Hollywood’s 30 Biggest Oscar Snubs
Ever year, the Academy seems to snub at least one person or film out of a no-brainer Oscar. To honor the classic films and talented artists snubbed by the Academy, our staff voted on what we felt were the worst snubs in the history of the awards show. Every cinephile has their own laundry list of Oscar snubs, and here’s ours…
The Top 10
1. 2001: A Space Odyssey – Best Picture/Stanley Kubrick – Best Director
In the eyes of our panel, this was the biggest Oscar robbery of all time. Hard to imagine how the Academy wasn’t blown away by this one, as we are still blown away over 40 years later. It should have nabbed the two biggest awards.
2. Vertigo - Best Picture/Jimmy Stewart – Best Actor
Vertigo is widely accepted as Alfred Hitchcock’s masterpiece. Meanwhile, Stewart’s performance as Scottie was the apex of a career that ended up in the top five in practically every greatest actors list in existence. Vertigo should have taken home both awards.
3. Citizen Kane – Uh, basically everything
Orson Welles should have won for Best Actor and Best Director. The film should have won Best Picture, Best Cinematography, Best Film Editing, Best Art Direction, etc. The only thing it won was Best Screenplay, which it absolutely had to. It should have set the record for most Oscar wins, a record which it should still hold to this very day.
4. Humphrey Bogart, The Maltese Falcon – Best Actor
One of the greatest actors who ever lived carried what is considered the first film noir flick ever as Detective Sam Spade. The real crime in need of inspection is that the only statue Bogart got to hold for this performance was the Falcon itself.
5. Goodfellas – Best Picture/Martin Scorsese – Best Director
The voters who picked Dances with Wolves over the quintessential Scorsese film should join Henry Hill in the witness relocation picture. As much as we love The Departed, it is just wrong that film won Best Picture and this one didn’t.
6. Anette Bening, American Beauty – Best Actress
The only time losing to one person twice has been more befuddling than Benning’s two losses to Hillary Swank was when Democratic candidates lost in consecutive presidential elections to W. After all, American Beauty won Best Picture and she delivered the best performance in the film hands down.
7. Paul Newman, Cool Hand Luke and The Hustler – Best Actor
To be honest, Newman probably should have won for everything he was in. To be practical, he should have won at least for these two films, and probably The Verdict as well. That it took the stooges at the Academy all the way until The Color of Money to bestow this honor on Newman is a joke.
8. Malcolm McDowell, A Clockwork Orange – Best Actor
I think Academy members should be forced to have their eyes pried open to watch this performance over and over again, just like McDowell’s Alex was forced to in the film. That he wasn’t even nominated for perhaps the greatest performance ever in a Kubrick film is a disgrace.
9. Hoop Dreams – Best Documentary
Considering that some of our panel thought this film should have been nominated for Best Picture alongside Forrest Gump and Pulp Fiction, the Best Doc snub is a real slap in the face. Raging Bull might be the greatest sports film of all time, but this is in that conversation as well as the one for best doc ever.
10. Apocalypse Now – Best Picture/Martin Sheen – Best Actor
It took 238 days to film this masterpiece. It will takes us at least that long to figure out why it didn’t win Best Picture, not to mention why Martin Sheen has never received even an Oscar nom. It should have been the big winner back in 1980.
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Would have been a lot more effective for your argument if you had said what they lost to (other than Ms. Benning). I mean, I’m not a huge 2001 fan, but I’ll admit it for sure should have beaten our Oliver! for Best Picture.
Goodfellas is not a good movie people; bad overacting from just about everyone in this film and a poorly written screenplay to boot. Ray Liota is absolutely corny and ham handed throughout the entire thing in addition to being not even remotely believable as Henry Hill. I loved this movie when it came out, but I was also a 16 year old boy which explains that phenomenon. Goodfellas has not aged well… it’s a good thing it was snubbed the first time around.
Apocalypse now over Raging Bull? are you kidding, there are much better Vietnam era movies out there than Apocalypse now. it’s a cult classic at best.
