again,” but it’s those five films that earned the respect and love of many cinephiles.
They are nominated for a reason; they bring out the best parts of filmmaking that inspire many filmmakers and majors to this day. So start refreshing your Letterboxd accounts, make those predictions, and get ready for the “Film Student Super Bowl” on March 12.