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| Oscar's most famous living bridesmaids don't have nearly as much to complain about as these seven |
There are currently seven (living) men & women who have been nominated for ten or more Academy Awards who have never actually won the trophy, and three of them were nominated this year. They run the gamut between sound mixers, composers, & even one very well-known film director, but they all have in common a clear love from the Academy that has never actually delivered on Oscar night.
All is not lost for these figures though. Kevin O'Connell, who for a while was the poster child for "he's always nominated but never wins" finally took an Oscar a few years ago for Hacksaw Ridge on his 21st nomination (the rare scenario where a sound mixer got a standing ovation). Of course on the flip side, you have someone like Alex North, legendary composer of such films as A Streetcar Named Desire and Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf?, who got 15 Oscar nominations in his career but died in 1991 without ever winning a competitive one (he would become the first composer to take an Honorary Oscar). Somewhere in the middle is Victor Young, who finally won on his 22nd nomination for Around the World in 80 Days...though he had died four months earlier.
Where will these artists land? Today we're going to look at their Oscar histories, perhaps trying to understand how close they are, if any of them have a chance this year, and will their losing streaks ever end...will they suffer the fate of Kevin O'Connell or Alex North when it comes to Oscar?
Honorable Mention: Five people currently are sitting on nine nominations at the Oscars without a win. Amongst them are some names you probably know (composer James Newton Howard and actor-producer Bradley Cooper), and a few that you might not know (sound mixers Frank Montano, Wylie Statemen, & Ren Klyce). All of these men have received nominations in the past five three years (Cooper is in fact nominated this year for Best Picture for Nightmare Alley, which feels unlikely to get him a win), so it's probable that they'll either join this list or blessedly get off of it in the near future, but none are at double-digit defeats yet.
Field: Sound Mixing
Nominations: 10-Braveheart (1995), Evita (1996), LA Confidential (1997), The Thin Red Line (1999), Moulin Rouge! (2001), Seabiscuit (2003), The Last Samurai (2003), War of the Worlds (2005), Blood Diamond (2006), Star Trek (2009)
Closest Loss: You're going to notice both between the actual list and the honorable mentions a surprisingly large number of sound mixers. Weirdly this is a field where you get a lot of repeat nominees, but unlike a lot of other categories, there's not as much pressure to give a trophy to someone who had never won (even O'Connell probably won entirely on his film's popularity with Oscar, rather than a movement to give him a win). Behlmer has three BAFTA Awards (for Braveheart, LA Confidential, and Moulin Rouge), indicating one of those was the closest contest and I'm inclined to believe it was Braveheart, which was a Best Picture winner (unlike the other two) and won Best Sound Editing...it's honestly kind of mind-boggling that it didn't take the trophy against Apollo 13 with that kind of momentum.
Will They Ever Win?: Behlmer still works, but rarely makes the kinds of movies that Oscar gravitates toward (probably the closest she gets are movies like Finch or Mulan), so my gut says no, this is probably where she ends her (impressive) career with Oscar.
5. Rick Kline (tie)
Field: Sound Mixing
Nominations: 11-Terms of Endearment (1983), Silverado (1985), Top Gun (1986), Mississippi Burning (1988), Days of Thunder (1989), A Few Good Men (1992), Crimson Tide (1993), Air Force One (1997), The Mummy (1999), U-571 (2000), Memoirs of a Geisha (2005)
Closest Loss: Kline has two BAFTA Awards, one for an Oscar-nominated film (Mississippi Burning) and one for a movie that didn't even get in with Oscar (Almost Famous). 1988 was old enough that I honestly don't know if Mississippi Burning was just a BAFTA thing of if it plausibly gave a proper go at the victorious Bird or something like Who Framed Roger Rabbit which was almost nominated...if not that, maybe A Few Good Men, a Best Picture nominee with a war component which lost to The Last of the Mohicans, a picture that doesn't scream "obvious winner," at least in hindsight.
Will They Ever Win?: No. Kline worked vociferously since the late 1970's, working on literally hundreds of movies, but appears to have largely retired. His last IMDB credit was Trolls six years ago, and he hasn't made the kinds of films that Oscar might gravitate toward since the late 2000's (Hairspray, Hancock, or CrazyHeart). It's probable that he'll end his career at 11 nominations.
Field: Writing/Producing/Directing
Nominations: 11-Boogie Nights (1997-Screenplay), Magnolia (1999-Screenplay), There Will Be Blood (2007-Picture, Director, Screenplay), Inherent Vice (2014-Screenplay), Phantom Thread (2017-Picture, Director), Licorice Pizza (2021-Picture, Director, Screenplay)
Closest Loss: Anderson is unique for several reasons on this list. For starters, he's the first person with nominations this year (so he's guaranteed three more shots at a win in a few weeks). Secondly, he's arguably the best-known of these seven, and so it's easier to tell if he's been close or not. If I had to guess, I would assume the closest he got to winning was in 2007, when both Director or Adapted Screenplay would've been on the menu for him had No Country for Old Men not taken all of the oxygen out of the room.
Will They Ever Win?: I suspect so. Anderson is famous enough that it could become a "thing" to get him a trophy in the same way that it was for Leonardo DiCaprio or Martin Scorsese in recent years. He's also relatively young (he's only 51), and his films generally get Oscar attention. That said, I don't think it'll be this year. Though some think he's in the running for Original Screenplay, I suspect that's where Oscar is going to throw Kenneth Branagh (who, with eight nominations himself, is bubbling under-the-surface of this list) a bone for Belfast.