Yeah, Peter Finch was leagues better than Robert De Niro back in 1976, no question. The biggest Oscar snub of all time has to be Rocky beating Network for Best Picture 1976. No question about it.
Mel Gibson as Hamlet deserved a best actor nomination. He made Shakespeare understandable and believable.
I can’t believe that you forgot two others!!
1. Color Purple – Best Movie/Director – Out of Africa won.
2. Saving Private Ryan – Best Picture. Shakespear in Love won.
There is a typo in number 29. His name is spelled John Cazale.
He should have definitely won an Oscar for the Conversation.
Mel Gibson was not a great Hamlet at all. You are an idiot, Doug. Gibson’s performance was lackluster and pedestrian at best. Olivier’s 1948 adaptation has the greatest Hamlet (that I have seen, at least).
More snubs:
1981- Dudley Moore in Arthur (the award went to Henry Fonda for On Golden Pond). Arthur is one of my quintessential movies from the 80s and Moore’s performance was scarily accurate, hilarious, and classic. On Golden Pond…..eh.
1985- Jon Voight in Runaway Train (the award went to William Hurt for Kiss of the Spider Woman). A career-blogger friend of mine told me about this movie and Voight’s performance is unreal. This is one of the most underrated performances of all time. Kiss of the Spider Woman was great on the stage (the adaptation from 83, not the musical), but I was not wowed with the film.
Let me make another nomination: Peter O’Toole in The Lion In Winter. Katherine Hepburn won Best Actress for this, but he wasn’t even nominated, and his performance was at least equal to hers.
I agree that 2001, A Space Odyssey was a seminal motion picture. It was the first to really show space travel effects realistically. However, as a movie it was seriously flawed. The whole last third was someone’s acid trip. Any movie that you come out of not knowing W.T.F. happened, has a problem. I had been a serious scinece fiction addict for years, and even I didn’t know what was supposed to be going on at the end of that movie. A book was written to explain it. If you have to read a book to understand what you’ve seen on the screen, the director seriously screwed up.
Uh, how about a little film called Do The Right Thing?
Terry, greatness from a movie doesn’t necessarily come from entertainment value. Yeah, the last third of the film was pretty trippy but 2001 was a historical landmark of a film. Kubrick took that film to places no movie had ever gone before. Flaws are irrelevant, every movie has flaws (i.e. the last part of Goodfellas where everybody starts doing drugs is weak). 2001 is brilliant and a great film because of how original it was and still is.
Do the Right Thing (1989) was miles ahead of Driving Miss Daisy. But take a closer look. Both films had political agendas and dealt with racism (in varying ways). Driving Miss Daisy is relatively safe, Do the Right Thing is not. The Academy tends to go with the safe pick (i.e. while I didn’t love Brokeback Mountain, it certainly should have had more of a chance to win than it did).
Basically, the Academy Awards aren’t about picking the best, they are about picking what the Academy chooses to endorse.
But, another snub:
One of my all time favorites: In the Name of the Father. It was up against Schindler’s List (for best Picture) which I will admit is a great movie. But Tom Hanks won Best Actor for Philadelphia. I’m sorry, but that movie was predictable and way too preachy for my liking. Daniel Day-Lewis had the best role of his career in In the Name of the Father. His performance was emotionally captivating, moving, and nearly flawless.
Bottom Line: Tom Hanks was great in Apollo 13, but Philadelphia was ehhhhh. Daniel Day-Lewis’ performance in In the Name of the Father was riveting.
For me Phillip Seymour Hoffman in Boogie Nights as well as in 25th Hour. He was also pitch perfect as Lester Bangs in Almost Famous and quite troubling as Dean Trumbell in Punch Drunk Love. Can you imagine four more original characters than these? Not sure if anyone else could have pulled these off.
Montgomery Clifft who should actually win an Oscar for From Here To Eternity,missed it.He was then on the road to self destruction.It was An Oscar-Tragedy forever.
Best Picture, Raiders of the Lost Ark
What about Ellen Burstyn for Requiem for a Dream?
