Nominated for Nothing: The Oscars overlooked Dev Patel's heroic turn in The Green Knight

They're destined to score zero Academy Awards, but they won our attention throughout a year (and awards season) like no other. Ahead of the 94th Oscars ceremony on March 27, EW is breaking down the year's best movies, performances, and directorial achievements that were nominated for nothing.

The film: Watching The Green Knight feels a bit like stepping into a medieval stained-glass tableau that's suddenly sprung to life. A reimagining of a centuries-old Arthurian legend may seem like an unexpected choice for writer-director David Lowery, best known for helming Disney's Pete's Dragon and acclaimed indies like A Ghost Story. But in Lowery's hands, The Green Knight transforms from a dusty old poem you probably skimmed in English lit class to a moody masterpiece, anchored by Dev Patel's heroic performance.

The premise is simple, taken straight from the original text: On Christmas Day, a mysterious knight arrives in King Arthur's court, looking like Marvel's Groot grew up to be a grumpy, ax-swinging warrior. After the Knight issues a not-so-friendly wager, the inexperienced but eager-to-prove-himself Gawain (Patel) beheads the Knight with one swing — only for the Knight to calmly stand, pick up his head, and declare that he'll see Gawain in one year's time to return the favor. As Gawain sets out to find the Knight's chapel, he encounters dangers and allies along the way, facing off against giants, bandits (Barry Keoghan), waiflike specters (Erin Kellyman), and an enigmatic lord and lady (Joel Edgerton and Alicia Vikander).

Distinctly modern in its casting but timeless in its storytelling, The Green Knight unfolds like a slow burn of a fairytale, following Gawain as he grapples with whether he'd rather keep his honor or his life. Lowery imbues the entire film with an uneasy, dreamlike quality, making this 14th-century epic feel simultaneously ancient and brand new. (Gawain encounters some settings that look like they're from the 1300s, others from centuries later, adding to the film's ageless, folktale feeling.)

But the true heart of The Green Knight is previous Oscar nominee Patel, who breathes new life into his 700-year-old character. Gawain can be naïve, selfish, and occasionally cowardly, but his wide-eyed tenacity and resourcefulness shine through, and Patel transforms his hero from a bygone legend on a page into something desperately human.

Why it wasn't nominated: Sometimes the Academy will reward an ambitious, oddball genre project — but The Green Knight may have had a few too many talking foxes (and, uh, certain bodily fluids) for the Oscars to treat it as a serious contender. Which is a shame! Other than the anomalous year when The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King took home every little statuette it was nominated for, the Academy has a history of neglecting the fantasy genre in particular, often only nominating it in below-the-line categories like makeup and hairstyling. (I mean, you could make an argument that Dev Patel's windswept hair in The Green Knight deserves a special honorary Oscar of its own… but alas.)

Even more frustratingly, this isn't the first time Lowery's work has been overlooked: His past films A Ghost Story or Ain't Them Bodies Saints may have racked up critical accolades, but the Academy dismissed those, too.

Why history will remember it better than the Academy did: The Oscars may have snubbed The Green Knight, but does that mean that in a year's time The Green Knight can return to snub the Oscars? In a theatrical landscape obsessed with IP and underbaked reboots, The Green Knight feels like the sort of fresh, ambitious retelling that many films aspire to. With dazzling visuals and powerhouse performances from Patel, Vikander, and Edgerton, this is the kind of meaty, moody classic that feels ripe for rediscovery down the line. Hopefully, The Green Knight will endure for years to come, just like the poem it's based on — a true epic in every sense of the word.

EW's countdown to the 2022 Oscars has everything you're looking for, from our expert predictions and in-depth Awardist interviews with this year's nominees to nostalgia and our takes on the movies and actors we wish had gotten more Oscars love. You can check it all out at The Awardist.

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