Field: Visual Effects
Nominations: 12-Master and Commander (2003), War of the Worlds (2005), Iron Man (2008), Iron Man 2 (2010), The Avengers (2012), Iron Man 3 (2013), Captain America: The Winter Soldier (2014), Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2 (2017), Avengers: Infinity War (2018), Avengers: Endgame (2019), Spider-Man: No Way Home (2021), Free Guy (2021)
Closest Loss: Certainly Sudick's biggest loss happened in 2018. After missing out on what would've been a surefire trophy for Black Panther (a shocking miss given the effects-heavy film's Best Picture nod), many thought that Avengers: Infinity War would win, but instead it went to the classy (but understated) First Man, costing Sudick a trophy.
Will They Ever Win?: As long as Sudick continues to work with MCU, this feels inevitable. While I don't think he'll win this year (Sudick is our second nominated person this year, and is actually sporting a pair of citations), as Dune has this category wrapped up, considering how often it gets nominated it feels inevitable that MCU will get a VFX trophy at some point, and Sudick already has his name on both Black Panther: Wakanda Forever and Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3, both of which will be in the conversation.
Field: Music (Best Original Song, specifically)
Nominations: 13-Mannequin (1987), Up Close & Personal (1996), Con Air (1997), Armageddon (1998), Music of the Heart (1999), Pearl Harbor (2001), Beyond the Lights (2014), The Hunting Ground (2015), Marshall (2017), RBG (2018), Breakthrough (2019), The Life Ahead (2020), Four Good Days (2021)
Closest Loss: It's weird to say this, because at one point Warren was a big enough deal that most of her nominations were genuine hits (pretty much every one of her nominated songs from 1987-2001, were hits, and several like "Because You Loved Me" and "I Don't Wanna Miss a Thing" were gargantuan pop smashes), but it was probably The Hunting Ground, where her collaboration with Lady Gaga gave her an edge to win, but in one of the biggest shocks of the night they were both upended by Sam Smith.
Will They Ever Win?: Who the hell knows? It has become a running joke in recent years to have Warren show up for frequently terrible movies that she represents their only Oscar nomination (you have to go back to Pearl Harbor to find a film that was nominated in a different Oscar category), but since her miss for The Hunting Ground she hasn't really had a shot at winning. The music branch seems to be begging the Academy to give her a trophy (she's clearly quite popular with the insular group, and is our final nominee for this year's Oscars on this list), so at this rate she may well top this list one-day, but unless she can pull off something magical, I doubt she gets anything other than an Honorary Oscar at this point.
Field: Composing
Nominations: 15 (all for Score unless otherwise listed)-The Shawshank Redemption (1994), Little Women (1994), Unsung Heroes (1995), American Beauty (1999), Road to Perdition (2002), Finding Nemo (2003), A Series of Unfortunate Events (2004), The Good German (2006), WAll-E (2008-Score, Original Song), Skyfall (2012), Saving Mr. Banks (2013), Bridge of Spies (2015), Passengers (2016), 1917 (2019)
Closest Loss: Newman has had two scenarios where he was virtually guaranteed a win but couldn't pull it off. The first was for Best Picture winner American Beauty, where The Red Violin came out of nowhere and bested Newman for his statue. The second is his most recent loss for 1917, where Oscar instead decided to go for first-timer Hildur Gudnadottir for Joker, despite most assuming that 1917 would also get a Best Picture win.
Will They Ever Win?: Newman works constantly, and is one of those composers, like Warren, that the Music Branch sends out virtually every time he's eligible to try and convince Oscar to give him a statue, but to no avail. His next big contender will be Marc Forster's WWII drama White Bird, which given the film's pedigree (it stars Gillian Anderson & Helen Mirren) will make it a threat for a nomination...at some point his unlucky streak has to run out, right?
Field: Sound Mixing
Nominations: 16 (with a caveat we'll get to)-Black Rain (1989), The Rock (1996), Con Air (1997), Armageddon (1998), The Mark of Zorro (1998), The Patriot (2000), Pearl Harbor (2001), Spider-Man (2002), Spider-Man 2 (2004), Memoirs of a Geisha (2005), Apocalypto (2006), Transformers (2007), Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen (2009), Salt (2010), Transformers: Dark of the Moon (2011), Skyfall (2012)
Closest Loss: I know it's hedging my bets by picking a year where he was nominated twice, but I think it was 1998. Armageddon kind of bombed on Oscar night despite there being some indication it could win all four of its nominations (side note, but it's weird how many of Russell's & Warren's nominated films randomly overlapped, right...is that a coincidence?). I think you could make an argument that both Armageddon and Zorro being cited for Mixing and Editing meant Russell was clearly in the hunt.
Will They Ever Win?: Technically, Russell should have 17 nominations, as he was initially cited for 13 Hours in 2016, but then had his nomination rescinded for "violating Academy campaign regulations." In the years since, Russell hasn't gotten remotely close to an Oscar nomination, and while that is at least partially due to the kinds of films he's made (Oscar increasingly has shied away from big-budget extravaganzas for Sound in favor of Best Picture nominees & musicals, neither of which are Russell's forte), one wonders if the whiff of scandal could hurt him in a future bid.
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