The 2022 Oscar nominees are in, and unsurprisingly Spider-Man: No Way Home failed to get a Best Picture nomination. There had been talk that The Academy’s commitment to using all ten possible nominations this year meant that the Wallcrawler’s third MCU outing might get some awards love, but alas, it wasn’t meant to be.
A quick Twitter search and a glance through at least one of the biggest Hollywood trades will show you Spidey’s failure to garner a nomination being described as a “snub”. But let’s be real for a second. Did anyone really think No Way Home stood any chance of earning an award?
We know it had three Spider-Men, but traditionally, that’s not what the Oscars are about celebrating. If it were, the 1960 classic Horrors of Spider Island might have got a bit more attention than it did. No, the Oscars are essentially a group of people who already work in the film industry getting together to celebrate themselves – it’s basically a giant fart sniffing contest, and it doesn’t matter.
Now I’m not saying the Oscars aren’t fun, plus it’s nice to celebrate those who work on the technical side of movies. I suppose the one real quantifiably good thing they do is give movies that might not receive an audience some much-needed publicity. A perfect example would be something like Parasite, which enjoyed record box office numbers after its Best Picture win.
Beyond that, though, the Oscars are essentially just a bigger budget version of the awards ceremony your office puts on at Christmas. You might want to win the best dressed in the office trophy (one year I’ll win, goddamnit) but is it the reason you go to work every day? Of course not.
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Spider-Man: No Way Home fans should feel the same way because you already won. Spidey’s newest action movie gave you everything you could possibly want in a Spider-Man movie and was incredibly well-received critically.
It was basically a live action Spider-Verse, complete with the biggest and best Spider-Man villains from across the franchise’s history! Not only that, it resolved some of the series biggest dangling threads and gave closure to Andrew Garfield’s truly amazing Spider-Man.
Would being nominated for a trophy really make you like the film more? I imagine the answer is ‘no’, but if it’s ‘yes’, don’t worry. No Way Home made what I believe is colloquially known as a metric f*ck tonne of cash; Sony can buy a trophy with whatever words they want on it. Forget ‘Best Picture’; why not go further and get a ‘Best Picture in the Multiverse’? Sony can afford the engraving.
What I’m saying is that the Oscars and The Academy didn’t snub No Way Home. It was never going to get a nomination. It didn’t tick the boxes of what an award-winning film is in the eyes of The Academy.
To them, it lacked worth, but the opinions of awards bodies shouldn’t matter to you. Did you like the film? Was it your favourite movie of last year? Then good, no one can take that from you. Call it the Best Picture; your opinion is just as valid as the self-proclaimed Academy’s