Film School Rejects' Best films that didn't win the Oscar for Best Picture
Posted Monday, February 18, 2008 at 10:41 AM Central
by Tim Briscoe
Hey, guess what's happing on Sunday? Well, thanks the end of the Writers Strike, it's the 80th Annual Academy Awards. Yes, the show goes on.
As part of its Oscar Week coverage, movie blog Film School Rejects has posted a very interesting compilation. They list "The Best Films That Never Won a Best Picture Oscar."
Whaaa? You mean the best movie of the year doesn't always win the Oscar for Best Picture? Sad but true.
Well, in defense of Academy members throughout history, it's next to impossible for them to tell which movies will stand the test of time. Sure Crash won the top trophy in 2006 but will people consider it a classic in 10 years? Hindsight, especially a decade later, is indeed 20/20.
Here is the list of the best Best Picture losers as selected by FSR's Maggie Van Ostrand. We've included that year's award winner for comparison. See the entire FSR article for commentary and some interesting trivia.
- Citizen Kane (Lost to How Green Was My Valley in 1942)
- Psycho (Wasn't even nominated when The Apartment won in 1961)
- The Shawshank Redemption (Lost in 1995 to Forrest Gump)
- Vertigo (Lost to Gigi in 1959)
- 2001: A Space Odyssey (Wasn't nominated when Oliver! won in 1969)
- Star Wars (Lost to Annie Hall in 1978)
- Apocalypse Now (Lost to Kramer vs. Kramer in 1980)
- Fargo (Lost to The English Patient in 1997)
- Philadelphia (Wasn't nominated when Schindler's List won in 1994)
- Goodfellas (Lost to Dances With Wolves in 1991)
- E.T. The Extra-Terrestrial (Lost to Gandhi in 1983)
- Dog Day Afternoon (Lost to One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest in 1976)
- Bonnie and Clyde (Lost to In the Heat of the Night in 1968)
- Some Like It Hot (Wasn't nominated when Ben-Hur won in 1960)
- The Wizard of Oz (Lost to Gone with the Wind in 1940; bad timing, huh?)
The list of Best Picture losers is a big one. There are some really big hitters in the history of film that didn't win, as the above illustrates. A couple others that FSR didn't include: Stagecoach, Pulp Fiction, 12 Angry Men, and Rear Window.
For an even more interesting list, someone should tabulate the best movies (including the noted ones above) that weren't even nominated in the Best Picture category in its year. Hey, if you do create such a list, please send it to us! We'll publish it here and give you gobs of credit.