This is one of 4 Oscar Madness showdowns running, with this one squaring off (in four different time periods) films that were Oscar nominees but walked away with either one or zero awards. All seeds and line-ups determined by the user poll data from the IMDB. Only feature-length fiction films were under consideration, and a director is limited to one film in each era.
Please make your answers legible. The deadline is Wed. July 2 at 9am PST.
1928-1947
[1] Citizen Kane (Welles, 1941) vs. [16] The Ox-Bow Incident (Wellman, 1943)
[2] It’s a Wonderful Life (Capra, 1946) vs. [15] Operator 13 (Boleslawski, 1934)
[3] Shoeshine (De Sica, 1946/Italy) vs. [14] The Smiling Lieutenant (Lubitsch, 1931)
[4] Double Indemnity (Wilder, 1944) vs. [13] Dodsworth (Wyler, 1936)
[5] Sadie Thompson (Walsh, 1928) vs. [12] I Am a Fugitive from a Chain Gang (LeRoy, 1932)
[6] The Last Command (Sternberg, 1928) vs. [11] Brief Encounter (Lean, 1945)
[7] The Maltese Falcon (Huston, 1941) vs. [10] Notorious (Hitchcock, 1946)
[8] One Way Passage (Garnett, 1932) vs. [9] The Great Dictator (Chaplin, 1940)
1948-1967
[1] Rear Window (Hitchcock, 1954) vs. [16] The Bicycle Thief (De Sica, 1948/Italy)
[2] The Seven Samurai (Kurosawa, 1954/Japan) vs. [15] The Manchurian Candidate (Frankenheimer, 1962)
[3] 12 Angry Men (Lumet, 1957) vs. [14] Cool Hand Luke (Rosenberg, 1967)
[4] Dr. Strangelove (Kubrick, 1964) vs. [13] Séance on a Wet Afternoon (Forbes, 1964)
[5] Sundays and Cybele (Bourguignon, 1962/France) vs. [12] The Shop on Main Street (Kadar/Klos, 1965/Czechoslovakia)
[6] Placido (Berlanga, 1961/Spain) vs. [11] Woman in the Dunes (Teshigahara, 1964/Japan)
[7] The Third Man (Reed, 1949) vs. [10] Singin’ in the Rain (Donen/Kelly, 1952)
[8] Some Like It Hot (Wilder, 1959) vs. [9] The Great Escape (Sturges, 1963)
1968-1987
[1] Taxi Driver (Scorsese, 1976) vs. [16] The Conformist (Bertolucci, 1970/Italy)
[2] A Clockwork Orange (Kubrick, 1971) vs. [15] Sleuth (Mankiewicz, 1972)
[3] Alien (Scott, 1979) vs. [14] The Wild Bunch (Peckinpah, 1969)
[4] Chinatown (Polanski, 1974) vs. [13] The Princess Bride (Reiner, 1987)
[5] Das Boot (Petersen, 1981/West Germany) vs. [12] The Promised Land (Wajda, 1975/Poland)
[6] The Elephant Man (Lynch, 1980) vs. [11] Ran (Kurosawa, 1985/Japan)
[7] Mohammed, Messenger of God (Akkad, 1976) vs. [10] Back to the Future (Zemeckis, 1985)
[8] La Traviata (Zeffirelli, 1983) vs. [9] Return of the Jedi (Marquand, 1983)
1988-2007
[1] The Shawshank Redemption (Darabont, 1994) vs. [16] Into the Wild (Penn, 2007)
[2] Pulp Fiction (Tarantino, 1994) vs. [15] Cinema Paradiso (Tornatore, 1988/Italy)
[3] Goodfellas (Scorsese, 1990) vs. [14] Downfall (Hirschbiegel, 2004/Germany)
[4] City of God (Meirelles, 2002/Brazil) vs. [13] Hotel Rwanda (George, 2004)
[5] Fight Club (Fincher, 1999) vs. [12] The Lives of Others (Donnersmarck, 2006)
[6] Memento (Nolan, 2000) vs. [11] Spirited Away (Miyazaki, 2001/Japan)
[7] American History X (Kaye, 1998) vs. [10] Requiem for a Dream (Aronofsky, 2000)
[8] Amelie (Jeunet, 2001/France) vs. [9] Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind (Gondry, 2004)
