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u/Hippygirl1967 25d ago
If this wasn’t an Oscar performance, I don’t know what was. Mickey was phenomenal
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24d ago
All so they could give Sean Penn a 2nd for a mid biopic
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u/GreekKnight3 24d ago
Sean does deserve credit for convincingly playing a sweet and likeable guy. It's out of his range.
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u/bootherizer5942 24d ago
I really liked Milk but to be Sean Penn was clearly an actor showing off what he could do, where Mickey Rourke just WAS the character, I never thought “wow this actor is going so well” until after I left the theater. To me that’s what makes great acting. Still one of the best performances I’ve ever seen.
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u/johnmichael-kane 23d ago
What do you mean by “actor showing off what he could do”? He embodied the real-life character that was Harvey Milk and put on an incredible performance .
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u/bootherizer5942 23d ago
Don’t get me wrong, it was great! But I was very aware “this is Sean Penn acting” the whole time, even though he was acting really well. the wrestler I felt like I was watching a real person
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u/Hippygirl1967 24d ago
Don’t get me wrong..Sean Penn was deserving, but his performance was not on the level of Mickey’s.
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u/johnmichael-kane 23d ago
Milk was far from a mid biopic. You can love Mickey’s performance in this all you like but you don’t have to put down another phenomenal movie in the process
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u/mcian84 25d ago
He was soooo good! Also, Ellen Burstyn in Requiem for a Dream.
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u/OtherBluesBrother 25d ago edited 25d ago
So glad she got an Oscar for this. I am still haunted by that movie.Edit: She was just nominated. Maybe I thought she should have won.
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u/CranberryFuture9908 25d ago
She didn’t she won for Alice Doesn’t Live Here Anymore in the 1970’s .
Julia Roberts won for Erin Brochovich the year of Requiem For A Dream.
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u/OtherBluesBrother 25d ago
My mistake, you're right. For some reason I thought she got it that year, she was just nominated.
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u/CranberryFuture9908 24d ago
It would have been a deserved win. Julia was good too . One of the years they had some deserving performances.
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u/OtherBluesBrother 24d ago
There were so many great movies around that time. To me, it's the golden age of moviemaking.
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u/redactedactor 25d ago
It's nice to see another fan of The Last Showgirl but I get why it wasn't nominated
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u/icecreamhamwich 24d ago
Finally someone acknowledges they are the same movie
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u/HenryWrinkler 24d ago
I told my wife last night after we finished it that I liked the male version of this movie better. She was confused until I said it was the same movie as the wrestler but worse.
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u/Guns_57 25d ago
That's not Pacino in Godfather II.
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u/geekfreak42 24d ago
you are correct. It's Marjorie Taylor Greene at Biden's state of the union
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u/Used-Gas-6525 24d ago
Hey! Art Carney deserved that win! I mean, have you even seen Harry and Tonto? A masterclass in acting and film making both.
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u/DoofusScarecrow88 24d ago
I legit believe the voters put aside integrity (if they have it at all to begin with) because they just could not bring themselves to give Rourke an Oscar.
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u/MyFakeName 22d ago
I mean it’s a trade award, and everyone that’s worked with Rourke hates him.
If you’re a pain in the ass on set you’re unlikely to win an Oscar. Ask Eddie Murphy and Sylvester Stallone.
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u/DoofusScarecrow88 22d ago
I get where you are coming from. Unfortunately, these awards are not always based on who has the best performance but behaves themselves in a way or has the right attitude
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u/redbeard_av 21d ago
They are a popularity contest. Hollywood is basically crowning their prom kings and queens on the night. It just so happens that it is a televised show. And who doesn't love watching a popularity contest, specially when our feelings are not personally involved.
