On January 22, the 2026 Oscar nominations were announced. And for the most part it is pretty standard for how this event usually goes. The biggest films of the year of course all got nominated, with one very notable exception: “Wicked: For Good.”

With every category being announced more and more, fear was struck into the hearts of all “Wicked” fans. And by the end of the event, you were stuck with the cold and hard truth that “Wicked: For Good” was snubbed and not nominated for a single category. 

This all is very strange considering its predecessor “Wicked” was nominated for so many Oscars during the 2025 Academy Awards including “Best Picture,” “Best Actress,” “Best Supporting Actress,” and then winning “Best Production Design” and “Best Costume Design”.

Now I’ll be one of the many to admit that “Wicked: For Good” was not very good plotwise, but not even getting nominated for a best costume or best makeup is quite ludicrous. 

The makeup for the film is miles above what the last film accomplished because of the Tin Man and Scarecrow’s makeup and practical effects which look breathtaking and really impressive especially considering they aren’t in the movie for very long. 

The costume nomination snub is also very disappointing, not only because the first film won the category previously but also because “Avatar: Fire and Ash” got nominated instead of “Wicked: For Good” which makes no sense whatsoever and feels undeserving.

I’m aware that the costumes made for “Avatar: Fire and Ash” were designed first in real life, and I will admit that is very cool, but the actors didn’t actually wear the costumes during filming. Because it’s all performance capture and CGI, the costumes are not actually used by the actors and were only used as reference for the CGI.

Ariana Grande and Cynthia Erivo were both up for best actress and best supporting actress respectfully the previous year, and even if I think Ariana Grande in particular was a lot stronger of a contender for this awards season, I also think that the women nominated for best actress and best supporting actress are much better contenders and all of them do deserve the award no matter who ends up winning. 

Some people have brought up how “Wicked: For Good” should’ve been nominated for best song, considering the film adds two new original songs, but honestly I couldn’t agree with that any less. The two new songs in the film barely add anything meaningful to the film or frankly its characters (yes, even “Girl in the Bubble”)  and come off as extremely pandering and “Oscar Bait-y”. 

Am I upset that “Wicked: For Good” got snubbed? In all honesty, not really, I still don’t think the film was very good and so I’d rather it be snubbed than it getting nominated for a bunch of categories it doesn’t deserve. But I still think that the film getting completely snubbed feels a bit unfair considering that it did have pretty outstanding costumes and makeup effects, all things considered. No “luke warm attempt at an original song so you can get maybe nominated” goes unpunished I suppose.