Movies you think ought to have won an Oscar or two (or more), but didn’t, not even one, dammit
Limitless (2011)
The Shawshank Redemption (1994)
Gettysburg (1993)
What’s Eating Gilbert Grape? (1993)
In the Bedroom
The Color Purple (1985)
The Russians Are Coming, The Russians Are Coming (1966)
Alan Arkin should have gotten the Best Actor award. (He was nominated for it; the movie was also nominated for Best Picture, Best Screenplay Based on Material from Another Medium, and Best Film Editing.) He did win the Best Actor Golden Globe, and the movie won the Best Motion Picture award.
The Russians Are Coming, The Russians Are Coming (1966)
Housekeeping (1987)
Ignored by the Oscars, and most awards, other than the New York Film Critics Circle, and The Tokyo International Film Festival, as well as most venues, who didn’t recognize the name of director/writer Bill Forsyth, whose previous films had all been filmed and released in Scotland (and gathered BAFTAs by the pound), nor future Oscar/Emmy laureate Christine Lahti, who played the lead. Nor original novelist Marilynne Robinson, future Pulitzer winner, and Daily Show writer.
Movies you think ought to have won an Oscar or two (or more), but didn’t, not even one, dammit
Limitless (2011)
The Shawshank Redemption (1994)
Gettysburg (1993)
What’s Eating Gilbert Grape? (1993)
In the Bedroom
The Color Purple (1985)
The Russians Are Coming, The Russians Are Coming (1966)
Housekeeping (1987)
Five Easy Pieces (1973)
Touch of Evil (1958)
It wasn’t popular with contemporary American critics, but writer/director/star Orson Wells won the top two awards at the 1958 Brussels World Film Festival. Since then it has been more widely appreciated (Roger Ebert included it in his Great Movies list).
One of my all-time favorite books and directed by John Ford with Ronald Colman and Helen Hayes. Bought it on DVD about ten years ago and wasn’t at all impressed.
Stanley Kubrick’s first feature film, although at sixty-two minutes, it’s a bit slim in terms of running time for a feature. It was pretty much unavailable for many years, but I snagged a low-quality copy of a VHS someone was hawking on the internet (God bless the internet), and it has since been released on DVD, and I’m pretty sure you can stream it. Kubrick’s own opinion of the work was embarrassment at the decidedly amateur effort, and yeah, it’s really for completists only. Or for those curious about what a young, ambitious guy who really, really, really wanted to make a movie in the early fifties could accomplish if he could scrape together a few thousand dollars, mostly from his uncle, and a handful of people who would be willing to traipse around in the woods in front of a camera for a few days.