A24
For my money’s worth, The Iron Claw was the second-best movie of 2023, behind only Christopher Nolan’s Oppenheimer. The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences, however, clearly did not agree.
Now, to be fair, the widely perceived snub is not solely the responsibility of the Academy, as the consensus among industry experts seems to be that its chances were hurt by its own studio, A24, which did not launch an awards campaign for the project and instead focused on hyping up Poor Things and The Zone of Interest.
And now that The Iron Claw is available for purchase on VOD platforms and therefore being seen by more and more movie fans, the film community is now even more aghast by the film’s lack of award season recognition.
“The Iron Claw not getting a single nomination is going in the Hall of Fame of dumb f—— decisions made by the Academy,” said one viral tweet, which has over 2.3 million views.
“A24 has been arguably the shrewdest studio of the last decade but that does not let them off the hook for the horrendous botching of The Iron Claw’s award season prospects,” said another.
What makes the snubbing of The Iron Claw is that it’s got all of the usual characteristics of a surefire Academy Awards contender.
“The Iron Claw getting zero nominations is such a weird anomaly because it really does seem like a movie the academy would love and on top of that it is actually a really great movie. What happened?” one movie fan pointed out.
“Since The Iron Claw is finally on VOD let’s take a moment and be angry that it missed at every precursor award show. It is easily one of the best movies of 2023. In reality, it should’ve gotten nominated because it is a biopic and an indie movie. Ot has the criteria for an Oscar frontrunner,” noted another.
Prior to the release of The Iron Claw in theaters, BroBible’s Post Credit Podcast had a chance to speak with both the stars of the film — Zac Efron, Jeremy Allen White, Harris Dickinson, and Stanley Simons — and the director, Sean Durkin. You can check out both conversations below.