Ryan Coogler says he turned down Academy invite because he's just not into judging things

“I’m not good at judging things, bro,” Coogler said in a new Times profile centered on his very good 2025. “The act of ‘Hey, pick the best thing’ is very stressful for me, even when there’s no stakes involved.” There are, honestly, a lot of directors where we might call bullshit on this—the overlap between people breaking their backs to make movies, and people who like to talk shit about other movies is pretty strong, as Quentin Tarantino has made a pointed note of in recent weeks. But it feels genuine coming from Coogler, a guy who manages, in every interview we’ve ever read or heard of him, to consistently sound like the world’s most humble man, even as he posts an increasingly long and uninterrupted string of box office successes.

THR notes that this isn’t the first time Coogler has given commentary about his decision to turn down the invite, which arrived shortly after he directed Creed back in 2015. Back in 2021, he made clear his disinterest in pitting films against each other, and noted that, time being limited, “If I’m going to be a part of organizations, they’re going to be labor unions, where we’re figuring out how to take care of each other’s families and health insurance.” In the Times piece, Coogler noted that, while he tries to get enjoyment out of the awards cycle, it’s just not what interests him about making movies. “Most days, I’m wearing coveralls and Columbia gear, trying to find solutions that aggregate up to a story,” he said. “And that enabled me not to engage with any narratives around what it is that we do.”