The Eight Biggest Snubs from the 2018 Golden Globes Nominations

They're baaaaaaaack: This morning, the most feverish stretch of awards season kicked off with the announcement of the nominations for the 75th Golden Globes Awards. The Hollywood Foreign Press Association, which chooses the nominations and winners every year, are typically a fickle and strange bunch when it comes to their choices (as we'll assuredly get into more detail about below)—but the Globes have also come to be an oft-reliable bellwether when it comes to what will get highlighted by awards season's Big Kahuna, the Academy Awards (Oscars, if you're into the whole brevity thing).

It's often as interesting to see what got snubbed as it is what got nominated—and this year's nominations are no exception. Let's dive into some of the more egregious snubs from this year's noms—and make sure to watch the Golden Globes at 8 PM EST on January 7. It's hosted by Seth Meyers this year, and I'm sure he'll do fine.

Critical adoration doesn't always translate to awards recognition—and if you need proof, just look at the Globes's overall snubbing of David Lynch's masterpiece Twin Peaks: The Return, the rare TV revival in a sea of them that not only worked, but added new and mind-blowing wrinkles to the existing property in question. Yes, Kyle MacLachlan snagged a nod for his three (four? five?) performances throughout the limited-run series, but Twin Peaks: The Return was conspicuously absent in the overall Limited Series category. I haven't watched The Sinner yet, and I hear it's good, but was it really better than Twin Peaks: The Return? These are the types of questions that the Globes makes us ask.

Speaking of critical darlings getting cut out! The Oscar race has been weird enough this year that Kumail Nanjiani and Emily W. Gordon's heartbreakingly funny, ripped-from-their-real-lives tale of love's endurance in the face of hardship has been tipped for awards glory—and rightly so: Even setting aside that it's the rare critically adored romantic comedy (the genre isn't typically a well-reviewed one), The Big Sick features strong performances ranging from Nanjiani's persevering protagonist to emotionally devastating turns from Ray Romano and Holly Hunter. And yet: It was completely shut out of the Globes this year, even losing a spot in the Musical or Comedy category to, of all fucking things, Hugh Jackman's circus-musical The Greatest Showman. Lame.

There had to be other good animated films that came out this year that weren't The Boss Baby, right? Right?!? Listen, I'm an adult, and I saw The Boss Baby in theaters. It was not good. It wasn't the worst film I saw this year, but it was not good. Granted, I'm not the target audience—to wit, the Friday evening showing that two friends and I attended (sober, if you can believe it) was mostly children, three of them bringing dolls in strollers. So it's a movie for children and dolls. That's fine. Based on The Boss Baby's nomination for Best Animated Film, I can only assume, by extension, that the HFPA is solely comprised of children and dolls. Prove me wrong!

If The Big Sick is the potential crowd-pleasing wildcard in this year's awards season that was greeted by dead silence this morning, then Get Out—Jordan Peele's astounding horror film that doubles as the most trenchant social satire released on film this year—at least got its relative due: Along with nabbing a nom in the Best Picture - Comedy or Musical category, its lead Daniel Kaluuya scored a Best Actor nod as well. And Greta Gerwig's touching and funny Lady Bird is another potential awards heavyweight this season, with four extremely deserved nods picked up this morning. But the directors of both films—respectively, Jordan Peele and Greta Gerwig—were both shut out of the Best Director category, all the more perplexing since they seem to be practical lock-ins for Oscar time. Does Ridley Scott really deserve his nom for All the Money in the World, a recognition undoubtedly awarded to him after the much-publicized about-face he had to do in recasting Kevin Spacey's lead role merely three weeks before the film was released? I guess we'll see, but in the meantime not nominating Peele or Gerwig seems like missed opportunities.

It's a shame that Steve Carell was nominated for his very, extremely Michael Scott-y turn in Jonathan Dayton and Valerie Faris's Battle of the Sexes—partially because his performance in the film represents the diminishing returns of a side of Carell we've seen one too many times, and partially because he had a much better showing in Richard Linklater's critically sniffed-at mid-aughts period piece. Last Flag Flying allows Carell to show his subtler side, as a Vietnam vet struggling with the death of his son serving as a soldier in the Iraq War; it's the type of performance we don't typically see from him anywhere, and even though Last Flag Flying was a bit of a dud even by Linklater's low-stakes standards, it would've been nice to see this impossibly sad and touching performance get some recognition.

After years of reportedly turning down opportunities to write songs for films, Sufjan Stevens did a huge 180 in 2017: Not only did he recently share two excellent and empathetic songs about Tonya Harding that were submitted (and, bizarrely, rejected) for the Harding biopic I, Tonya, but he also contributed two aching and lovely new songs for Luca Guadagnino's aching, lovely Call Me by Your Name. "Mystery of Love" and "Visions of Gideon" are two of the strongest songs of the year, let alone two of the strongest songs of the year written for film—and yet, neither were highlighted in this year's Globes nominations. No matter: Perhaps the Oscars, which might show an overall greater warmth toward Call Me by Your Name in the end anyway, could rectify this unjust snubbing.