Was ‘Hillbilly Elegy’ nominated for any Oscars, and if so, why?

JD Vance‘s Hillbilly Elegy: A Memoir of a Family and Culture in Crisis was a big (yet controversial) splash when it was released in 2016, and the 2020 film adaptation didn’t help matters. Since the story received a lot of hype then (and is still being discussed now), does that mean that it got any Oscar nominations?

While of course some amazing movies and stars don’t get this kind of attention, the Oscars are usually a pretty good benchmark of each year’s film landscape. In 2021, movies such as Sound of Metal, Mank, Promising Young Woman, and The Father all got noms. But what about Hillbilly Elegy?

Did Hillbilly Elegy receive any Oscar nominations?

Yes, believe it or not, Hillbilly Elegy was nominated for two 2021 Academy Awards. Glenn Close received a nomination for Best Performance by an Actress in a Supporting Role, and the movie also received a Best Achievement in Makeup and Hairstyling nom. Youn Yuh-jung won the supporting actress award thanks to her performance in Minari, and Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom took home the makeup/hair award. As it turns out, Yuh-jung told Entertainment Weekly, “I was hoping Glenn Close would win.”

As for why Hillbilly Elegy got two Oscar nominations? While many of us might say that Hillbilly Elegy isn’t a good movie and shouldn’t have been recognized in this way, these two categories do make sense. It’s impossible not to be a massive Glenn Close fan thanks to the iconic Fatal Attraction which had a real-life true crime case and her scary turn on Damages. And no matter what problems we (and everyone else) have with the movie, we can admit that Close and Amy Adams do look the way they’re supposed to, which means the hair and makeup team were super talented and did their jobs well.

It’s also possible to argue that Glenn Close was nominated for Hillbilly Elegy since she’s such an Academy Awards favorite. As Today.com reported, Close had seven previous nominations, and she even was cool with the fact that she got a Razzie nom as well. Sadly, according to Time Magazine, Close hasn’t taken home any Oscars at this time. No other actress has been nominated eight times without winning. (Let’s hope she wins one in the future!)

Glenn Close is aware of the discussions surrounding Hillbilly Elegy and told The Los Angeles Times that it’s “a truthful story about these cycles of abuse and addiction and poverty that people have been battling with forever.” She said she ensured she didn’t portray Mamaw as a “caricature” and “played her down,” adding that she was “trying to find the essence of who she was.” It sounds like she was very compassionate and careful in her portrayal and took the fact that the story was about a real person seriously.

No matter how we feel about Hillbilly Elegy or, well, JD Vance (and there’s a lot to say about him), Mamaw had a big impact on his life and it’s only logical that an incredible talent like Glenn Close would be chosen to play her in the book’s movie adaptation.