It feels like something of a rebellious time at the Academy. One year after a low-budget arthouse drama about the life of a black gay man won best picture, this year’s nominations have again been proof of a rock’n’roll spirit at odds with the stuffy image one often associates with the Oscars.

Just take a look at this year’s best picture nominees: a satirical horror film about race in America, a fantasy about the love between a mute woman and a sea creature, a sensual gay romance, the coming of age story of a teenage girl written and directed by a woman, a pitch-black romantic comedy about a perverse relationship between a dressmaker and his muse … it certainly feels as if there’s a sea change going on. It also means that, more than ever, Oscar-bait films are struggling. If a film like The Post, a fact-based drama involving Steven Spielberg, Tom Hanks and Meryl Streep, can’t score more than two nominations then it’s time for studios to reconsider their big bets.

Here’s our annual look at the films which couldn’t make it past initial hype to the hearts of voters:

Stronger

When two competing Boston marathon bombing films were announced, industry pundits wondered which would be the critical and commercial winner. Prior big screen duels between similarly themed projects have usually resulted in one clear victor but despite big stars leading Patriots Day and Stronger, audiences remained uninterested in both. Arriving after the more formulaic Mark Wahlberg retelling, Stronger, the far more intimate survival story, benefited from a warm reception at last year’s Toronto film festival and a performance from Jake Gyllenhaal that ticked a lot of Academy boxes but regrettably, it faded fast; perhaps it was the decision to focus on low-key human drama over theatrics. It remains one of the sorest snubs of the season.

The Current War

The Oscar nominees Benedict Cumberbatch and Michael Shannon as Thomas Edison and George Westinghouse in a story about the race to control electricity makes The Current War sound like it came from a factory built to create Oscar-bait. But ever since it premiered at the Toronto film festival last year, sparks have failed to fly. First off, the reviews revealed the film to be turgid (the Hollywood Reporter’s David Rooney called it an “uninvolving bore”) and the film’s awards-friendly release date was canned after the producer Harvey Weinstein was met with stories of alleged sexual abuse. It’s yet to be given a new release date but when it finally crash-lands into cinemas, awards will be unlikely to follow.

The Glass Castle

When the rights were purchased for Jeannette Walls’ bestselling memoir The Glass Castle, the multi-layered lead role was at the top of most young female actors’ wishlists and Jennifer Lawrence was swiftly attached, bringing her Hunger Games director Gary Ross for the ride. But complications over finding a male lead led to both dropping out and Brie Larson, coming off an Oscar win for Room, stepping in, with her Short Term 12 director, Destin Daniel Cretton, and the Oscar nominees Naomi Watts and Woody Harrelson alongside her. Despite the stellar team, the film was dumped into cinemas without any real fanfare earlier this year, its impact negligible and mixed reviews nixing any awards chances.

Wonderstruck

In his follow-up to Carol, Todd Haynes again opted for literary source material, yet this time he chose something far different: an illustrated YA novel from Brian Selznick, who also wrote the inspiration for the film Hugo. A prime Cannes premiere and a supporting cast that included Julianne Moore and Michelle Williams suggested big things but the ambitious structure (two stories told 50 years apart) and lofty ideals led to a disconnect in the eyes of many critics. Despite some positive notices, it landed with a soft thud. Audiences were even less impressed, and the film took a disappointing $1.2m at the US box office.

Detroit

After Kathryn Bigelow’s momentous win for best director in 2010 (she was the first woman to receive the award), the controversy surrounding her next film, Zero Dark Thirty, led to a snub – although the film itself still received five nominations. Five years later and it seemed as if Detroit, another fact-based thriller, would pull her back in the race. Reviews were mostly positive although some critics took issue with the film’s portrayal of black characters (the New Yorker’s Richard Brody went as far as calling Detroit “a moral failure”) and when it was released last summer, audiences were cold and the film made just $21m from a $34m budget.

Breathe

If there’s one thing the Academy likes as much as Meryl Streep, it’s films about people facing disabilities. Andy Serkis’s directorial debut, Breathe, about a man paralyzed by polio at the age of 28, also ticked off some other major boxes (True story! British people! Posh British people!) yet there was something a little too middle-of-the-road about the drama, which premiered at Toronto, for it to receive anything but polite nods from critics (The Guardian’s Peter Bradshaw called it “valuable”). Equally average box office returns followed, with the film failing to break out even in the UK.

Last Flag Flying

Given the 12 years that went into the Oscar winner Boyhood, you’d forgive the writer-director Richard Linklater for taking a few years off to regain some semblance of a life but since its release, he’s been busier than ever. After the warmly received Everybody Wants Some!!, his subsequent drama Last Flag Flying felt likely to return him to the Dolby Theatre with a timely take on war and a trio of Oscar nominees starring. Yet performances from Steve Carell, Bryan Cranston and Laurence Fishburne and a high-profile New York film festival premiere couldn’t lift this semi-sequel to Hal Ashby’s The Last Detail out of mediocrity. It also became the latest of many films about the “war on terror” to fizzle at the box office, making less than $1m in the US.

Victoria & Abdul

The director Stephen Frears has developed an uncanny knack for not only making films that give women over the age of 60 the chance to play the lead but also giving them roles that secure them best actress nominations at the Oscars. Mrs Henderson Presents, The Queen, Philomena and Florence Foster Jenkins all managed it and in Frears’ third outing with Judi Dench, it appeared as if Victoria & Abdul would follow suit. The film wasn’t entirely shut out (best costume design! best makeup and hair!) but Dench, and everyone else involved in it, failed to resonate with voters. Reviews were pleasant at best while some complained about the film’s racial politics (The Guardian’s Xan Brooks called it “peculiarly dodgy”) and while the Academy was largely unimpressed, audiences turned it into a global sleeper with $65.4m in the bank.

Battle of the Sexes

In 2006, Little Miss Sunshine created a blueprint for a Sundance breakout. It came out of nowhere, charmed audiences, was purchased by Fox Searchlight for $10m, made 10 times that globally and then won two Oscars from its four nominations. But the duo behind it, Valerie Faris and Jonathan Dayton, have struggled to recreate the magic. Their next film, Ruby Sparks, was received with hushed admiration and their follow-up, Battle of the Sexes, despite added weight behind it, has also failed to find much of an audience. It felt like perfect timing to retell the story of the much-publicized match between Billie Jean King and Bobby Riggs, played by the Oscar winner Emma Stone and nominee Steve Carell, given its buoyant message about overcoming sexism, yet solid reviews couldn’t propel the film into the conversation and the box office was underwhelming.