When The Academy Got It Really Wrong
The Academy Awards Ceremony, Hollywood's most glittering night, is held annually to honor each year's greatest achievements in cinema. Of course, these kinds of awards are always subjective, and audiences won't always agree. However, there are some moments that the academy got so bafflingly wrong that it's hard to forget, even decades later. Some of the most iconic and memorable films of all time lost to movies no one even remembers. Similarly, some of the greatest actors who ever lived never took home a trophy. We guess that's showbiz! Here are 20 of the biggest Oscar snubs we still can't believe happened.
1. Citizen Kane Losing Best Picture
To this day, Orson Welles' masterpiece Citizen Kane is considered one of the best, if not the best, movie of all time. Despite that, it only won one Oscar out of the nine it was nominated for. It lost Best Picture to the family drama, How Green Was My Valley, a film that has long since been forgotten.
RKO Radio Pictures on Wikimedia
2. Stanley Kubrick Shut Out
Ask any serious film buff who the best film directors of all time are, and chances are Stanley Kubrick will be somewhere near the top of their list. He was a true visionary, but like many artists who are ahead of their time, he didn't get the recognition he deserved, especially from the academy. He was nominated four times for Best Director but never won.
3. Spike Lee Never Winning Best Director
Spike Lee is right up there with the like of Scorsese and Spielberg as the greatest living filmmakers of our time, or rather, he should be. He's made some truly iconic and visionary films, but he never received the recognition he deserved from the academy. While he's won Best Adapted Screenplay for BlacKkKlansman, he really should've won best director for Do The Right Thing.
4. Saving Private Ryan Losing Best Picture
Most people agree Saving Private Ryan is the greatest war movie ever made. How, then, it lost Best Picture to the much smaller and less memorable Shakespear in Love continues to be a head-scratcher.
Helene C. Stikkel on Wikimedia
5. Chadwick Boseman Losing Best Actor
The year Chadwick Boseman passed away from colon cancer, a diagnosis he kept private, he had just delivered the performance of his career in Ma Rainey's Black Bottom for which he received a posthumous Best Actor nomination. Everyone was sure they were going to give it to him, especially because they had changed the long-established order of awards to end on Best Actor instead of Best Picture. However, they gave it to Anthony Hopkins who had already won an Oscar and wasn't even around to receive the award.
6. Alfred Hitchcock Never Winning Best Director
Alfred Hitchcock is one of the best-established names in cinema, with his timeless classics Psycho, Rear Window, and Vertigo among others still being enjoyed over 50 years after their release. He's easily one of the most influential filmmakers of all time, and yet, he never won an Oscar. He was nominated five times and eventually received a lifetime achievement award, but never a competitive Academy Award.
7. Glenn Close Never Winning But Always Nominated
Always the bridesmaid but never the bride, Glenn Close holds the record for the most Oscar nominations without winning. She's been nominated eight times but has somehow always stayed seated at the ceremony.
8. Ryan Gosling The Sole Nominee For Barbie
Barbie was the biggest movie of 2023, grossing $1.4 billion worldwide. Everyone expected Greta Gerwig to be nominated for Best Director and Margot Robbie for Best Actress, but the only one who received a nod for the movie was Ryan Gosling who played Ken. This is especially ironic given the feminist mesage of the film.
9. Crash Beating Brokeback Mountain
When Crash won out over Brokeback Mountain for Best Picture just moments after Ang Lee won Best Director for the trailblazing gay love story, it left audiences in a state of absolute bewilderment. Even the director of Crash admits it wasn't the best movie of the year.
10. The Shawshank Redemption Losing Out
The ednuring classic The Shawshank Redemption earned seven nominations in 1995 including one for Morgan Freeman in the Best Actor category. And it won... zero! Forrest Gump swept up pretty much all the major Oscars that year.
11. Not A Single John Hughes Movie Ever Being Nominated
John Hughes films like The Breakfast Club, Sixteen Candles, and Ferris Bueller’s Day Off have long been beloved 80s coming-of-age classics that capture an era. However, he and his films were completely ignored by the academy, though he did receive a special tribute at the awards ceremony following his death.
ABC Visual Communication on Wikimedia
12. Amy Adams Never Winning
There was a time not long ago when it seemed Amy Adams was appearing in every major movie. She's garnered six Oscar nominations throughout her career but, as a victim of bad timing only being nominated in absolutely stacked years, she's been snubbed every time. Perhaps the biggest snub was when she didn't even receive an nomination for her performance in Arrival.
13. Singin' In The Rain Not Winning Anything
The 1952 classic musical Singin' In The Rain is considered one of the greatest musicals of all time, but not just for the singing and dancing. The film grappled with some heavy themes and harshly criticized Hollywood. Perhaps that's why it was so severely snubbed at the Academy Awards, only receiving two nominations.
14. The Princess Bride Only Getting One Nod
The Princess Bride is recognized today as an enduring classic, right up there with the likes of The Wizard Of Oz. However, it was largely ignored at the Oscars, only receiving one measly nomination for Best Original Song.
15. Peter O'Toole Losing Out Eight Times
Peter O'Toole was one of the greatest actors never to receive an Academy Award. He was nominated an impressive eight times, but somehow always lost.
16. Judy Garland Only Receiving Two Nods
Judy Garland, the star of The Wizard of Oz, never won an Oscar despite her musical and acting prowess and only received two nominations in her lifetime. In a cruel twist of fate, Renée Zellweger won an Oscar for portraying her in 2020's Judy.
17. Martin Scorsese Not Winning Until 2007
Martin Scorsese started his career as a filmmaker in the 1970s, quickly making a name for himself with such instant classics as Taxi Driver and Raging Bull. It's perplexing, then, that he didn't win an Oscar for Best Director until 2007 for The Departed.
18. Cary Grant Being Largely Ignored
One of the most beloved actors from the Golden Age of Hollywood, Cary Grant was celebrated for his charm, charisma, and versatility. However, despite his immaculate resume which saw him starring in many of the biggest movies of the era, he never won an Oscar and only received two nominations.
19. Charlie Chaplin Only Winning Honorary Awards
The trailblazing visionary who elevated the art of silent film and changed cinema forever, Charlie Chaplin never received the recognition he deserved from the academy. He did receive two honorary awards for his contributions to cinema, but never a competitive Oscar.
First National Pictures on Wikimedia
20. The Searchers Getting Zero Nominations
The 1956 Western The Searchers starring John Wayne is an enduring classic that inspired the like of Star Wars and Breaking Bad. However, the film didn't receive any Oscars. What's more, it wasn't even nominated for any!
