Often, time will serve as the best indicator of greatness. Sure, there are award ceremonies, big box office, and rave reviews to indicate whether a film is worthy of praise or not. But the true test is to judge a movie 20, 30, 40 years down the line. Are people talking about the film in terms of being a classic? Is it rewatchable? How about the direction, cinematography, acting? Sometimes, the most deserving films don’t win awards. Heck, sometimes the best films of all time aren’t even nominated. This is a list of established classics that didn’t win a single Academy Award.
Oscar snubs happen every year, but it may be hard to believe that masterpieces like The Shining, Singin’ in the Rain, and Do the Right Thing did not win a single Oscar. The Shining is often cited as the greatest horror film ever made. Singin’ in the Rain is #1 on the American Film Institute’s list of the Greatest Movie Musicals of All Time. And Spike Lee’s joint Do the Right Thing is considered one of the most seminal films on race relations in the history of cinema.
Maybe they got robbed, maybe they really were just second best that year. Either way, some of these films may surprise you. Be sure to make your voice heard by voting up the best films that deserved to win at least one Oscar.
- Photo:
The year was 1994 and a story about a simple-minded man by the name of Forrest Gump won six Academy Awards. The Shawshank Redemption went home empty-handed that evening, despite its seven nominations. However, time has proven that the prison drama received the Oscar shaft. The film currently ranks #1 on IMDb's Top 250 films ever made and is cited as a favorite by just about everyone with a heart and basic cable.
Oscar-worthy?featured
paid
- Photo:
Sidney Lumet's 1957 classic manages to create incredible conflict and drama without ever leaving the jury room. The film is often cited as one of the best-acted and best-written films in cinema history. The movie was nominated for three Oscars but unfortunately came out the same year as The Bridge on the River Kwai, which won seven Academy Awards. 12 Angry Men has aged like fine wine, however, remaining consistently high on IMDb's Top 250 Films.
Oscar-worthy?featured
subscription
free
paid
- Photo:
The master of suspense Alfred Hitchcock never won an Academy Award, which says a lot about the whole awards process, considering he is widely regarded as one of the best directors in the history of cinema. One of his signature films, Pyscho, was nominated for four Oscars. Hitchcock probably should have won for best director, but he wasn't even recognized by the Academy in 1961. Psycho ranked 14th on AFI's list of the Greatest American Films of All Time.
Oscar-worthy?featured
subscription
paid
- Photo:
Is there a more perfect coming of age film? Rob Reiner's 1986 adaptation of Stephen King's novella The Body did receive a writing nod, and any screenwriter worth their salt will tell you it's among the most revered screenplays ever written. Also, one could easily make a case that all four of the young actors were worth of consideration, especially River Phoenix's heartbreaking performance as Chris Chambers.
Oscar-worthy?featured
subscription
paid
- Photo:
The famously sentimental Frank Capra hit his crowd-pleasing peak with It's a Wonderful Life. Even though the film was made in 1946, it remains one of the most-watched holiday films today. It is #20 on AFI's list of The Greatest American Films of All Time. Not a commercial success at the time, the movie did round up five Oscar nominations, including best picture. It could have won any or all of those five awards, but it was probably James Stewart going home empty-handed that hurt the most.
Oscar-worthy?featured
free
paid
- Photo:
Gene Kelly made a lot of musicals. Singin' in the Rain may have been his finest. The 1952 musical within a musical was nominated only for best score and best supporting actress. Kelly got shut out completely, and even though the film is cited by AFI as the greatest musical ever made, it failed to garner a best picture nod. At the very least, the film probably should have won the award for best score, which went to With a Song in My Heart that year.
Oscar-worthy?featured
subscription
paid
- Photo:
Many critics consider The Good, the Bad and the Ugly the finest Western ever made. However, Italian auteur Sergio Leone was still a Hollywood outsider at the time. This three-hour Spaghetti Western Civil War epic hit American screens the same year as the other two entries in the loose (and contested) Dollars Trilogy that began with A Fistful of Dollars and continued with For a Few Dollars More, turning former TV star Clint Eastwood into an overnight legend and paving the way for Leone to work with A-list Hollywood stars like Henry Fonda and Charles Bronson (in Once Upon a Time in the West) and Robert De Niro and James Woods (in Once Upon a Time in America).
That Leone was never even nominated for any of his epic films is a cinematic crime.
