The academy’s snub of Denis Villeneuve continues to be a topic of discussion with multiple Oscar voters sharing their confusion over the filmmaker not making the cut inside this year’s Best Director category.
"I voted for the first part in almost every category last time. How has Denis not won four Oscars already?" a voter tells Variety. "I don’t understand how the studio and, quite frankly, us Oscar voters fuck this up so bad?"
Another added, "I don’t know how Dune wasn’t nominated for every category… and I hate sci-fi."
How has Villeneuve not won four Oscars? For what movies exactly? I like Villeneuve, but there was no year, let alone four, where he actually deserved to win a statuette. Okay, maybe he deserved the International Oscar in 2011 for his thrilling “Incendies,” but that’s about it. The award that year ended up going to Denmark for the clunky “In A Better World.”
Villeneuve’s cinema isn’t subtle, and it does adhere to mainstream sensibilities. I still believe “Incendies” to be his best film which was also his last one before he graduated to the major studio system and started obsessing over sci-fi epics, some of which, I must admit, turned out to be very good films.
One can certainly surmise that Villeneuve’s popularity among movie fans could very soon eclipse fellow rival, and best buddy, Christopher Nolan’s. Last September, a Rotten Tomatoes poll tackling the best directors of the last 25 years had Villeneuve finishing second, right behind Nolan. That’s how popular Villeneuve currently is.
Alongside Nolan, Villeneuve is certainly one of the few filmmakers out there who seems to continuously be working on a big canvas and delivering these big statements that aren’t necessarily dumbed down for the popcorn crowd. Maybe that’s why they get along so well, they make the same type of cinema — high-budgeted event movies that, they keep telling us, need to be seen on the biggest screen possible.
Regardless, “Dune: Part Two” did get Oscar-nominated in five categories this year, including Best Picture, Best Sound, and Best Visual Effects, but Villeneuve’s Directing snub still stings, with many pointing their fingers at others in the category, such as Jacques Audiard (“Emilia Perez”) and James Mangold (“A Complete Unknown”), for stealing his spot.
Josh Brolin, who played Gurney Halleck in ‘Dune 2,’ a mentor to Timothée Chalamet’s Paul Atreides, has been very vocal about the Villeneuve snub. Meanwhile, “Spider-Verse” director Chris Miller recently tackled the snub on X, writing: “There were many films that had great directing this year but what Denis did — in all aspects of the craft — was masterful.”
Fact is that the Academy has had a chilly history with sci-fi movies, snubbing plenty of classics, and they just don’t love ‘Dune’ as much as the mainstream does. Villeneuve, whose sole Oscar directing nom was for “Arrival,” will get another shot at the gold with “Dune: Messiah,” set for 2026 release.