„And the award goes to…“ is a sentence fragment with plenty of heft, especially when it comes to the Oscars‘ top award, that ultimate…
„And the award goes to…“ is a sentence fragment with plenty of heft, especially when it comes to the Oscars‘ top award, that ultimate crown of Hollywood laurels, the Best Picture winner. Who better than a group of peers to judge which of their own is the superior film that year? Yet time and again Tinseltown’s top dogs make odd, inexplicable, and even downright wrong choices. You won’t believe that these 57 movies didn’t win Best Picture; in fact, seeing them next to the films that beat them might just have you rethinking the value of the industry award entirely.
Snubs to films like Citizen Kane and It’s A Wonderful Life seem obvious in retrospect, but the films they were up against had more class, flair, or the burnish of intellectual respectability going for them. Past winners from a more modern era, especially Crash and American Beauty, have tarnished a little faster, their glow quickly fading and their competition revealed as the true gems sparkling in Hollywood’s firmament. Who really wants to sit down with The English Patient’s dour romance when you could enjoy its competitor’s Minnesota Nice noir by the Coen Brothers?
Sometimes films just have better campaigns that attract more attention, but sometimes, Hollywood insiders just can’t see the forest for the trees. Check out these so-called losers and how they stack up today.
Lost to: American Beauty
In hindsight anything losing to American Beauty, a smarmy film featuring Kevin Spacey’s main character going through a midlife crisis by almost sleeping with his teen daughter’s best friend looks pretty bad, but in particular M. Night Shyamalan’s atmospheric thriller (which holds up even after you know the main plot twist), seems a special shame.
Lost to: Cavalcade
A movie about the upper crust and lower class dealing with the effects of a lesser-known war pales in comparison to Fugitive’s dark look at the brutality and cruelty of the justice system, and how it turns even men who want to go straight into criminals by default.
Lost to: It Happened One Night
Both are filled with witty banter and screwball antics, but Thin Man’s Nick and Nora are winsome beyond compare, plus there’s a murder mystery!
Lost to: Braveheart
The blustering (and historically incorrect) historical epic lost to the year’s real hero: A small pig determined to make it against the odds and actually change the social order for good.
Lost to: Oliver!
The greatest Christmas movie of all time (yep, I said it) and possibly the best dysfunctional family film ever (take that, Royal Tenenbaums) lost to a singing, dancing Dickensian moppet.
Lost to: The Last Emperor
The life story of China’s last emperor is fine and has an excellent soundtrack, but how can it compare to a film featuring Cher and Nicholas Cage’s finest performances?!
Lost to: Spotlight
A movie about a newsroom doing important things lost to a perfect all-out epic action movie about facing trauma.
Lost To: You Can’t Take It With You
While it’s a charming movie, wacky family vs. snooty blue bloods doesn’t stack up against a film about The Human Condition.
Lost To: Crash
Another case where anything losing to an awful, Oscar-bait film, in this case Racism Is Bad: The Movie, would be a shanda, but particularly for Ang Lee’s quiet, devastating romance to get shunted? Nah.
Lost To: The Godfather Part II
Men with money to do whatever they want without fear of consequences is more relevant than ever today, putting it a little ahead of a film examining coiled toxic masculinity across time (that, unfortunately, is lauded as a good thing by many of its fans).
Lost to: Forrest Gump
Gump’s shameless feel-good take on history featuring a noble free spirit won Oscar votes, but Tarantino’s riff on classic films rebooted several careers and offered a glimpse of films to come.
Lost To: Cavalcade
Not to knock the film again, but Cavalcade can’t hold a candle to Mae West’s sassy triple-entendres, featuring a baby-faced Carey Grant.
