Bradley Cooper’s Best Director Oscars Snub for ‘A Star Is Born’ Totally Surprises Fans

Did anyone see this coming? Bradley Cooper was snubbed for a Best Director Oscar nomination for A Star Is Born, and it’s honestly a little shocking. He did receive a Best Actor nod for his role as Jackson Maine in the film, but a lot of people expected he’d get the Director nomination as well for his directorial debut — he got one for the Golden Globes, after all.

Bradley, 44, will be going up against Hollywood giants Willem Dafoe and Christian Bale in the Best Actor category. But he was edged out of the Best Director category by fellow directors Spike Lee (BlacKkKlansman), Pawel Pawlikowski (Cold War), Yorgos Lanthimos (The Favourite), Alfonso Cuarón (Roma) and Adam McKay (Vice). It seems like quite the snub, considering the movie is up for Best Picture and a number of other awards.

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All we want for the holidays is to end up under the mistletoe like this. #AStarIsBorn

A post shared by A Star Is Born (@starisbornmovie) on Dec 24, 2018 at 10:28am PST

Bradley did get a writing credit nomination for Best Adapted Screenplay for the same movie, and between that and the Best Picture nod, it honestly seems a little weird that the Silver Linings Playbook actor didn’t get the Director nom. For what it’s worth, people are definitely taking notice of the exclusion. “‘This does not spark joy’ — the academy to Bradley Cooper,” one person tweeted. Another wrote on Twitter, “The Bradley Cooper snub for director is also crazy. He directed a great film. He got nominated for actor but not director? He [was] an actor following his own direction. Bizzare. #OscarNoms.”

Bradley played Jackson — a country music singer battling an alcohol and drug addiction — in the 2018 American musical romantic drama, and clearly, the Academy thought he did a great job on the acting front. They also nominated Lady Gaga in the Lead Actress category and she’s credited a lot of her performance to Bradley’s encouragement and directing. It certainly seems a little bit odd that he didn’t make the final cut for Best Director, but maybe that means he’ll have a better shot at the Best Actor award. We’ll just have to tune into the Oscars to find out!