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u/Brit-Crit 25d ago
I have a feeling that Brendan Fraser won for The Whale because the Academy wanted to atone on some level. Same director, same basic theme of a male destroying their body…
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u/cobaltfalcon121 25d ago
Darren usually goes for the self destructive stories. Only rarely has he not. That being said, that year should have gone to Paul Mescal
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u/EvilLibrarians 24d ago
For Aftersun? Damn I need to watch that
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u/hardytom540 24d ago
Mescal gave the best performance out of anyone that year. Unfortunately, he was relatively unknown at the time so he had no chance of winning.
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u/draco_fox333 24d ago
Mikey Madison was pretty unknown this year, and she still won
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u/hardytom540 24d ago
Completely different situation for Best Actress category, where they sometimes prefer the younger ingénue, like JLaw, Emma Stone, and Madison.
Only one Best Actor winner in history has been under 30 years old and that was Adrien Brody for The Pianist.
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u/SirDrexl 23d ago
Yeah, they gave Best Actress to Natalie Portman for Black Swan 2 years after The Wrestler.
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u/arzt___fil 24d ago edited 24d ago
No.
Eddie Redmayne instead of Michael Keaton.
That was a robbery. And I'm not saying that just because I lost money betting on Keaton, I bet because I truly believed he deserved it.
This was close, and Sean Penn was awesome in Milk.
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u/bootherizer5942 24d ago
I really liked Milk but to be Sean Penn was clearly an actor showing off what he could do, where Mickey Rourke just WAS the character, I never thought “wow this actor is doing so well” until after I left the theater, whereas Milk made me very aware of it. To me that subtlety is what makes great acting. Still one of the best performances I’ve ever seen.
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u/MotivationalMike 25d ago edited 24d ago
This is where politics come into play. I think most people think Micky is a weirdo and didn’t want to put in writing that they recognize him. He just comes off as a bad hang.
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u/TJMcConnellFanClub 25d ago
All because he did a wrestling angle with Chris Jericho on Larry King, if he didn’t do any carny wrestling stuff until the voting period was over he’d have won
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u/fabynhofm 24d ago
What do you mean ? I've never heard about this one
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u/totallynormalhooman 24d ago
WWE loves involving celebrities and when this came out they kind of tried to work it into a story line. It was going to lead to a match but pretty sure people thought that would look bad on the Hollywood side of things so they nixed it. I think I’ve heard them Mickey’s involvement in WWE kind of soured his chances at winning as well.
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u/lbambacus 25d ago
Grace Kelly’s win over Judy Garland’s stunning performance in A Star is Born will always be the zenith (or maybe nadir is the better word) of Oscar snubs.
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u/HiImWallaceShawn 25d ago
Completely agree. Rourke was astounding in this. Up their for best acting I’ve ever seen
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u/pralineislife 25d ago
Biggest robbery is an exaggeration.
You nay prefer this performance of Penn's but it's not the biggest robbery.
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u/Grits_and_Honey 25d ago
Hardly. Ralph Fiennes not winning for Schindler's List was a much bigger travesty.
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u/UnionBlueinaDesert 25d ago
Again, and again, and again… that was a really good year for Best Supporting Actor. Leo and Fiennes had incredible breakouts and Tommy Lee Jones pretty much steals the entire movie. It’s not an easy decision any way you look at it.
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u/odelicious12 24d ago
100%. It's tiresome seeing the same "Fiennes was the greatest robbery in history!" comments everyday on this reddit community. Fiennes was amazing! But TLJ gave an absolutely outstanding performance. If you want to say you think Fiennes deserved it more then by all means, do so. But you can't claim that TLJ wasn't also deserving.
It's like claiming that There Will Be Blood was the biggest snub in history or something. TWBB is an all time great film that had the unfortunate luck of going up against NCFOM. It's bad timing, but loving one of them doesn't make the other one bad.
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u/FelixGoldenrod 24d ago
I think that's just a case of people taking it too seriously at the end of the day
Ranking any sort of art performance, whether acting or music or dance, is at its core a hollow exercise because of its subjectivity. We've all been moved by art that never saw the spotlight of an awards stage, and really that's the point of it all. The awards are a showy industry marketing expo
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u/HistoryReasonable866 24d ago
Exactly. It's always the same comments, they love and hate the exact same films.
