Best Visual Effects is a crazy Oscar because prior to 1997 there would only be 2-3 films nominated and some years there would no films nominated and thus no award.
So many films with amazing special effects got shafted. Mary Poppins won in 1964 and was one of only two films nominated, but they should have given Goldfinger that nomination too at least.
Two performances that I think could have won for Best Supporting Actor:
Eli Wallach in the Good, the Bad, and the Ugly (1966)
Jeff Daniels in Pleasantville (1998)
IMO, The Third Man was the best movie of 1949. It wasn’t released in the U.S. until 1950, though, and the American version had eleven minutes cut out of it and the voice-over intro changed. It won the Oscar for black and white cinematography in 1951, and was nominated for direction and editing. I believe the original 1949 version should have been released in the U.S., and should have been nominated for best picture.
The winner of best picture in 1950 was All the King’s Men, and in 1951 it was All About Eve. The former is a pretty good movie, and the latter is a true classic. I like The Third Man better than either of them. It’s in many critics’ lists of all-time greatest films.
Regina Hall delivered a brilliant performance in Honk for Jesus, Save Your Soul. Still makes me angry that she didn’t even get a nomination, but I can’t begrudge Michelle Yeoh’s win for Everything Everywhere All At Once.
Andy Serkis wasn´t even nominated for playing Gollum in The Two Towers. The Academy gave the bullshit excuse that the final onsceen product was CGI, when anyone with half a brain could see that the voice and mocap performance was all Serkis.
Continuing along the line of bullshit excuses: Tron wasn’t nominated for Best Visual Effects because the Academy felt that the use of computers was cheating.
Not a complete snub, as it was up for (but lost) for Best Foreign Language Picture, but I was astounded that Zhang Yimou’s 2003 Hero wasn’t even nominated for Best Cinematography. It’s a visually stunning, breathtakingly beautiful film. A moving and well-written story, too, with solid performances from Jet Li, Donnie Yen, Zhang Ziyi, and Chen Daoming, and first rate acting from Tony Leung and Maggie Cheung. Hero is my response whenever the question arises whether propaganda can be good art.
The authors of The Making of King Kong (Goldner and Turner 1976) complained that the film was not nominated in any category (unfortunately there was at that time no “Best Special Effects” category; it would’ve won hands down. They invented new SPX techniques for that movie). The movie that won was Cavalcade, a movie that’s pretty obscure these days. They even titled one chapter of their book “Remember Cavalcade?” (co-author Turner worked on the effects team.)
Cavalcade took not only Best Picture, but Best Director and Best Art Direction. DianaWynyard was nominated for Best Actress but lost.
The movie was a box office success, and was based on a Noel Coward play, so you can understand its winning. But nowadays it’s the answer to a trivia question (It was reportedly Adalf Hitler’s favorite movie), while everyone has seen or knows about King Kong, and its been remade twice.
I disagree about the story, given that there was about ten minutes of actual plot in the film, but you’re absolutely right about the cinematography. It’s a gorgeous film.
I always felt that Scarlett Johansson should have been nominated for her work in Her (2013), which was voice-only, but was an important part of that film.
Hoop Dreams for Documentary Feature. IIRC, the Academy actually changed the rules for determining the nominees in this category because of it.
One with an asterisk: Como Agua Para Chocolate (Like Water for Chocolate) for International (Foreign Language) Film. It was submitted, but the version that was entered was an earlier, weaker, edit; the version most people are familiar with was a later edit.
That was a great movie. I felt sorry for Samantha Morton, though, who did the AI’s voiceover, largely delivering the dialogue from a soundproof box out of frame on set, and then was replaced by Johansson during post production. (no idea how amicable the parting was, though Morton did ultimately wind up with an Associate Producer credit)
The Lego Movie was miles better than the winner Big Hero 6, yet didn’t even get nominated. I don’t know whether it was disqualified because there was a short live action sequence in it, or whether the Academy are just assholes.
I really wouldn’t agree with that, but each to their own! Big Hero 6 was great.
Ex Machina in 2016. It was nominated for Best Original Screenplay and won Best Visual Effects.
Winner and nominees that year for Best Picture:
Wow, what a bad winner. Mad Max 4 and The Martian were much, much better.
I don’t know about Adalf Hitler… 
About King Kong (1933), I liked always the take from Danny Peary’s “Alternate Oscars” book:
The best picture was won then by Cavalcade… you do remember that one huh?
It won over:
*A Farewell to Arms, 42nd Street, I’m a fugitive from a Chain Gang, The Private life of Henry VII *and a few others.
Ten movies were nominated then, still (!) there was no room to include:
Duck Soup, Dinner at Eight, Queen Christina, Trouble in Paradise, The Mummy, The Invisible Man and…
… the greatest, most popular, most entertaining, most influential, most fascinating horror-fantasy film ever made.
(The original) [King Kong]. Because of its genre it was snubbed by the elitist Academy – a Kong size blunder.
Out of the Furnace should have won the Oscar for best picture and best actor, in 2013.
Check out the cast, and all were in their best form:
This is one of the best picture I’ve seen in years and the most underrated of the last couple of decades.
2013’s winners were Argo (best pic)
Daniel Day Lewis (best actor) for Lincoln.
It really pains me that this movie was overlooked.
In Bruges is one of my favorite movies and it was only nominated for Best Screenplay.
Every performance is great, the score is great, the directing is great.
Martin McDonagh has yet to equal it.
I think they were both great. I don’t know if I could pick between them.