The Mister Rogers Documentary ‘Won’t You Be My Neighbor?’ May Be The Most Surprising Oscars Snub

Won’t You Be My Neighbor? seemed like an Oscar lock. The documentary, about cherished childhood icon Fred Rogers, was directed by previous Academy Award-winner Morgan Neville (20 Feet from Stardom); it’s also one of the highest-grossing documentaries ever, and although box office success doesn’t always equal quality (see: Best Picture nominee Bohemian Rhapsody), Neighbor has a sterling 98 percent “Fresh” rating on Rotten Tomatoes.

And yet! Won’t You Be My Neighbor? was not one of the five films nominated for Best Documentary Feature for the 91st annual Academy Awards on Tuesday morning. Instead, the honors went to Free Solo (do not watch if you’re afraid of heights), Hale County This Morning, This Evening (an intimate look at the residents of a small Alabama county), Minding the Gap (the most moving skateboard movie of 2018… sorry/not sorry, Mid90s), Of Fathers and Sons (about a radical Islamist family), and RBG (the Ruth Bader Ginsburg movie without Felicity Jones). That’s a fine group of nominees (there’s plenty of room on this here Minding the Gap bandwagon — it’s on Hulu!), but the lack of Mister Rogers (and Three Identical Strangers) was a stunning omission.

Won’t You Be My Neighbor? was one of Barack Obama’s favorite movies of 2018, and in his extremely positive review, our own Mike Ryan called it “an experience of earnestness we don’t see or hear much anymore, to the point that it’s a bit of a jolt to the system.” He also warned that it will make people cry.

Now it’s causing tears for an entirely different reason.

https://twitter.com/tomsilvestro/status/1087734188344791042

Maybe the Tom Hanks/Mister Rogers movie will have better luck.

Oh yeah, and Paddington 2 was snubbed, too. The Oscars hate nice things.