Adam Sandler has delivered numerous memorable performances throughout his career, yet many of them have gone unrecognized by the Academy. In this article, we explore seven of his most deserving roles that should have earned him an Oscar nomination.
The 7 Performances That Adam Sandler Should Have Been Oscar-Nominated For
On July 25, it’s time to head back to the links — and the 1990s — with Adam Sandler. The star is picking up his golf clubs again for Netflix’s Happy Gilmore 2, a long-awaited follow-up to the 1996 golf comedy that propelled him onto Hollywood’s comedy A-list. This marks the first time Sandler has revisited one of his classic comedies; to date, his only live-action sequels to previous successes have been Grown-Ups 2 and Murder Mystery 2.
Interestingly, Happy Gilmore 2 is arriving on Netflix one month ahead of Sandler’s latest seriocomic role; the actor will star alongside George Clooney in Noah Baumbach‘s Venice-bound feature Jay Kelly. The two actors will likely be joined at the hip throughout awards season as Clooney aims for his first Best Actor nomination since The Descendants way back in 2013. (He won a Best Supporting Actor statuette in 2007 for Syriana.)
Meanwhile, Jay Kelly could finally propel Sandler into an acting race — most likely Supporting Actor — after years of near-misses via collaborations with the likes of Paul Thomas Anderson, Josh, and Benny Safdie. This is also his second project with Baumbach; the two previously teamed up for 2017’s well-received The Meyerowitz Stories. While that role may not have been his most Oscar-worthy performance, the seven movies below are prime contenders for Sandler as Best Actor material.
7. Funny People (2009)
Here’s evidence that “act what you know” can be as valuable as “write what you know.” Working with longtime friend and collaborator, Judd Apatow, Sandler gets as close to the bone as he’s ever been by playing a millionaire movie star of C-grade comedies looking to reconnect with his stand-up roots after a cancer diagnosis. Truth be told, Funny People loses its way in the muddled third act, but the first half offers Sandler the chance to play a Citizen Kane-esque hall of mirrors interpretation of his public persona.
6. 50 First Dates (2004)
While The Wedding Singer is probably the best overall entry in the Adam Sandler/Drew Barrymore trilogy, Sandler’s performance in 50 First Dates represents a personal best among his romantic comedies. The high-concept premise — a man falls for a woman with anterograde amnesia and has to win her heart repeatedly — could have gone horribly wrong, but both stars fully commit to the bit. Sandler’s palpable heartache in the final act makes the couple’s happy ending all the sweeter.
5. Hustle (2022)
Playing a coach/trainer in a crowd-pleasing underdog sports movie is a reliable way to get Oscar voters cheering — just look at Burgess Meredith (Best Supporting Actor nominated for Rocky), Ian Holm (Best Supporting Actor nominated for Chariots of Fire), or Clint Eastwood (Best Actor nominated for Million Dollar Baby). Sandler shows that he’s got plenty of game in this hoops drama, playing a basketball scout who stumbles onto a one-in-a-million prospect. Not for nothing, but Hustle scored Sandler his first Screen Actors Guild nomination for Best Leading Actor — the closest he’s gotten to an Oscar yet.
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4. Happy Gilmore (1996)
This very different take on the sports movie genre is essentially Sandler’s answer to Beverly Hills Cop — the commanding lead performance that confirmed previous successes like Billy Madison weren’t flukes. Naturally, the titular hockey player-turned-golfer embodies the heightened aggression that drove many of the actor’s early comedies. But Happy Gilmore is also an early indication of what makes Sandler an institution — he’s always willing to go big when the moment demands it without fear of looking foolish.
3. Punch-Drunk Love (2002)
Leave it to PTA to make a conventional Adam Sandler comedy in a completely unconventional way. The Boogie Nights maestro was the first director to push the star out of his comfort zone while still tapping into the elements that defined Sandler’s classic screen persona. Punch-Drunk Love‘s Barry Egan is as prone to hilariously angry outbursts as Happy Gilmore or Big Daddy‘s Sonny Koufax, but Anderson nudges Sandler to find the root causes of that fury — and finally introduces him to a love interest (played by the great Emily Watson) that’s on his wavelength.
2. You Don’t Mess With the Zohan (2008)
If we can put aside real-world politics for a moment (please), Sandler’s star turn as a swaggering Jewish commando who builds a bridge between New York’s Israeli and Palestinian communities remains his most gonzo, go-for-broke comic performance. Written by Sandler, Apatow, and Robert Smigel, the movie is shamelessly — and gloriously — stupid. But hey, Kevin Kline won an Oscar for playing Otto, the dumbest criminal in movie history… why not Zohan?
1. Uncut Gems (2019)
This is how Sandler (should) have won his Oscar. The Safdie brothers unleashed a meme-generating machine when they tapped the actor to play gambling-addicted jeweler Howard Ratner, whose nervous energy keeps the audience in a perpetual state of high tension. Looking back, it’s criminal that Sandler wasn’t one of 2019’s five Best Actor nominees. Sure, he probably would have lost to Joaquin Phoenix‘s field-dominating Joker performance, but Uncut Gems is a movie that has lingered in the pop culture consciousness much longer than The Two Popes or Pain and Glory, which claimed the spots that could have gone to Sandler.