What about Dom DeLuise for best Supporting Actor in The End (1978)
I know comedies generally don’t win Movie or Actor awards, and I think The End had to go up against Deer Hunter that year, but Dom’s performance is by far the best acting I’ve ever seen in a comedy.
where the hell is The Color Purple? That movie is like the black woman’s Steel Magnolia. I call BS because it lost to Out of Africa. A bunch of white people in Africa. I mean, come on!
Terry Grinnalds, I agree about O’Toole. But he WAS nominated that year for Lion in Winter.
These aren’t, for the most part, snubs, they’re differences of opinion. There are lots of people and films who “should” have been nominated. It doesn’t mean they were snubbed, it means more people agreed about something or someone else. I was shocked John Wayne didn’t get a nomination in 1976 for THE SHOOTIST, but it’s hard to argue with the ones who did get nominations. A snub would be not nominating Laurence Olivier for HAMLET the same year Shemp Howard gets nominated for SING A SONG OF SIX PANTS.
Erica:
The Color Purple was preachy and sucky. You just sound like your opinions are racially motivated rather than motivated by great filmmaking or great performances. I’m not the biggest fan of Out of Africa, but saying that it is a bogus pick because it portrays white people in Africa shows that 1) you are a fucking idiot and 2) you are a bigot. Apocalypse Now is a bunch of white people in Vietnam, do you want to shit on that one next?
Next time develop some views based on fact or at least something more concrete than your tiny little egocentric view of the world.
…..asshole.
Paul Giamatti should have won Best Actor for Sideways; the Academy didn’t even nominate him. He had to settle for an Independent Spirit Award.
Yeah but his role in Sideways was not Oscar-worthy. It was not one of those career defining roles. It was good, but not great. He got what he deserved. So basically, you are an idiot, Seth.
well how about when George C. Scott Snubbed the Oscars, they gave him the award and he refused to accept it, he said I don’t need you folks to tell me whats good and whats not.
About The Colour Purple director’s snub, I think the award should have went to Akira Kurosawa’s Ran, his last great chance at Best Director.
what about val Kilmer as Doc Holiday in Tombstone? Eli Wallach as Tuco in Good Bad and Ugly?
You clowns can’t even spell Katharine Hepburn’s name correctly. Your opinions are void.
Best Picture Nominee Snubs:
1: Les Enfants Du Paradis (The Children of Paradise),
2: Panther Pachali (Song of The Little Road),
3: La Mome (Le Vie en Rose),
4: Ed Wood,
5: Pirates of the Caribbean: The Curse of The Black Pearl,
6: The Dark Knight,
7: Superman The Movie,
8: Momento,
9: Holiday Inn
10: Robin Hood (2011 Version)
Best Director Nominee Snubs
1: Christopher Nolan for Inception, The Dark Knight and Momento
2: Satyajit Ray for Panther Pachali, Aparajito and Apur Sansar (The World of Apu)
3: Oliver Dahan for Le Mome
4: Marcel Carne for Les Enfants du Paradis
5: Joseph L. Mankiewicz for Guys and Dolls
6: Tim Burton for Ed Wood
7: Chris Columbus for Harry Potter and the Philosophers Stone
8: Orson Welles for The Magnificent Ambersons
9: Fritz Lang for Dr. Mabuse, Metropolis and M
10: Terry Gilliam for Life of Brian, The Holy Grail and Brazil
Best Actor Nominee Snubs:
1: Sean Connery for Dr. No and/or From Russia with Love,
2: Subir Banerjee for Panther Pachali,
3: Bela Lugosi for Dracula,
4: Peter Sellers for The Mouse That Roared and A Shot in the Dark,
5: Christopher Reeve for Superman the Movie,
6: Alec Guinness for The Lavender Hill Mob, The Ladykillers and The Man in The White Suit
7: Gregory Peck for Cape Fear
8: Robert Downey Jr. for Sherlock Holmes
9: Errol Flynn for Captain Blood, The Adventures of Robin Hood and The Roots of Heaven
10: Marlon Brando for Guys and Dolls (Although he would probably decline it)
I will write more if I get responses
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