Greatest movies of all-time that were never even nominated for Best Picture
Posted Wednesday, February 20, 2008 at 11:59 AM Central
by Tim Briscoe
In relaying Film School Rejects' Best Films That Never Won a Best Picture Oscar, we put out a plea for a list of great movies that didn't even get a nomination for Oscar's top prize. We have to hand it to Jeff from Ohio who answered the call.
Jeff broke down each year from 1971 to the current. He listed movies which failed to get Academy Awards recognition in the Best Picture category but yet are still considered truly great films. Some of these really make you wonder what the Academy voters were thinking by leaving out these choice cuts.
- Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory
- Monty Python and the Holy Grail
- Close Encounters of the Third Kind
- Superman: The Movie, Animal House
- Alien
- The Empire Strikes Back, The Shining
- Scarface
- The Natural
- Back to the Future
- Top Gun
- Glory, Batman
- Hook, Fried Green Tomatoes
- The Last of the Mohicans
- Tombstone
- Legends of the Fall
- The Usual Suspects, Toy Story, Casino
- Primal Fear
- Amistad
- Toy Story 2, The Matrix, Fight Club
- The Patriot
- Training Day, Black Hawk Down
- The Bourne Identity
- Pirates of the Caribbean: The Curse of the Black Pearl
- Collateral
- Gone Baby Gone
To Jeff's list for this year, I'd definitely add Zodiac.
Inspired by Jeff's contribution, I decided to delve into the Oscar results of choices on AFI's Top 100 Movies list. It's incomprehensible that these movies didn't get a Best Picture nod at the Academy Awards. The numbers below are the films' rankings on the 2007 AFI list.
- Singin' in the Rain
- Vertigo
- City Lights
- The Searchers
- Psycho
- 2001: A Space Odyssey
- The General (Pre-Academy Awards)
- Some Like it Hot
- Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs (It did get an honorary award for innovation)
- King Kong
- Rear Window
- Intolerance (Pre-Academy Awards)
- North by Northwest
- The Gold Rush (Pre-Academy Awards)
- Duck Soup
- Sullivan's Travels
- The African Queen
- Modern Times
- The Wild Bunch
- Spartacus
Sunrise (Pre-Academy Awards)Thanks to Chris in Illinois for correcting me here. This movie did when Best Picture for "Unique and Artistic Production" at the first Academy Awards. Wings won the Best Picture, Production that year.- Easy Rider
- A Night at the Opera
- Bringing Up Baby
- Swing Time
- Sophie's Choice
- Do the Right Thing
- Blade Runner
- Toy Story (Similar to Snow White, it got a special achievement award as the first feature-length computer-animated movie)
The Academy Awards started honoring the annual best in film in 1929.
Also, here's a tidbit you can fire off at your friends and family on Oscar Night: Alfred Hitchcock never won an Oscar!