Oscar snubs & stunners

Gerwig, Robbie, Leo miss out, while Bening, Ferrera surprise

Several Hollywood powerhouses who were widely expected to make it to the ballot of the 96th Academy Awards — including Margot Robbie, Leonardo DiCaprio and Greta Gerwig — woke up to disappointing news early on Tuesday.

But while some members of the Hollywood elite were seemingly forgotten by the Oscar gods when actors Zazie Beetz and Jack Quaid announced this year’s nominees, others can start preparing their thank-you speeches and hope to read them aloud come March 10.

Here’s a list of the most shocking snubs and surprises of the 2024 nominations.

SNUBS

Greta Gerwig

Sure, the record-breaking filmmaker behind 2023’s highest-grossing flick was nominated for Best Adapted Screenplay for last summer’s Mattel-pink phenomenon “Barbie,” along with her husband, Noah Baumbach. But even though the hit comedy secured a total of eight nominations, including for Best Picture, Gerwig (main photo, left) didn’t receive a nod for Best Director.

Margot Robbie

Life in plastic wasn’t fantastic for the multinominated Australian-born actress. While the “Barbie” star (main photo, right) and producer can still take home a golden statue if the film wins the top prize, Robbie’s SAG-nominated portrayal of a plastic doll with (gasp!) flat feet didn’t earn her a lead actress nomination.

Charles Melton

The buzz surrounding what would have been Melton’s first Oscar nomination began after the Korean-American actor received lavish praise from critics at the Cannes Film Festival early last year for his work in “May December.” But despite winning a Gotham Award for the role, Melton was shut out of the Best Supporting Actor category. His co-star, Oscar-winning actress Julianne Moore, was also snubbed this year.

Leonardo DiCaprio

The multinominated actor failed to score his eighth Oscar nod after being excluded from the Best Actor category. DiCaprio, who stars in one of the year’s most nominated films,

“Killers of the Flower Moon,” apparently failed to impress the Academy for his portrayal of Ernest Burkhart. His co-stars, Lily Gladstone and Robert De Niro, were nominated for Best Actress and Best Supporting Actor, respectively.

SURPRISES

Annette Bening

“We goofed by not predicting Annette Bening [would be nominated],” the awards prediction website Gold Derby said shortly after the announcement. Bening (photo left) received a Best Actress nomination for her role as marathon swimmer Diana Nyad in “Nyad.” Her co-star, Jodie Foster, was nominated for Best Supporting Actress, marking her first Oscar nod in 29 years.

America Ferrera

One of the few Latinas to be ever be nominated for an Oscar, America Ferrera was honored in the Best Supporting Actress category for her role as a Mattel employee — with a powerful monologue — in “Barbie.” It’s the first Oscar nomination for Ferrera, who wasn’t nominated for either a Golden Globe or a SAG Award for the role.

Sterling K. Brown

After edging out early fan favorites Charles Melton and Willem Dafoe in the Best Supporting Actor category, Brown might soon be able to add an Oscar to his Emmy-filled award collection. The “This Is Us” star was nominated for his role as Clifford Ellison, a recently out gay man, in “American Fiction.”

Any migrants spotted sleeping outside will be counted as part of the city’s annual street homelessness census this month, according to Adams administration officials.

The so-called HOPE Count, which was set to be conducted Tuesday night into Wednesday morning, involves city outreach workers and volunteers fanning across the five boroughs to tally how many individuals are sleeping on the streets. The tally is reported to the U.S. Housing and Urban Development Department and used to assess how much federal funding the city should get for operating homeless shelters.

In a Tuesday afternoon briefing, Deputy Mayor for Health and Human Services Anne Williams-Isom confirmed that newly arrived migrants — dozens of whom have been spotted sleeping outside a Manhattan intake center in recent weeks amid overcrowding in local shelters — will be included in the HOPE Count.

She said that the city has 1,500 New Yorkers signed up to volunteer for the count, a number she called “fantastic.”

However, asked by the Daily News after the briefing if she expects a bump in federal homeless aid as a result of an increase in the HOPE Count, Williams-Isom demurred.

“I don’t think it will,” she said. “I think [the feds] use it just to kind of see the premise that is going on. … It’s not automatic.”

Adams has since 2022 pleaded with the federal government to provide the city with more financial aid to tackle the migrant crisis.

To date, the feds have provided less than $500 million — an amount Adams has characterized as a drop in the bucket when compared with the hundreds of millions of dollars the city says it’s spending every month on housing and providing services for migrants.

According to the latest data from Adams’ office, nearly 70,000 migrants remain housed in city shelters. The city has shelled out more than $3 billion on housing, feeding and providing them with services since the crisis started in spring 2022, Adams administration officials say.

Adult migrants have recently been spotted sleeping outside the city’s socalled “reticketing center” in the East Village, where they’re instructed to go to reapply for shelter if they still need it after being removed from their previous placements under the Adams administration’s 30-day policy.

City Council members and advocates have said the policy, which limits consecutive shelter stays for migrant adults to 30 days, is inhumane and fueling street homelessness.

Some of the migrants who have slept outside the East Village site say they are doing so because they’re concerned they might otherwise lose their place in line for a new shelter bed.

But Adams said in Tuesday’s briefing that the 30-day restriction is critical to maintaining capacity in the shelter system. He also argued that any migrants who are sleeping outside are doing so by choice.

“We’re not telling anyone they have to sleep outside on the street,” he said. “People are making the decision that this is what they want to do. We are creating rooms for people to wait in.”