Kurt Russell has been in all sorts of films. He has been some "American Stud" heroes, some horrifying villains, and badass anti-heroes. And even Santa. Yet, he has never been nominated for an Academy Award.
And yes, if you ask me he has more than one film in which his performance would be capable of earning him a nomination for Best Actor or Best Supporting Actor.
His performance in The Thing was near perfect. Unfortunately, the movie was hated at the time (even earning a nomination for the Razzies), only gaining the recognition it deserves years later. So the Academy would never give him the Oscar for that movie. But was his acting good there. He portrayed a leader with too much responsability. It was clear at points, just through the phisicality, that his character was a tired man, who just had enough with his current situation. The tense situations of the film are helped a lot by his serious performance.
His role in Death Proof was near perfect too. He played a Psycho-type murderer really well, something I see as in the level of DeNiro in Cape Fear or Nicholson in The Shining. The delivery of the dialogue was really good, but the physicality and expressions as well. I never understood why he wasn't nominated for Best Actor.
Other honorable mentions of Kurt's great performances are in Tombstone (1993), The Hateful Eight (2015) and Escape From New York (1981).
Again, Kurt still has some movies to make, so not all hope is lost for him getting a nomination, heck, maybe even winning an Academy Award. Kurt is still 69. Henry Fonda won Best Actor at 76, Christopher Plummer won Best Supporting Actor at 82. It's not too late. But it doesn't change the fact that he has already done a lot for the industry in the field of acting. He has been acting since 1963. He has been nominated for an Emmy and a Golden Globe. And winning a Lifetime Achievement/Honorary before an Academy Award for a performance/work has happened before, one of the recent cases being the late Ennio Morricone, who got an Honorary award in 2007, and later won Best Original Score in 2016.
