The most glaring snub this year has to be for Leonardo DiCaprio for Shutter Island. Creating a portrayal of psychosis that leads the viewer to invite themselves to his point of view without going into judgement is easily one of the hardest performances to create. That it is also easily one of the scariest descents into madness captured on film is due to Mr. DiCaprio.
The Supporting Actor field was quite crowded this year with Bale, Rush, Renner and his own 'Social Network' co-star Andrew Garfield, but Armie Hammer made a large splash in his big debut. He has it all: strength, wealth, and rugged good looks. Thankfully, he also can appreciate the irony of himself and his twin chasing down the "karate kid". As one man playing two of the most self-entitled people on Earth he does his job admiringly, even if I dislike the characters he plays.
Comedy is generally the enemy of Oscar, but Emma Stone really impressed in Easy A this year. There were multiple depths to her role; as Olive the girl she maintains an intellectual honesty that could have easily been dispensed with when conflicts arose, but, harder yet, she suffers for her experiment instead. As a teenager who operates under no motives Olive instead acts on what she knows is best.
Lastly, it wouldn't be the snubs without presenting who got robbed by the Academy for Supporting Actress. And there is no better candidate for that than Marion Cotillard in Inception. She may have had limited screentime, but there were few actresses who had a larger impact on a story than Mal. She was a freight train running throughout Cobb's mind and while she may not have been seen she was always there driving the story forward.