Just look at last year. At the 2023 Oscars, Angela Bassett was nominated for Best Supporting Actress for her role as Queen Ramonda in Black Panther: Wakanda Forever. Filmed after the death of star Chadwick Boseman, Bassett was tasked with portraying the emotional gravity of losing a child too soon. It was a complex performance, delivered poignantly by Bassett, 29 years after her first Oscar nomination in 1993. Although boxed and sold as a Marvel film, at its core Wakanda Forever was a defining movie about grief and loss, themes that have long been honored at the Oscars when not wrapped in a superhero cape. Heading into that night, Bassett had won at the Golden Globes and Critics Choice Awards so many saw her primed to win at the Oscars, which made her loss to Everything Everywhere All At Once actress Jamie Lee Curtis all the more heartbreaking, a feeling that was quite visible on Bassett’s face. Bassett, who has since been awarded an honorary Oscar, has talked about the disappointment she felt at the time, telling Oprah Winfrey in a recent interview: “I was gobsmacked! I was.”
