As unfair as it may be, certain genres just don’t get the respect from the Academy Awards that they should. Most of the Best Picture winners are dramas, with a few comedies thrown in here and there. Only two fantasy films have ever won the top prize, one of which (2017’s The Shape of Water) is the only Best Picture winner with science fiction elements in it. When it comes to the four acting prizes, there’s not much difference. Sure, the occasional sci-fi performance or horror performance might sneak in now and then, but performances in those films are rather poorly underrepresented when one looks at all the acting nominations in Academy Awards history. Today, let’s shine a light on a few performances in science fiction films that should have been nominated for Oscars.

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5 Christopher Lloyd - Back To The Future (1985)

     Distributed by Universal Pictures

The Best Supporting Actor Oscar for 1985 actually went to a performance in a sci-fi film: Don Ameche won for his performance in Cocoon. However, his competition should have included another performance from a sci-fi film, one from one of the most iconic sci-fi films ever made. Back To The Future was nominated for a handful of Oscars, including one for Best Original Screenplay. Sadly, none of its actors were nominated, but Christopher Lloyd would have made a very deserving nominee. Doc Brown is a character who seems to operate at full blast every second. He’s manic, he’s always working some gadget, and his 1955 self is convincingly fascinated by the technological advances of 1985, even if he does get a few of the details wrong. Plutonium, after all, was not available in every corner drugstore in 1985, nor is it in 2022. No matter how you look at it, Lloyd gives a very entertaining, very comedic performance. It’s pure perfection.

MOVIEWEB VIDEO OF THE DAY

MOVIEWEB VIDEO OF THE DAY

MOVIEWEB VIDEO OF THE DAY

4 Alicia Vikander - Ex Machina (2014)

     A24

Alicia Vikander actually did receive an Oscar nomination in 2015, winning the Best Supporting Actress Oscar for The Danish Girl. However, there are two problems at play. The first is that she’s a lead in The Danish Girl. The second is that she gave a much better performance in a different film nominated that same year, Alex Garland’s Ex Machina. In that film, Vikander plays an android named Ava, who is to be put through a Turing Test by Caleb Smith (Dohmnall Gleeson). Vikander has a tough task as she’s not playing a human. Yet, Ava displays a wide variety of emotions, including curiosity and fear. She’s also quite manipulative since she tries to convince Caleb to help her escape the compound where she feels she’s a prisoner. It’s incredible work by Vikander, who succeeds brilliantly at making you think this machine is actually a human. There’s no doubt about it. Vikander should have won her Oscar for this performance.

3 Jim Carrey - Eternal Sunshine Of The Spotless Mind (2004)

     Focus Features

The Academy Awards are littered with comedic actors getting nominated for supposedly more “serious” roles. It’s so common that it feels like there are only two major exceptions to this occurrence: you are named Cameron Diaz or you are named Jim Carrey. Michel Gondry’s 2004 film sees Carrey play Joel Barish, who discovers that his girlfriend, Clementine (Kate Winslet, who was nominated for an Oscar for her performance), has undergone a medical procedure to erase all her memories of Joel. Joel himself decides to undergo the procedure, but wants to back out once he begins reliving all his memories of Clementine. It’s not Carrey’s first foray into more “dramatic” territory as The Truman Show (another movie he should have received an Oscar-nod for) and Man on the Moon have shown. Carrey’s Joel is subdued and more possibly the most emotionally vulnerable performance he’s ever given. His chemistry with Winslet is outstanding. It’s a darn shame that only one half was recognized by the Academy, when the other gave just as incredible a performance.

2 Sigourney Weaver - Alien (1979)

     Distributed by 20th Century Fox

Sigourney Weaver would receive a richly deserved Best Actress Oscar nomination for 1986’s Aliens, but she should also have been in contention for the original 1979 sci-fi classic. Ellen Ripley has firmly established herself as one of cinema’s most iconic characters and one of the greatest heroes in movie history. Strong, intelligent, maternal, whatever the role requires, Weaver delivers with flying colors. The difference between her performance here and in the sequel is almost negligible. Both are incredible pieces of work. At the time, her Oscar nomination for Aliens was huge. You can probably count the number of acting nominees for sci-fi action films on one hand. However, that groundbreaking nomination should have come seven years earlier than it did. Better late than never, we suppose.

1 Joaquin Phoenix and Scarlett Johansson - Her (2013)

     Distributed by Warner Brothers

Like Eternal Sunshine Of The Spotless Mind, Spike Jonze’s 2013 film, Her, is a sci-fi-inspired love story. The movie is set in the not too distant future, with advanced Operating Systems that pretty much do it all. The main character is Theodore Twombly, played by Joaquin Phoenix, who falls in love with Samantha, an Operating System voiced by Scarlett Johansson. Theodore is going through a divorce, which has made him depressed, lonely, and introverted until Samantha comes into his life. Joaquin Phoenix is not an actor normally associated with playing romantic leads, but he’s pretty much perfect in this movie. The loneliness and depression are perfectly realized, and he has a very difficult challenge of selling the relationship between himself and his computer. After all, the movie doesn’t work if we don’t believe in the romance. A daunting challenge, but one Phoenix meets without any difficulty. It’s a beautiful performance and one of the best of his career.

Scarlett Johansson might have an even tougher challenge. She never physically appears in this movie. All we hear is her voice and yet, Johansson does such incredible things with it in this movie. Love, pain, joy, there is no emotion Johansson cannot convey convincingly. Like Phoenix, she also has to make the relationship feel like a real one, and again, it’s a task Johansson succeeds brilliantly at. No voiceover performance has ever been nominated for an acting Oscar, but Scarlett Johansson in Her really should have been the first one to do it.