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Quick Links But Let's Be Honest: Did Villeneuve Deserve the Best Director Nomination? Villeneuve Joins a List of Unbelievable Oscar Snubs

It has happened. What I, star Josh Brolin, and millions of other sci-fi fans thought to be a joke has become true: The Academy has decided that Denis Villeneuve does not even deserve to get a nomination for his directorial effort in the 2024 science fiction epic Dune: Part Two. The Academy Award nominations were recently announced, and as expected, there were a few surprises. No Best Original Score for Challengers, Sebastian Stan was nominated for The Apprentice and not for A Different Man, and Marianne Jean-Baptiste was left out for Hard Truths. But the one that hurt the most is Denis Villeneuve's name being absent among the Best Director nominees.

During the weeks leading up to the nominations, I began thinking that my worst fear would come true. The...

The 97th Academy Awards are continuing a painful trend for sci-fi fans, as Denis Villeneuve has been snubbed for Best Director once again. Dune: Part Two was expected to be one of the hot favorites at this year's Oscars, with the entire fan base backing Villeneuve's monumental sequel, starring Timothée Chalamet, Zendaya, Rebecca Ferguson, Javier Bardem, and Austin Butler. The nominees shortlist was announced just moments ago, and Villeneuve has been left higher and drier than the desert of Arrakis, and it's not the first time.

This morning, Villeneuve was not nominated for Best Director ahead of the 2025 Academy Awards. This marks the second time Villeneuve's work on the Dune franchise hasn't been recognized by The Academy, as he was also snubbed from the category for 2021's Dune, which kick-started the new sci-fi franchise. Instead, Sean Baker (Anora), Brady Corbet (The Brutalist), James Mangold (A Complete Unknown), Jacques Audiard...

Denis Villeneuve's take on Frank Herbert's Dune series has been a major success so far. The second installment, 2024's Dune: Part Two, saw the success of 2021's Dune: Part One and raised it even higher, and the Academy recognized the film's efforts.

Dune: Part Two was bigger and better than the first installment, and out-grossed the first film. It was the fifth highest-grossing movie of 2024, kicking off the year with the biggest numbers by the time of its premiere in March. The sci-fi film was officially recognized at the 97th Academy Awards by the Academy with several nominations, including one for Best Picture, but it didn't get the nomination Josh Brolin wanted.

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Dune: Part Two...

Following a strong box-office run and critical success that's prompted consistent award buzz, Dune: Part Two notches another notable achievement. Denis Villeneuve's sci-fi blockbuster lands instant success on Netflix after debuting on the platform on New Year's Day.

Netflix confirmed its Top 10 English-language movies list for the week of Dec. 30 to Jan. 5, with Part Two landing 9th on the chart. The Dune sequel is sandwiched between The Forge and Christopher Nolan's Interstellar, with the Taron Egerton-led action thriller, Carry-On, topping the weekly chart. Part Two premiered via Netflix on Jan. 1, 10 months after the movie's theatrical debut.

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Part Two built on the strong critical and commercial success of 2021's Dune, which won six Academy...

We haven't even got to the official ceremony, but the 2025 Oscars are already causing controversy. There has been an ongoing battle between The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences and Dune: Part Two over Hans Zimmer's phenomenal score for the 2024 sequel. According to The Academy, the score is ineligible for submission in the Best Original Score category, something which Zimmer himself disagrees with, though he is ultimately more focused on the quality of the score and movie than its awards potential. However, like Paul Atreides (Timothee Chalamet) announcing himself as the Lisan al Gaib, Dune: Part Two's director, Denis Villeneuve, has come to the rescue, defending Zimmer's score, and questioning The Academy's decision.

During an interview with SlashFilm, Denis Villeneuve called out The Academy for excluding Zimmer's score. "I am absolutely against the decision of the Academy to exclude Hans, frankly, because I feel like his score is...

Director Denis Villeneuve filmed many of Dune: Part Two's Arrakis sequences in harsh environments. Zendaya said wearing a Fremen stillsuit costume in the desert heat didn't help.

Zendaya shared some of her co-stars' experiences while filming Dune: Part Two on outdoor sets. The Arrakis desert scenes were shot on location in Jordan and the United Arab Emirates, leaving the cast and crew at the mercy of the elements. She said it was particularly grueling for actors wearing stillsuits costumes, designed after the armor the Fremen wore to survive harsh environments. Speaking with W Magazine, Zendaya said her full-body suit was so troublesome to wear and remove that she didn't drink water to avoid bathroom breaks. She confessed that was a huge mistake.

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We hope you've been practicing your sandworm riding skills and sharpening your crysknife, because Dune: Part Two has found a brand-new streaming home for the new year. Part Two is the follow-up to Denis Villeneuve's immensely successful Dune, released in 2021. Adapted from Frank Herbert's lauded sci-fi novel of the same name, Villeneuve brought the desert planet of Arrakis to life on the big screen in gorgeous detail, as Paul Atreides (Chalamet) sought revenge against the Emperor for the betrayal of his family and house. Dune established the core characters, and gave Zendaya a whopping eight minutes of screen time (despite heavy marketing efforts establishing her as a key character), but Part Two delved into total war.

Dune: Part Two is now streaming on Netflix. The film has arrived on the streamer just in time for the new year, as fans can usher in 2025 while Paul Atreides commits nuclear...

Denis Villeneuve has a strict rule when it comes to working on his movie sets: no cell phones. The Dune filmmaker has commented on enforcing a ban on cell phones at the start of filming, explaining how it serves as a distraction from the art that the cast and crew are working together to create.

"Human beings are ruled by algorithms right now,” Villeneuve recently said about the modern correlation between people and technology, per the L.A. Times. “We behave like AI circuits. The ways we see the world are narrow-minded binaries. We’re disconnecting from each other, and society is crumbling in some ways. It’s frightening.”

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That's not to...

The spice must flow, and so with it goes Anya Taylor-Joy, star of this year's Furiosa: A Mad Max Saga and the upcoming AppleTV+ original film The Gorge. Earlier this year, Taylor-Joy made an appearance in Dune: Part Two as Alia Atreides, the younger sister of Timothée Chalamet’s Paul Atreides, who appears to her brother during a Water of Life-induced vision. While brief, the cameo is significant, as Alia plays an important role in Dune Messiah, the next book in the series and the basis for the forthcoming third film in Denis Villeneuve's trilogy.

So, just how big of a role will Taylor-Joy play? While remaining fairly tight-lipped overall, the actress herself did confirm that she will be a part of Villeneuve's upcoming film. In a conversation with Collider, Taylor-Joy said:

"Yeah, the film is being made, and I am so thrilled to be a part of it.

Christopher Nolan, the lauded filmmaker behind modern classics like Inception, Oppenheimer, and The Dark Knight trilogy, has an incredibly relatable complaint about Denis Villeneuve's Dune: Part Two. Villeneuve's sequel blew past audience's expectations by expanding upon the incredibly complicated world, while telling a (mostly) grounded, personal story of the relationship between Paul Atreides (Timothée Chalamet) and Chani (Zendaya). Despite being based on the incredibly complex and dense sci-fi novel by Frank Herbert, Villeneuve's Dune films are surprisingly digestible for even the most apprehensive sci-fi fan. But, audiences have one complaint about the sequel, and they share it with Christopher Nolan.

There's a screenwriting rule that no two characters' names should start with the same letter, so that audiences don't get confused by who's who. Dune took that rule and fed it to the sandworms as, not only do some of the characters have incredibly strange names, Paul Atreides goes by many,...