Oscar-worthy?featured
free
- Photo:
"You talkin' to me?" Martin Scorsese's character study about a delusional, alienated cab driver in New York City received four Oscar nominations, including one for best picture. Scorsese arguably should have won the Oscar for best director, but the fact that he wasn't even nominated is a bit of a joke. The film did win the Palme d'Or at the 1976 Cannes Film Festival, and is cited by the American Film Institute as the 52nd greatest American film ever made.
Oscar-worthy?featured
subscription
free
paid
- Photo:
Horror films rarely get any awards season love. Stanley Kubrick's 1980 masterpiece did not receive a single Academy Award nomination, nor was it a big hit in theaters. In fact, the film was nominated for two Razzie awards; Shelley Duvall for worst actress and Kubrick for worst director. Time has been kind to The Shining, though, and now it's often cited as one of the best psychological horror films ever made. Additionally, Kubrick's directorial style and eerie use of long Steadicam takes have been studied in cinema classes all over the world for decades.
Oscar-worthy?- 10
- Photo:
Perhaps the most disturbing neo-noir from the '90s, David Fincher's atmospheric film did earn a best editing nomination, but was otherwise shut out of the 1996 Oscar competition. The filmmakers used an innovative silver-retention process to set the dark, dank, grimy mood of a city where it never stops raining.
Fincher should have at least received a nod for his direction, and Darius Khondji should probably have a gold statue on his shelf for best cinematography. The film, which influenced every subsequent serial killer movie, is a mainstay on IMBb's Top 250 Films.
Oscar-worthy?featured
paid
- Photo:
Steven Spielberg's The Color Purple has the unfortunate distinction of being the film with the most nominations (11), without taking home a single gold statue. True to Spielbergian form, the movie has its share of sentimental moments - some may argue too sentimental - but the film is still widely considered a worthy adaptation of Alice Walker's novel, buoyed in particular by Whoopi Goldberg's star-making lead performance.
Out of Africa was the big winner at the 1986 Academy Awards, winning seven Oscars, while Spielberg was not even nominated for best director.
Oscar-worthy?featured
paid
- Photo:
Stanley Kubrick explores his bleakly comedic side by satirizing nuclear war in Dr. Strangelove. The film did receive four nominations, including best picture, best director, and best actor, but the Academy decided to award the musical My Fair Lady with eight Oscars in 1965. We can't argue too much with the results; it is a great movie musical. However, it is painful to know that Kubrick left the ceremony empty-handed when he probably should have a gold statue for directing the movie that AFI considers one of the Greatest American Films of All Time.
Oscar-worthy?featured
paid
- Photo:
Of course, now everyone has heard of Quentin Tarantino's directorial debut Reservoir Dogs. At the time, however, it was just an indie crime flick from a young filmmaker. The movie managed to win several critic and film festival awards in 1993, but failed to receive any Oscar love. Judging by the heist film's enduring popularity - its dialogue is still quoted routinely by movie fans - it's easy to lament its lack of an original screenplay nomination, if nothing else.
Tim Roth's performance as an undercover cop caught up in a jewelry heist gone horribly wrong was worthy of consideration as well.
Oscar-worthy?featured
free
paid
- Photo:
Alfred Hitchcock famously never won an Oscar, though one of his films - 1940's Rebecca - did take home the top prize for best picture. His claustrophobic 1954 classic Rear Window - arguably his most enduringly popular film, or at least in the conversation - is as deserving of Oscar love as any other, but despite four nominations, it went home empty-handed. Neither Jimmy Stewart nor Grace Kelly earned nods for their performances here.
Oscar-worthy?featured
paid
- 15
- Photo:
Far more than just a structurally innovative film, Christopher Nolan's backwards masterpice Memento is one of the best thrillers of the 21st century, and officially announced Nolan as a name to watch. The indie darling managed to score Oscar nominations for both its screenplay and its editing, but it went home empty-handed.
Nolan's films have been mainstays in the Oscar race in the years since then, but to many, Memento is still his crowning achievement - whether or not the Academy thought to award it at the time.
Oscar-worthy?featured
subscription
free
paid
- Photo:
Sergio Leone filmed the sprawling cinematic masterpiece Once Upon a Time in America in 1984. Then the director's post-production nightmare began as his epic gangster film was slashed and cut to ribbons in the editing room. The resulting picture was a mess, which is no doubt one of the reasons it got much consideration from the Academy. In un-butchered form, the film would have been more than worthy of consideration in the picture and director categories, not to mention numerous craft categories.
