‘American Hustle’ Shockingly Shutout At Oscars

American Hustle has been one of the most talked about movies of the year. There was many a critic who expected the flick to be taking home some serious hardware on Sunday night. Those expectations make the news the movie got shut out even more surprising.

There are always going to be some surprising losers and surprising winners at the Academy Awards ceremony, but there may not have been as big a surprise out there as the complete and total shutout of Hustle. The blanking on Sunday night is even more surprising considering it got a nomination for best picture and most thought it was a serious contender for several other categories as well.

In all, the film was carrying 10 nominations, including one each in all the acting categories, Best Director and Best Picture. What’s more, the movie already seemed to have some award ground plowed thanks to its success at the SAG awards.

Time points out that there are only a couple of movies in the 86 year history of the Oscars that have seen worse snubs than the ones American Hustle were dealt on Sunday.

1977?s The Turning Point and 1985?s The Color Purple are the only two movies that received more nominations and went home empty handed. There are actually a number of well received films that have basically gotten the same amount of love as American Hustle before the awards and the same amount of empty handedness after the ceremonies are over.

True Grit in 2010 and Gangs of New York in 2002 both received 10 nominations and walked away with no wins. The movie that centers around the Abscam controversy of the late 1970’s and early 1980’s wasn’t the only well regarded film this year to get no hardware.

Captain Phillips and Nebraska each came into the night with six nominations but left without anyone attached to the projects getting an Oscar. The Wolf of Wall Street was nominated five times and didn’t net a single win. Philomena was also tabbed in four different categories as a possible winner but came up empty.

It turns out that the closest anyone on the highly thought of film to a golden statue was when they were handing them out to other people. Jennifer Lawrence, Bradley Cooper and Amy Adams all served as presenters during the ceremony.

Actors of that caliber only getting that close to the awards is indeed a rather large shock for those who supported American Hustle.