Deadpool & Wolverine isn’t up for any Oscars at the 97th Academy Awards, with is both surprising and not so surprising with the two franchises it is associated with. Directed by Shawn Levy, Deadpool & Wolverine sees The Merc with a Mouth Wade Wilson (Ryan Reynolds) on a mission to save his universe from destruction after the death of its “anchor being” Wolverine (Hugh Jackman) in 2017’s Logan. This leads Deadpool to recruit the Wolverine of another universe, with the two finding themselves on a larger mission to save the entire multiverse.
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Deadpool & Wolverine was one of 2024’s biggest box office hits with its $1.3 billion worldwide total. Reynolds and Jackman’s buddy chemistry as Deadpool and Wolverine was widely praised, as was Jackman’s return to Wolverine after his purported retirement from the role following Logan. Even for all of its popularity among critics and audiences, Deadpool & Wolverine‘s lack of Oscar nominations could certainly be interpreted as a snub. As it turns it, Deadpool & Wolverine may very well have been snubbed as a Marvel Studios production, but not so much as an X-Men movie.
The X-Men Franchise Has Only Received 2 Oscar Nominations

Within the context of the X-Men franchise, Deadpool & Wolverine‘s lack of Oscar nominations is actually commonplace, with just two X-Men movies having accomplished that goal previously. The first to do so was 2014’s X-Men: Days of Future Past, the seventh film in the series, which earned a nomination for Best Visual Effects at the 87th Academy Awards. Days of Future Past ultimately lost the Oscar to Christopher Nolan’s Interstellar.
The X-Men franchise scored its second Oscar nomination at the 90th Academy Awards, with James Mangold’s Logan earning a nomination for Best Adapted Screenplay. Like Days of Future Past, Logan is one of the most universally beloved X-Men movies, though it too ultimately did not win the Oscar it was nominated for, with the award going to Call Me By Your Name. While X-Men movies landing Oscar nominations is something of a rarity, that isn’t the case for Marvel Cinematic Universe movies, which is what makes Deadpool & Wolverine‘s lack of Oscars consideration a bit more surprising.
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MCU Movies Frequently Get Academy Award Nominations For Technical Awards

While the MCU has faced the criticism of being a cinematic theme park by Martin Scorsese and other prominent auteur filmmakers, the franchise is nonetheless seen at the Academy Awards fairly regularly. Specifically, MCU movies often land nominations for Best Visual Effects. The MCU’s very first movie, 2008’s Iron Man, did exactly that at the 81st Academy Awards in 2009, though The Curious Case of Benjamin Button won the award. In addition to Iron Man, MCU movies have earned a total of 14 Visual Effects nominations at the Academy Awards as of this writing.
Iron Man 2, The Avengers, Iron Man 3, Captain America: The Winter Soldier, Doctor Strange, Avengers: Infinity War, Avengers: Endgame, Shang-Chi & The Legend of the Ten Rings, Spider-Man: No Way Home, Black Panther: Wakanda Forever, and all three Guardians of the Galaxy movies have been nominated for the Best Visual Effects Oscar at their respective Academy Awards. Furthermore, the MCU has also received nominations in various other categories, including but not limited to Original Score, Production Design, and Costume Design.
2018’s Black Panther was the first MCU movie to win at the Academy Awards, with the movie taking home the Oscars for Costume Design, Original Score, and Production Design, along with being nominated for Best Picture. The film’s 2022 sequel Black Panther: Wakanda Forever also won for Best Costume Design. In all, the MCU has earned a good amount of Oscars love, but the kinds of awards it has won, along with Deadpool & Wolverine‘s lack of Oscars nominations, also highlight the specific place that superhero movies still occupy at the Academy Awards.
Superhero Movies Still Face A Ceiling At The Academy Awards

Despite the superhero genre being wildly popular since the dawn of the 21st century, it is still rare for any Marvel, DC, or other superhero films to receive Oscar nominations beyond technical awards and the odd acting Oscar here and there. The Dark Knight not being nominated for Best Picture at 2009’s 81st Academy Awards was famously perceived as a huge snub, with the category’s subsequent expansion to a maximum of 10 nominees from 5 frequently seen as a response to that backlash. Black Panther and Joker both landed Best Picture nominations without winning and are, to date, the only major comic book movies to accomplish that goal since the category’s expansion. Funnily enough, one of the most high profile Academy Awards wins for a superhero movie wasn’t even a typical Oscar at all, but rather the fan-voted “Oscars Cheer Moment” won by Zack Snyder’s Justice League at 2022’s 94th Academy Awards (for which Avengers: Endgame and Spider-Man: No Way Home were also nominees.)
Despite the popularity of superhero movies, the Academy Awards generally seem to view the genre in much the same way as Scorsese’s theme park classification, and thus, for the most part, only worthy of production and visual effects related Oscars with the occasional acting award. Scorsese’s description has sparked a great deal of debate about what qualifies as “cinema”, and whether superhero films meet that standard, with plenty of passionate arguments for and against it. That’s a debate that isn’t likely to be settled any time soon, if ever, which means that superhero films will likely have to remain content with primarily being nominated for Best Visual Effects at the Academy Awards, with some other nominations included along the way. Even still, with Marvel Studios being such a frequent presence in the Best Visual Effects category at the Oscars, Deadpool & Wolverine being left out is something of a shock by MCU standards, and simultaneously business as usual by X-Men movie standards.
Deadpool & Wolverine along with all of the X-Men movies are available to stream on Disney+.