Oscar-worthy?featured
subscription
paid
- Photo:
Historically, science fiction has had an uphill climb with the Academy, with only the occasional film in the genre breaking through in the major categories. In 1982, one sci-fi film was widely acclaimed enough to earn an Oscar nomination - Steven Spielberg's E.T. But that was hardly the only enduring sci-fi classic that hit theaters that year. Another was Ridley Scott's Blade Runner. In retrospect, one might assume it earned a trophy for its groundbreaking production design and special effects, or for Vangelis's original score, or for Jordan Cronenweth's cinematography, or for Rutger Hauer's iconic performance as the doomed replicant Roy Batty.
Alas, its genre and its box-office failure prevented it from getting much recognition beyond a pair of nominations (art direction and visual effects).
Oscar-worthy?featured
paid
- 18
- Photo:
The long-awaited onscreen pairing of Robert De Niro and Al Pacino finally took place in Michael Mann's 1995 neo-noir Heat. The three-hour epic was not nominated for a single Oscar, a conspicuous omission on the Academy's part. Not only was the film acclaimed at the time, but has long since entered the canon as one of the seminal films of the late 20th Century. Aside from the iconic lead performances and Michael Mann's writing and direction, Val Kilmer gave one of his best-ever performances and would have been worthy of a supporting actor nod.
Oscar-worthy?featured
subscription
free
paid
- Photo:
The Academy isn't always kind to comedies - or, at least, doesn't always give them the breadth of recognition they deserve. But there have still been plenty of comedies to earn their share of Oscar love - and more often than not, they're the kind that fall into a particular sweet spot, striking a balance between comic invention and melancholy dramatic underpinnings. That's Groundhog Day to a T, but the Harold Ramis classic was completely shut out by the Academy.
That a brilliant hit movie that practically invented its own genre couldn't even earn an original screenplay nomination is practically an indictment on the Academy Awards as a whole, to say nothing of Bill Murray being snubbed in the lead actor category for what remains one of the best performances of a legendary career.
Oscar-worthy?featured
subscription
paid
- Photo:
Malcolm McDowell's signature performance as the ultraviolent, cheerfully evil, Beethoven-loving antihero Alex DeLarge has had a central place in film (and pop culture) history for so long, and left such an indelible mark on the subsequent history of on-screen villainy, that it's downright shocking that McDowell didn't earn a best actor nod for the role. And it wasn't as if the A Clockwork Orange was ignored by the Academy - far from it. Stanley Kubrick's wildly controversial adaptation of Anthony Burgess's novel earned four nominations - and all in major categories, including best picture and best director.
Then again, that's par for the course for the Academy's relationship with Kubrick's many masterpieces - they were always the bridesmaid, and never the bride.
Oscar-worthy?featured
paid
- Photo:
Ghostbusters is a classic example of genre bias at the Oscars. Comedies typically don't win Academy Awards, not even really smart ones with spectacular special effects. There aren't too many movies that have a 97% rating on Rotten Tomatoes. The film was nominated for visual effects and original song, but its legacy has vastly surpassed that of most of the films awarded with Oscars that year.
Oscar-worthy?featured
subscription
paid
- Photo:
It's the hottest day of the year in Brooklyn, the perfect weather for Spike Lee to explore racial tension in his seminal film Do the Right Thing. The film did receive two Academy Award nominations - Danny Aiello for best supporting actor and Lee for Best Original Screenplay. However, the most powerful film about race from the 1980s failed to take home a single Oscar. As the film has only become more topical, challenging, and affecting over the last two and a half decades, time has proven that Do the Right Thing clearly deserved more recognition. Apropos of... well, everything, the best picture winner that year was Driving Miss Daisy.
Oscar-worthy?featured
subscription
paid
- Photo:
Want to see what it looks like when a visionary director and innovative screenwriter team up to make a truly unique film? A puppeteer (John Cusack) finds a portal into the mind of John Malkovich behind a filing cabinet in his office, and the result is one of the most original films ever made. The movie received three nominations, including one for its director Spike Jonze and another writer Charlie Kaufman. Unfortunately for those two filmmakers, it was the year that American Beauty won five Oscars, dominating the major categories.
Oscar-worthy?featured
paid
- Photo:
The year is 2027, and the entire population has become infertile, save for one woman. Alfonso Cuaron's sci-fi thriller Children of Men was nominated for three Oscars. The director's innovative use of impossibly long, complex uninterrupted shots perfectly set the scene for the film's dystopian universe. Cuaron's use of long takes alone could have earned the director and his editor Alex Rodriguez both gold statues for best editing, but Children of Men went home empty-handed.
Oscar-worthy?featured
paid
