5 Unforgettable Horror Performances Snubbed by the Oscars

Horror movies often contain phenomenal and moving performances by their lead actors, but many still get overlooked by the Academy Awards. The Oscars are known to be very specific in what kind of movies get what kind of accolades. In the case of genre films like action, sci-fi, comedy, superhero, and horror movies, they most often tend to only receive technical awards, with the very occasional Oscar win for writing, directing, or especially Best Picture. The Academy Awards are also known to be particularly stingy towards horror movies. While some horror movies like The Exorcist, Jaws, and Silence of the Lambs have nabbed major Oscar wins, for the most part, horror movies are known to be generally AWOL from any major Oscar buzz.

That, in turn, has also led to the unfortunate byproduct of many outstanding and clearly Oscar-worthy acting performances being snubbed. Here are five incredible horror movie performances that qualify as some of the most unbelievable such Oscars snubs.

Jeff Goldblum – The Fly

David Cronenberg’s 1986 remake of The Fly centers on Jeff Goldblum’s eccentric scientist Seth Brundle, who develops a teleportation device that could change the world. Unfortunately, Brundle ends up genetically spliced with a fly that entered the pod with him, causing him to gradually mutate into the new creature “Brundlefly.” Goldblum is well-known for portraying socially awkward scientists with his performances as Ian Malcolm and David Levinson in the Jurassic Park and Independence Day movies, respectively, but his performance as Seth Brundle is a heart-wrenching tragedy of a man morphing into a monster.

Seth’s initial thrill at the apparent physical might that teleportation has granted him slowly morphs into terror as he comes to be overtaken by insect instincts, and his increasing desperation to reverse his transformation sees him become a monster of a different sort. Brundle’s romance with science reporter Veronica Quaife (Geena Davis) makes his downfall unbearably heartbreaking, and Goldblum brings his signature combination of science-minded brilliance and sardonic humor to the tale of a doomed man, and one that more than warranted an Academy Award for his committed (and make-up heavy) performance (a snubbing that late Gene Siskel was notoriously vocal about on Goldblum’s behalf).

Elisabeth Moss – The Invisible Man

As the first project to be salvaged and retooled from the grand ambitions of Universal Pictures infamously failed Dark Universe, 2020’s The Invisible Man combines sci-fi, horror, and a tale of escaping domestic abuse. When Cecilia Kass (Elisabeth Moss) seemingly frees herself from the grip of her abusive wealthy boyfriend Adrian Griffin (Oliver Jackson-Cohen), she begins experiencing a series of increasingly bizarre and unexplainable events in her personal life, culminating in an attack by an invisible figure whom she suspects to be Adrian, despite his reported suicide. Directed by Leigh Whannell, The Invisible Man is Blumhouse horror at its finest, getting maximum scares and suspense from its paltry $7-million budget, but it is Moss who gives the movie life as Cecilia.

As Cecilia, Moss is a woman pushed to her breaking point with a campaign of emotional torment and gaslighting on the part of her ex-boyfriend, masking himself in an invisibility suit and leaving Cecilia to become increasingly paranoid and unstable. Just as vital to The Invisible Man‘s success, however, is how Cecilia turns the tables on Adrian when she’s onto his plot, gaining the upper hand in a supremely satisfying fashion. As one of the last movies to become a box office hit before the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic, The Invisible Man earned deserved acclaim for its sharp script, visual effects, Whannell’s direction, and Moss’s performance as Cecilia, which makes the lack of an Oscar nomination for said performance a very disconcerting snub.

Jack Nicholson – The Shining

Jack Nicholson can take any character and turn them into an unhinged cartoon of flesh and blood. With the possible exception of his portrayal of the Joker in Tim Burton’s Batman, there is arguably no better example of that than Nicholson’s performance as Jack Torrance in Stanley Kubrick’s The Shining, based upon Stephen King’s eponymous novel. Nicholson’s Jack is hired as the winter caretaker for the Overlook Hotel, bringing along his wife Wendy (Shelley Duvall) and son Danny (Danny Torrance). However, the evil supernatural forces occupying the Overlook, coupled with Jack’s own inherently volatile personality, conspire to push him over the edge to try to murder Wendy and Danny.

