We all know how it goes: The Golden Globe nominations just dropped, the Oscar nominations come in January, and in either case, most of the discourse around the two is/will be about was not get nominated
Some of this has to do with the fact that popular blockbusters are rarely recognized in anything other than a few technical categories (“How can they snub jurassic world: dominion, people will ask). But there are many reasons films get overlooked by awards bodies – genre being one of them. For example, horror films are rarely approved (with No a possible exception this year), and the same goes for science fiction movies. There’s always a certain silliness to Oscar selections (though it’s less so these days, now that the voting body has been made more inclusive), so anything weird or experimental isn’t likely to make the cut. Likewise, obscure Indians rarely garner attention, especially in the streaming age (because there are so many of them).
But the genre, weird, experimental, and obscure movies (or movies that are all four) still deserve some love. Here are 22 films from the past year that deserve award recognition but probably won’t. (If any of these films end up as major-award nominees, it’s not because the list was wrong; more likely, voters were inspired by the film’s placement here.)