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u/SteveK1954 24d ago
I think this one ties with Bette Davis’s loss to Judy Holiday and Clark Gable’s loss for Gone with the Wind. Three iconic performances that should have been honored with the Oscar.
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u/ATLUTD030517 23d ago
Penn was far too good in Milk for this to be "the biggest robbery in Oscar history" even if I'd have no issue with Rourke being picked, he is absolutely brilliant in this.
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u/theunrealdonsteel 25d ago
Unpopular opinion: Sean Penn didn’t deserve either of his awards (should’ve gone to Bill Murray and Mickey Rourke, respectively)
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u/cellardrops 25d ago
They gave the Best Actor trophy to the right man that year.
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u/Nayzo 25d ago
I agree. Sean Penn is not a great person, but his performance in Milk is incredible enough that I forgot it was Sean Penn. I also found Milk to be a better movie than The Wrestler, but to each their own.
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u/HiImWallaceShawn 25d ago
Man it’s so interesting how I can completely disagree with this opinion. As you say, to each their own, but man that Milk performance does nothing for me.
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u/pralineislife 25d ago
Does the story of Harvey Milk move you? Or is it just the performance? Because people who knew Harvey commented on how Penn transformed into their colleague/friend. If you watch any footage of Harvey and compare it to Sean Penn's performance, it's almost uncanny.
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u/HiImWallaceShawn 24d ago
I think the Rourke performance is just vastly better. I don’t think Penn’s performance is bad or anything.
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u/redbeard_av 21d ago
Are you from San Francisco? I think a lot of it has to do with people recognizing the real-life person. Anyone who has seen Harvey Milk the actual person will tell you that Sean Penn's performance was transformative in how it captured the essence of the man.
The wrestler was the better movie of the two for me and Mickey Rourke gives an equally enthralling performance as Penn. You could definitely say that Rourke deserves an Oscar for that performance but that doesn't mean that Penn wasn't equally deserving of his. I think this is one of those things that has sort of become a legend over the years but the fact remains that both were equally deserving, and the one who was more liked by his peers won.
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u/pralineislife 21d ago
I'm not but I have family and friends who have lived in SF for a very long time. I've visited a number of times - lovely place IMHO.
I agree that Rourke gave a great performance and I wouldn't have been upset if he won. I just don't think it was better than Penn's performance, which was on top of everything else politically and socially important.
I was a queer person in 2008, times were fucking tough.
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u/UnionBlueinaDesert 25d ago
Quality of the performance should be more important than quality of the film when you’re talking about acting??
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u/Nayzo 25d ago
Of course, and I tried to allude to that by mentioning that Penn was Milk, but I suppose I could have also mentioned that Rourke (to me, in my humble opinion), was just playing himself as a wrestler. He's good, but it's like Demi Moore in The Substance; it's a perfect role for that actor because Rourke was a washed up actor and athlete, not getting much work, and Demi has been dealing with ageist bullshit since she was labelled "brave" by the media for wearing a bikini in a Charlie's Angels movie at the age of 40. It doesn't mean they are bad performances by any means, it's just not as much of a transformation for the part, not as much work to access the character, on paper at least.
Again, my opinion only, I am not trying to say Rourke is a bad actor, I just thought Penn was better.
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u/AdmiralCharleston 25d ago
You can't possibly say this when another performance from an aronofosky film (ellen burstyn) didn't win and she gave one of the greatest performances of all time. He'll I would argue most of the best performances haven't been even nominated.
Rourke was great but hardly the most egregious loss
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u/bootherizer5942 24d ago
I really liked Milk but to be Sean Penn was clearly an actor showing off what he could do, where Mickey Rourke just WAS the character, I never thought “wow this actor is going so well” until after I left the theater. To me that’s what makes great acting. Still one of the best performances I’ve ever seen.