King was famously unhappy with how The Shining adapted his novel, particularly in Jack’s arc (which was partly autobiographical on King’s own past struggle with substance abuse). Kubrick’s version of The Shining does indeed significantly re-imagine Jack from a recovering alcoholic struggling to overcome his past to an overbearing husband and father who only needs the tiniest of nudges to chase after his wife and son with an axe. However, for Kubrick’s take on the material, Nicholson is the best Jack Torrance possible, a transparently unstable man from the moment he steps on-screen whose descent into murderous violence happens within the context of a clearly crumbling marriage more so than a hotel populated by ghosts.

Nicholson’s charisma and cartoonish humor also make Jack a perversely charming killer in the making, and a highly quotable one culminating in his immortal line, “Heeeeere’s Johnny!” How Nicholson didn’t earn so much as an Oscar nomination for his performance as Jack Torrance is as much of a mystery as the ambiguous fate Jack himself meets at the end of The Shining.

[RELATED: The Oscars May Not Favor Horror Often, But Makeup and Hair Have a Better Track Record]

Anthony Perkins – Psycho and Psycho II

Few Oscars snubs can be attributed to an actor portraying one character in two movies, but Anthony Perkins’ immortal portrayal of Norman Bates in both Alfred Hitchcock’s Psycho and its 1983 sequel Psycho II both meet the criteria of an Oscars snub. Perkins’ portrayal of Norman Bates in Psycho is among the most legendary in cinema history, with Norman tending to the grounds of the Bates Motel and slaughtering anyone who threatens to come between him and his long-deceased mother, who now only exists as an alternate personality in Norman’s head. After 22 years in a mental institution, Norman seems to be restored to sanity in Psycho II, but the combination of distrustful townspeople and a few unexpected twists drag him back down into the abyss.

In both Psycho and Psycho II, Perkins makes Norman Bates into the most sympathetic slasher movie villain of all time, a man driven to insanity by his mother’s abuse as a child and trapped under her mental influence as an adult. Psycho showcases Perkins’ Norman as a killer hiding behind the mask of a devoted son and kind-hearted innkeeper, while Psycho II shows a completely different side of Norman as a genuinely decent man simply trying to move on with his life in a community that refuses to let him do so. Few horror movie Oscar snubs are as eternally egregious as the fact of Anthony Perkins’s performance as Norman Bates in both Psycho and Psycho II being completely overlooked by the Academy Awards.

Naomi Scott – Smile 2

The Smile franchise is already shaping up to be the next horror movie powerhouse after just two movies, with Naomi Scott’s performance as troubled pop star Skye Riley in Smile 2 being one of the biggest horror movie highlight performances in recent memory. Following a terrible car accident that killed her boyfriend and a recovery period in drug rehab, Skye Riley is set to return to the spotlight for a comeback tour. However, after witnessing the violent suicide of a smiling drug dealer, Skye begins experiencing unexplainable hallucinations and other events that leave her increasingly irritable and volatile. Soon, Skye comes to learn that she has been afflicted with the curse of a supernatural being that haunts its victims over the course of a week before pushing them into a violent demise.

Smile 2 ramps up the mythos of the demonic entity first seen in 2022’s Smile, and Scott’s performance as Skye makes the sequel an even more spine-tingling affair than its predecessor. On the surface, Skye Riley seems to have everything, but Smile 2 presents her as a victim of her success at the mercy of handlers trying to push her back into performing with minimal recovery. Scott makes Skye a genuinely tragic figure as a pop star forced to hide her depression and personal struggles from the world (along with the dark secret behind her car accident), only to find herself exploding on her support team as the entity pushes her further and further to the edge. Scott’s Skye Riley is the kind of horror movie protagonist the audience leaves the theater wishing they could’ve given a supportive hug, thanks to the sheer intensity of her performance, which is also augmented by Scott being a pop singer with numerous songs on the movie’s soundtrack, including the thematically fitting “New Brain.” All of the above also makes the fact that Naomi Scott didn’t receive an Oscar nomination for 2025’s 97th Academy Awards the definition of a phenomenal horror movie performance being snubbed.

What horror performances do you think were snubbed by the Oscars? Let us know in the comments below!