James Cameron slams the Academy Awards for the infamous Dune snub from the 2020s, of a fellow sci-fi director. Cameron’s Avatar: Fire and Ash is in movie theaters worldwide as of today (December 19). This is the third installment in the Titanic filmmaker’s epic sci-fi Avatar series; the first two movies, from 2009 and 2022, garnered multiple Academy Award nominations.
While both Avatar and Avatar: The Way of Water were nominated for the Oscar for Best Picture in their respective years, Cameron was only nominated for Best Director for the original outing. In a new interview with Canada’s The Globe and Mail, Cameron criticizes another filmmaker who achieved a similar feat never getting the Achievement in Directing nod.
Cameron is talking about Denis Villeneuve, who directed 2021’s Dune and 2024’s Dune: Part Two, both nominated for Best Picture. “[…] these two magnificent Dune films and apparently these films make themselves because he wasn’t considered as a director,” says Cameron. “Like okay, you can play the awards game or you can play the game I like to play and that’s to make movies people actually go to.“
“I don’t think about the Academy Awards that much,” Cameron also said, although his Titanic is one of the most-nominated movies in Oscars history. “Intentionally, I don’t think about that at this point. I don’t try to make a movie to appeal to their sensibility… they don’t tend to honor films like Avatar or films that are science fiction. Sci-fi is almost never properly recognized.“
Villeneuve not being recognized in the directing category for either Dune movie is widely seen as one of the biggest Oscars snubs in recent history. The fact that he was not nominated for the first two movies makes it seem unlikely that things will change with Dune: Part Three, which comes out in December 2026, with the main cast returning.
Villeneuve has been nominated in the category once, for 2016’s Arrival, also a sci-fi movie and Best Picture nominee. The Dune filmmaker is still recognized as one of the best currently working directors in the industry, and has been tapped to helm the highly anticipated Bond 26, which is in development at Amazon MGM Studios.
Genre movies such as sci-fi and horror have historically struggled at the Oscars, but a rare few break through and are usually huge phenomena when this happens. For one reason or another, Villeneuve’s work as a director on Dune may never technically get the label of “Oscar worthy,” but filmmakers of the same caliber still see his groundbreaking work for what it is.
- Created by
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Frank Herbert
- Cast
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Kyle MacLachlan, Timothée Chalamet, Zendaya, Austin Butler, Javier Bardem, Rebecca Ferguson, Oscar Isaac, Jason Momoa, Stellan Skarsgård, Josh Brolin, Dave Bautista
- Movie(s)
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Dune, Dune, Dune: Part Two, Dune: Part Three