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u/Articulatory 24d ago
Michael Fassbender losing to Jared Leto in 2014.
I’d have accepted Jonah Hill winning.
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25d ago
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u/mentales 25d ago
without accepting a paycheck. That, to me, is more than ebough of a reason that should have won the Oscar.
That's... not how any of this works
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u/Used-Gas-6525 24d ago edited 24d ago
Citizen Kane, Pacino in GF2, Gump beating PF and Shawshank, Tommy Lee Jones in The Fugitive beating Leo in Gilbert Grape and Ralph Fiennes in Shindler's List, it is endless. The wrestler was incredible and I loved seeing Mickey Rourke really get to stretch his acting legs after all those years. Dude's a massive talent, but there are far more egregious examples of highway robbery.
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u/Iena199781 24d ago
Al Pacino Godfather 2, Scorsese Taxi Driver, Ridley Scott Gladiator, DiCaprio Wolf of Wall Street, Joaquin Phoenix The Master, PTA There Will Be Blood, George Miller Mad Max: Fury Road, Scorsese The Irishman, Lily Gladstone Killers of the flower moon
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u/KirkwoodKid 24d ago
Honestly, I was rooting for Mickey as well, but at least it was a real fight. Sean Penn was amazing in Milk. A true head to head if you ask me.
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u/TheBard983 24d ago
As a huge wrestling fan, I’m biased, but it was my favorite 2008 movie and I really wish Rourke would have won.
He had such a Cinderella story but it was back to obscurity within a few years. We can only wonder what a Best Actor win would have done for him.
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u/Odd_Front_8275 24d ago
The word you're looking for is "snub", but yeah, that was a great performance
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u/cfnohcor 24d ago
I’ve asked Mickey about that directly years ago and he concurs with this assessment 😂😂😂
For real though, he certainly seemed disappointed but not bitter over that.
Can’t say I’m a big fan of the guy but he lit up when I asked about The Wrestler and talked about it with a lot of smiles.
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u/zodiackodiak515 24d ago
I’d argue Birdman is in this category, and I say that as someone who liked that movie
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u/AkkeBrakkeKlakke 24d ago
Agree. He was heartbreaking in this. Beautiful performance. The Oscars is all about politics anyway. Shown time and time again. No reflection of actual quality.
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u/bobbythecorky 24d ago
It's definitely The Act of Killing not winning best documentary at the time on my end.
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u/gassygeff89 24d ago
Every time I get sliced meat from a deli I ask the person if they’ve seen this movie, one of the most jarring scenes.
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u/Frosty48 23d ago
I haven't seen Milk but I agree that Rourke gave an earth shattering performance.
Was Penn that good?
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u/Despacio1316 22d ago
Oscar’s are great for careers, but time and films/roles aging well particularly in terms of cultural awareness/relevance and repeating viewings is far more valuable. Everyone here has probably seen Tombstone over and over but who’s seen Moonlight once let alone multiple times. People quickly forget who won the Oscar. They don’t forget unforgettable films and roles.
(For the record I loved Moonlight when I saw it in theaters).
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u/anaheim_mac 22d ago
Agree. After watching this movie I had to google it to see if it was based on a real wrestler. No. All fiction. This is only a couple of films where Aronofsky and team just did an amazing work. I find The Wrestler is still way above the emotional scale compared to the The Iron Claw for me. Which is interesting since TIC was based on a real wrestling family. Mickey Rourkes performance was an absolute amazing performance.
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u/johntheissenjr 22d ago
One of the most authentic performances ever! I have family who was in the wrestling biz and I can tell you, from what I've been told, this is the most accurate depiction of that world.
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u/Ok-Chain8552 21d ago
Colin Farell and Austin Butler both had a case for winning over Brendan Fraser - double steal !
