For every Oscar winner, there are usually at least four other nominees who go home empty handed. Though being nominated in the first place is a big deal—definitely something to be celebrated and recognized on its own—losing is typically never a fun experience, and the bravest ones among us are the ones who can own that.
Enter Angela Bassett, who, inexplicably, has never won a Best Actress Oscar for her body of work. (She’s not alone—Halle Berry remains the only Black woman, still, to have ever won the Best Actress Academy Award; Berry won in 2002 for her role in Monster’s Ball, a full 22 years ago. The Academy Awards, just in case you’re keeping score, had its 96th awards ceremony last night. One Black Best Actress in 96 years. Not okay—but nobody asked me.) Bassett has been nominated, though, and received her first Best Actress Oscar nomination back in 1994 for her role as Tina Turner in 1993’s What’s Love Got to Do with It and received the nod again in 2023, for Best Supporting Actress this time, for her role in 2022’s Black Panther: Wakanda Forever.
