Steven Spielberg Says This Iconic Superhero Flick 'Should Have Been Nominated' For Best Picture Oscar

Steven Spielberg is looking back on an epic superhero film that he says should have landed an Oscar. 

While gushing about some of last year’s biggest cinema hits — “Avatar: The Way of Water” and “Top Gun: Maverick” — which recently nabbed Best Picture nods , the iconic filmmaker spoke up about one particular flick he still wishes received a nomination. 

On Tuesday after Oscar nominations were announced, “The Fabelmans ” director shared in an interview with Deadline  that he was “really encouraged by” those successful blockbusters getting the credit they deserve, but insisted that DC’s “The Dark Knight” would have “definitely garnered a Best Picture nomination today.”   

Pointing to the Academy’s decision  in 2020 to nominate a guaranteed 10 movies each year as a part of its equity and inclusion initiative, the 76-year-old star said, “It came late for the film that should have been nominated a number of years ago.” 

“So having these two blockbusters solidly presented on the top 10 list is something we should all be celebrating,” he added. 

Though “The Dark Knight” became the highest-grossing film of 2008, raking in over a billion dollars , the gripping tale of Gotham City’s caped crusader only earned eight nominations and was overlooked for Best Picture. 

Heath Ledger won a posthumous Best Supporting Actor Oscar the following year for his insanely good unhinged performance as the Joker. 

Spielberg — whose 2022 nod for directing “West Side Story” made him the first person to receive Best Director nominations across six different decades — also scored yet another win with “The Fabelmans” seven Oscar nods.  

The semi-autobiographical movie also earned the cinema king his first nomination for Best Original Screenplay. 

Quipping to The Hollywood Reporter that his late parents “nagged” him to bring “The Fabelmans,” a story based on his parents’ lives, to the big screen, Spielberg revealed the “coming of age” project was something he “really wanted to tell.” 

“I started seriously thinking, if I had to make one movie I haven’t made yet, something that I really want to do on a very personally atomic level, what would that be? And there was only one story I really wanted to tell,” he said. 

Hosted by Jimmy Kimmel, the 95th Academy Awards ceremony is set for March 12 at 8 p.m. ET/5 p.m. PT on ABC. Check out the complete list of this year’s Oscar nominees here .