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u/jrtasoli 21d ago
One hundred percent. And snubbing Bruce Springsteen by changing the number of songs that could get nominated for Best Song to deny him a second / give Slumdog Millionaire a “sweep.”
This is when I was radicalized against the Academy lol.
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u/tommykevans3 21d ago
I remember watching MILK. That Sean Penn was great and figured the win was deserving. When I finally watched THE WRESTLER, I knew what everyone was talking about. Mickey definitely deserved the win, I can’t believe I wanted a gay film to lose an Oscar! 😅
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u/Spastic__Colon 20d ago
Zac Efron in Iron Claw and Gyllenhall in Nightcrawler are the biggest Oscar snubs of my lifetime
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u/genoforprez 20d ago
Years ago, I made the mistake of getting drunk alone at home on a Friday night and thought I'd watch a movie. "Oh, The Wrestler. I've been hearing that's really good. Let's try that."
So there I am. Home alone at 1am, drinking alone, in the dark, watching one of the saddest movies ever made.
GREAT NIGHT
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u/Price1970 25d ago
Mickey Rourke, like Austin Butler, won the Golden Globe for Drama and the British Academy BAFTA, and both lost to the Critics Choice and SAG winners (Sean Penn and Brendan Fraser) over irrelevant aspects that only affect Hollywood voters.
Both lost to someone playing a gay person, and Rourke had a history of not being well liked in the industry, and Butler was young and in his first lead role, and also had to face all of the Brendan Fraser personal life victim narrative.
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u/cinmusper 24d ago
Anora winning the awards they won, when Brutalist, Substance, Wicked… better films in my opinion Then Lily Gladstone losing to Emma Stone for that weird ass movie. (Go ahead and hate i don’t give a damn)
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u/turdfergusonRI 25d ago
I understand where you’re coming from but I think Schindler’s List still safely holds that championship belt.
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u/elcobalto 24d ago
I love Rourke’s performance and he would’ve been a great winner, but also, Penn’s Harvey Milk is in my top 3 Oscar-winning performances of this century, so I wouldn’t call it a robbery
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u/PepeFeels 24d ago
Mickey Rourke was not better than Daniel Day-Lewis in There Will be Blood or better than Javier Bardem in No Country for Old Men?
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25d ago
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u/hoginlly 25d ago
Bridges and Firth were actually nominated the following year (Bridges won for Crazy Heart), and Hoffman was nominated as Supporting Actor.
The 5 actors that year were Penn, Rourke, Richard Jenkins, Brad Pitt and Frank Langella
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u/Financial_Cheetah875 25d ago
Don’t agree. Sean Penn was a straight man playing gay, which at the time was very bold.
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25d ago
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u/Ice_Princeling_89 25d ago
As a gay, I will say definitively yes.
People do not realize how shortlived gay acceptance has been.
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u/pralineislife 25d ago
I remember when Milk came out and so many people refused to watch the movie because it was about a gay man.
You're right, some people have no clue how recent any amount of queer acceptance is.
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u/Former_Masterpiece_4 24d ago
Yeah, I don't understand the downvotes. I am learning though that a lot of YouTube creators that cover the Oscars are apparently from Generation Z according to Reddit uses here, who at their oldest age would have been 11 when Milk was released, so maybe that also reflects the Reddit community in how people look back at 2008. Milk got a major push from its film studio and that was the same year Prop 8 in California banned gay marriage and the film having a gay love story was a big deal, including the struggles of Josh Brolin's character. Brokeback Mountain was famously snubbed in 2006 just two years before the movie's release, which provoked a question of how ready Hollywood was to depict openly gay people and their love lives. Penn wasn't the first actor to play an openly gay guy like Tom Hanks and Javier Bardem did (and however the Brokeback Mountain characters identify), but it still wasn't "cool" to do at all in the 2000s.
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u/Axela556 25d ago
I love this performance so much. I think this is one of the saddest movies I've ever watched. I can't watch it again.