Zero nominations for ‘John Wick: Chapter 4’ is a travesty

“John Wick: Chapter 4” was the best movie I saw in 2023. Not “Oppenheimer” and not “Poor Things,” which combined for a whopping 24 Oscar nominations. Both those films were great, but they simply could not outdo the art that is Keanu Reaves in black fighting his way through the Parisian night.

Well, at least I thought they couldn’t. The cowards at the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences disagreed, giving the latest installment in the “John Wick” franchise a total of zero 2024 Oscars nominations.

Look, part of me knew this would happen. The movie was a commercial success — the 9th-highest-grossing film domestically and 12th-highest-grossing film worldwide in 2023 — but the Oscars don’t inherently honor that. In fact, sometimes it can hurt the movie’s Oscars odds if it’s considered too mainstream, as many action and superhero movies can attest to.

It’s also not like the franchise has been honored by the Academy in past years. The franchise overall has brought in a total of zero nominations across four films to date. This is despite each installment being critically acclaimed and commercially successful, though as mentioned before, that last part doesn’t necessarily help.

But this movie was worthy. It’s the highest-rated of the four on Rotten Tomatoes, for what that’s worth, with a 94% fresh rating from critics and a 93% fresh rating from audiences. It scored an average of 8.1 out of 10 from critics and 4.6 out of 5 from audiences. I gave it a 5 out of 5 on Letterboxd. If you compare that to the 10 Best Picture nominees, it stands up to them, exceeding a few in certain aspects.

So clearly, I’m not alone in lauding this masterpiece as a cinematic achievement. As someone who has seen this movie — and many of the Oscars nominees — I have found a few places where the Academy could have appropriately given this movie its due. Here’s what ‘John Wick: Chapter 4’ should have been nominated for at the 2024 Oscars.