Let’s make a list of some of the greatest movies not even nominated for Best Picture. (All-time, not just this year.) Here’s my starter list:
Lone Star
The Untouchables
Rushmore
There are of course many more. Your additions?
For reference, you can find a complete list of nominees (year-by-year) here.
Memento
Requiem For A Dream
The Truman Show
Glory
The Princess Bride
2001–I never realized it wasn’t nominated for Best Picture and am shocked by its omission.
There are just too many to name. There are only five Best Picture nominees (though there were more in the beginning) and Hollywood usually puts out more than five good movies each year. Plus there is always a nominee or two that are nowhere near the best of the year. In addition, the academy routinely ignores fantasy, science fiction, and comedies.
Some choices, though:
3 Kings (few films were so overlooked by the Academy as this one)
Psycho
Rear Window
12 Monkeys
Point well taken, RealityChuck, so let’s focus then on movies which (in hindsight) are shocking in their omission.
Some good examples so far. I’ll add one more:
Blade Runner
Thoughtful and thought-provoking science fiction, well-directed and well-acted. And in hindsight, very influential. Of course, the Academy hates science fiction. (See NDP’s post.)
Rear Window would probably be the best movie not nominated.
A nowhere complete list (in chronological order) of notable non-nominees:
City Lights (1931)
King Kong (1933)
Duck Soup (1933)
The Bride of Frankenstein (1935)
The 39 Steps (1935)
Modern Times (1936)
Bringing Up Baby (1938)
Fantasia (1940)
Sullivan’s Travels (1941)
Notorious (1946)
Black Narcissus (1947)
Red River (1948)
The Third Man (1950)
Strangers on a Train (1951)
Singing in the Rain (1952)
The Big Heat (1953)
Rear Window (1954)
Night of the Hunter (1955)
Rebel without a Cause (1955)
The Searchers (1956)
The Killing (1956)
Paths of Glory (1957)
The Sweet Smell of Success (1957)
Touch of Evil (1958)
Vertigo (1958)
Psycho (1960)
Repulsion (1965)
Blow Up (1966)
Two for the Road (1967)
2001: A Space Odyssey (1968)
The Wild Bunch (1969)
Badlands (1973)
Mean Streets (1973)
Manhattan (1979)
The Empire Strikes Back (1980)
Do the Right Thing (1989)
I’d agree with most of those on this list and add Hoop Dreams. Yeah, yeah, yeah, it’s a documentary and they never get nominated for anything, but still. One of the best films about American life I’ve ever seen.
Further to the post by Fish42, many of the films listed received no nominations at all. These include The Searchers, Touch of Evil, City Lights, Modern Times and The Night of the Hunter all of which are in IMDB’s best 250 films of all time.
To further illustrate what a crap shoot the Oscars are Paths of Glory is number 38 all time at IMDB, it too was nominated for nothing.
Well, you also got all your pre-Oscar movies: Intolerance, Broken Blossoms, The General, The Kid, The Merry Widow, Foolish Wives, The Cheat, It, Cleopatra, Under Two Flags, The Big Parade . . . etc., etc. . . .
I was gonna name Do the Right Thing, but I was too slow. Instead, I’ll name The Player (1992).
Excalibur
Legends of the Fall
The Little Mermaid. IMO, anyway.
Two recent ones:
Almost Famous
The Wonder Boys
That’s a fine list, Fish. It must make depressing reading for those who persist in taking the Oscars seriously, if indeed there are any such people left.
O Brother, Where Art Thou?
Blazing Saddles
Chicken Run
Inherit the Wind (1960)
West Side Story beat Judgement at Nuremburg WTSOAF?
Little Big Man (1970)
no nomination for Dustin Hoffman for this one either. Chief Dan George nominated for best supporting actor, the only nomination it got.
I can’t possibly add to this already encyclopedic list, so I’ll just raise a tiny little point.
Some of the movies suggested here really suck!
Therefore, how about instead of just listing innumerable films, you offer leetle bit in the way of justification. Like, I’d really like to hear how anyone could possibly say that The Untouchables (w/ K Costner, I presume) could ever be considered anything but a hacking hairball of a film. (The score! Aggh! The storyline! Aggh Aggh! Costner’s lame, whiny-boy delivery of EVERY line! Aaaaaaaaaaaaaagh! Robert DeNiro made a GREAT Capone, however.)
Or Excalibur, a flick I enjoyed, (who doesn’t dream of nailing some beauteous babe while wearing armor?) but in no way could countenance as great film-making.