Wicked: For Good Didn't Get A Single Oscar Nomination — Here's Why

Well, well, well. The Oscar nominations are locked in, and 2025's sequel "Wicked: For Good" didn't exactly match the soaring heights of "Wicked: Part One," which released in 2024 and scored a whopping ten nominations for its effort. In fact, "Wicked: For Good" received zero nominations for the 98th Academy Awards. Why is that?

"Wicked: For Good" is not a good movie. That's why.

When I first saw "Wicked: For Good" in theaters, I'll admit the musical theater kid that still lurks in my soul was charmed by, well, parts of it — the duet that gives the movie its subtitle, performed by vocal superstars Cynthia Erivo and Ariana Grande-Butera as witches Elphaba and Glinda, was genuinely lovely. The rest of the movie is a stinker, though, which is something I've realized as I get more distance from my viewing experience. That's almost definitely the reason that, when Danielle Brooks and Lewis Pullman announced the nominees that will be honored at the 98th annual Academy Awards in March of this year, we didn't hear the word "wicked" at all; the movie received no love at all from Academy voters.

Again, I'm not going to ask what happened here, but I'll simply tell you, again, that "Wicked: For Good" is not a well-constructed movie and frankly didn't deserve any major Oscar nominations; more than anything else, I'm genuinely relieved that the Academy didn't simply give it a bunch of nominations just because the first one did well. Still, it is admittedly sort of shocking to see this sequel fall from grace so spectacularly. Here's why "Wicked: For Good" left Oscar nominations morning completely empty-handed, and how even the movie's shining star couldn't work her way into a crowded, competitive acting category.

"Wicked: For Good" didn't even merit nods in any of the so-called "below-the-line" categories that refer to the craft-based accolades after winning for its costume design last year; again, it simply received nothing at all. For my money, the funniest snub is that Stephen Schwartz wrote two new songs for "Wicked: For Good" — "No Place Like Home," sung by Cynthia Erivo's Elphaba, and "The Girl in the Bubble," performed by Ariana Grande-Butera's Glinda — that I can only assume were meant to qualify for the Best Original Song race. Neither one of them made it in, and that's also a good thing: neither one of them deserves a spot. (For me to say that even considering that legitimate Oscar villain Diane Warren just got her second nomination for some nonsense is big, by the by.) The songs are, to be blunt, bad, and neither of them adds anything to the narrative!

Beyond those two meandering musical numbers that seem designed for an "easy" Oscar nod, "Wicked: For Good" is entirely too long; I myself previously argued that this sequel should have been capped at 90 minutes, especially when you consider that its source material — the second act of the Broadway musical "Wicked" — is an hour long. By the time we got a flashback about Glinda's childhood, I audibly groaned, and when one of the act's only showstoppers, "No Good Deed," kicked off — marred by a baffling amount of brown CGI sludge covering up Erivo's performance — I breathed a sigh of relief knowing we were almost done. "Wicked: For Good" is bloated, baffling, and even maddening, and it's good that this effort didn't get a default Oscar nomination in a single category.

Perhaps the most surprising exclusion on Oscar nomination morning was Ariana Grande-Butera, considered by many to be a shoo-in for the Best Supporting Actress category — particularly after she scored her first nomination for playing Glinda in "Wicked: Part One." To be absolutely fair to Grande-Butera, I think two big things stopped her from getting a spot (said spots ultimately went to Elle Fanning and Inga Ibsdotter Lilleaas for "Sentimental Value," Amy Madigan for "Weapons," Wunmi Mosaku for "Sinners," and Teyana Taylor for "One Battle After Another," marking five first-time nominees). First, again, I think this movie largely stinks, which kept Grande-Butera out of the conversation. The bigger thing at play here might actually be category fraud ... and an attempt by the Academy to avoid it this year.

If "Wicked: Part One" belonged firmly to Elphaba and her journey — save for Grande-Butera's frankly phenomenal take on Glinda's song "Popular," one of the first film's big showstoppers — "Wicked: For Good" is meant to be Glinda's movie. The narrative spends a considerable amount of time with the newly anointed "good witch" as she struggles with her desire to be loved and celebrated and her drive to do what's good and right, rather than toe the line drawn by the corrupt Wizard (Jeff Goldblum, playing himself). This gives Grande-Butera some material to chew on throughout the story, but she's arguably not a supporting player; had Grande-Butera been nominated, she'd probably belong in the lead category, which was already so crowded that major players like Chase Infiniti and Amanda Seyfried missed out on spots. Sorry to Grande-Butera and "Wicked: For Good," but Academy voters clearly do not feel that her performance — or this movie — changed them for good.