Lady Gaga and A STAR IS BORN Co-Star Bradley Cooper Get Snubbed By Oscar For Recent Films

Lady Gaga Snubbed By Oscar but in Good Company with Bradley Cooper

Lady Gaga and former co-star, Bradley Cooper, have been snubbed with the recent Oscar nominations announcement that was made today.

A film critic must analyze every aspect of a picture to be successful in understanding the way awards work. When Lady Gaga appeared in House of Gucci last year, I pointed out in my review that she may be snubbed by Oscar due to the highly competitive year that it was in the category of Best Actress versus the actual quality of her performance. Many others had predicted Gaga not only to be nominated but to possibly win the Academy Award. In what may be the biggest snub in the Best Actress category since Madonna’s snub for 1996’s film adaptation of Evita, Lady Gaga was shut out of the race for her work in House of Gucci. Also missing from the nominations list was her A Star is Born co-star Bradley Cooper for his work in two films from last year: Nightmare Alley and Licorice Pizza.

One way of understanding the way the Academy works is realizing that Gaga’s peers in the film industry may see her as the musical sensation that she is and while she certainly gave a good performance in House of Gucci, perhaps Oscar voters didn’t see it as a work of acting genius in part because she’s so good at what she does as a singer. While the people who did get nominated are focused primarily on acting, maybe Gaga’s rewards are in the fact that she received countless other nominations from other award branches for the same performance. She lost the Academy Award for 2018’s A Star is Born to Olivia Colman in The Favourite. Colman is nominated again for Best Actress this year for her work in The Lost Daughter. Also noteworthy are the other candidates who beat Gaga out for a nomination this year: Nicole Kidman (Being the Ricardos), Penelope Cruz (Parallel Mothers), possible front runner Jessica Chastain (The Eyes of Tammy Faye) and Kristen Stewart (Spencer).

Poor Bradley Cooper. He gave a great performance as a hustler in the little seen box-office disaster, Nightmare Alley (which somehow snagged a Best Picture nod) and an even better supporting performance in the much loved Oscar-nominee for Best Picture, Best Director and Best Original Screenplay, Licorice Pizza. The problem was that his screen time in Licorice Pizza was brief and he was also so off-the-wall that it may have turned off more serious voters. Keep in mind that I thought he was phenomenal in Licorice Pizza.

While Gaga and Cooper’s snubs certainly don’t rule out any future award consideration or potential wins, their work this year just didn’t suit Oscar’s taste, for whatever reason. However, when Gaga returns to the screen again, the Academy may feel just a bit guilty for the snub and reward her if her performance is up to Oscar level quality. Cooper hasn’t nabbed a trophy yet from the Academy but, if I had to guess, he will one day. Just not this year.

Leave your thoughts on Lady Gaga and Bradley Cooper’s Oscar snubs below in the comments section. Readers seeking to support this type of content can visit our Patreon Page and become one of FilmBook’s patrons. Readers seeking more movie news can visit our Movie News Page, our Movie News Twitter Page, and our Movie News Facebook Page. Want up-to-the-minute notifications? FilmBook staff members publish articles by Email, Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, Tumblr, Pinterest, and Flipboard. This news was brought to our attention by The New York Post.