Snowden, Birth of a Nation, Miss Sloane: What Happened to These Awards Season Contenders?

The 2017 Oscars nominations were announced on Tuesday, marking the last round of noms for this year’s awards season.

While big films like La La Land, Moonlight and Manchester by the Sea saw quite a few major nominations in the most acclaimed categories throughout the season, we can’t help but think back to the films that made waves early on yet didn’t receive any nods at all.

For example, films like Miss Sloane, Snowden and Birth of a Nation garnered buzz last year, but seemed to drop off as we inched toward award season. Thus, we now ask: what happened?

Birth of a Nation: After the 2016 Sundance Film Festival, Fox Searchlight paid a record-breaking $17.5 million for the film just hours after it screened, confident the film would be one of the most awarded movies of 2017. However, shortly after, the Hollywood trade media began re-examining first-time director Nate Parker‘s alleged involvement in a gang rape from when he was in college 17 years ago. Parker was acquitted of the charges, but it was revealed recently that his rape accuser committed suicide two years ago.

After the news of the rape case became public, anonymous awards strategists told the New York Times the damages would overshadow the film’s chances of being nominated.

Snowden: While Oliver Stone has already taken home several Oscars for Best Directing (for Born on the Fourth of July and Platoon), his latest film Snowden did not receive a nomination on Tuesday. The film is one of his best in many years—featuring great performances by Joseph Gordon-Levitt and Shailene Woodley—many reviews say its lacking passion from the esteemed director.

Stone’s past films invoked controversy and conversation, but in Snowden, it’s clear the director is taking the CIA employee’s side. Even more, it supplies a factual dryness that doesn’t provoke enthusiasm, but rather, lays the story out in a standard structure.

Miss Sloane: While Jessica Chastain‘s performance in the film has been highly-regarded (despite being snubbed in both the SAG Awards and the Oscars) and the topic of the film could not have come at a better time in America—which is why it garnered awards season buzz at first—Miss Sloane did not receive great feedback. 

“Partly because Miss Sloane is more a character study than a coherent political drama, it fumbles the issue it purports to address, and it eventually runs aground in a preposterous ending,” the NY Times review stated. “In light of the recent presidential election, it all feels like small potatoes.”

Not to mention, it fell in dead last of the 200 highest-grossing films of the year. Thus, it didn’t garner any nods.

Queen of Katwe: With award-winning names like David Oyelowo and Lupita Nyong’o, the Mira Nair-directed movie—which tells the true story of a girl from Uganda who trains to become a world chess champion—garnered quite a bit of buzz early last year. However, some reviewers believe Disney didn’t market the film correctly, and thus, it fell to the wayside of other big films.

The Oscars, which will be hosted by Jimmy Kimmel this year, take place on Sunday, Feb. 26, at the Dolby Theater and will be televised live on ABC at 7 p.m.