Netflix’s “The Irishman” did not receive any Oscars at the 2020 Academy Awards Show.
“The Irishman” began as the Oscar season’s predicted front-runner, but none of the major industry award-granting bodies — the Producers Guild, Screen Actors Guild, Writers Guild, or Directors Guild named Martin Scorsese’s “the Irishman” as their best film.
That streak continued at the Oscars where “The Irishman” lost all 10 of its Academy Award nominations.
Pundits oversold voters’ historical love for this genre, and, indeed, this creative team. Many were wrong about the success of mob flicks at Oscars gone by. Since 1950, just five movies that prominently feature the Mafia, directly or tangentially, have won the Best Picture Oscar: “On the Waterfront,” “The Godfather,” “The Sting,” The Godfather Part II” and “The Departed,” which was also directed by Scorsese. “Goodfellas” and “The Godfather Part III” both lost to “Dances With Wolves.” In fact, more musicals have won Best Picture in the past 70 years than mob movies have.
Meanwhile, Scorsese has won just one Best Director Oscar in nine nominations, for “The Departed” in 2007. Pacino has also won once in nine nods, in 1993 for “Scent of a Woman.” And Pesci has taken home a sole Academy Award for “Goodfellas” in 1991, with a total of three lifetime nods.
At 3½ hours, “The Irishman” is the longest studio movie of the decade. With Scorsese being 77 years old, it’s easy to think these are the twilight years of his career. But let’s hope that the brilliant director has another Oscar still to win.
The Gotham Reporter 