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AV Club: 90 years, 90 movies that should have been nominated for Best Picture

ElectricBlanketFire

ElectricBlanketFire

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Oct 25, 2017
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Just to repeat, these movies were not even nominated. They're not arguing that they should have necessarily won.

Pretty interesting read with plenty of glaring omissions.

It's a very long list so you'll have to click the link.

AV Club said:
With this year's ceremony just days away, The A.V. Club has singled out 90 important, terrific, even canonical movies that weren't nominated—one for every Best Picture lineup going back to the beginning. We've followed the Academy's rules about what qualifies, which mainly means only selecting movies that opened in the United States during each year's eligibility window, including foreign-language films that took a minute to make it to America. Most years, you could program a film festival from the list of viable alternative candidates and snubbed triumphs, so consider this a kind of parallel cinematic history—a much different window into a century of movies than the one the Academy has opened. Hindsight is, of course, 20/20, but you'd have to be legally blind to ignore most of these films, especially given what often made the cut instead.
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Some particularly notable ones:

1927/28: Metropolis
1932/33: King Kong
1954: Rear Window
1958: Vertigo
1960: Psycho
1968: 2001: A Space Odyssey (aka the best movie ever made)
1979: Alien
1982: Blade Runner
1986: Blue Velvet
2017: The Florida Project
 
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Hayama Akito

Hayama Akito

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Oct 25, 2017
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Goodfellas, the biggest academy sin of all time (and I like Dance with Wolves).

EDIT: Ah, my bad, I guess it was "nominated"... but still.
 
Violence Jack

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Oct 25, 2017
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Horror and Sci-Fi almost always get the shaft when it comes to Best Picture nominations. At least Get Out broke that trend this year. But hell no Suspiria and Bram Stoker's Dracula should've ever received a Best Picture nom. Keanu Reeves and some of the acting in Dracula is pretty flimsy, and the story in Suspiria is rather non-existent. Both are incredibly gorgeous movies though.
 
FriedConsole

FriedConsole

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Oct 27, 2017
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I find it funny that people who use the term "sportsball" make fun of people who talk about sports but then talk about the 1992 Academy Awards like Super Bowl 49.
 
Transistor

Transistor

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2005 is so accurate. A History of Violence should have easily replaced Crash, although Good Night and Good Luck should have won
 
ArmsofSleep

ArmsofSleep

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Some of these are obvious big snubs for dumb reasons (Psycho, 2001) some of these are untrue memes (The Dark Knight, Blue Velvet), and some are undeniably true and underreported as giant snubs (Blow-Up, The Master, Meet Me in St. Louis)
 
TAJ

TAJ

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Oct 28, 2017
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I'm still the most salty about Ed Wood.
I checked and the article actually says that it should have been nominated but doesn't list it in large type.
 
HouseDragon

HouseDragon

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Dec 4, 2017
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Good list overall but I disagree with 2017's pick, because the Blade Runner 2049 snub is the snub to end all snubs.
 
Camwi

Camwi

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Man, Hitchcock got screwed.

EDIT - So did so many foreign films. The Passion of Joan of Arc, Seven Samurai, friggin' 8 1/2...
 

Moist_Owlet

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Dec 26, 2017
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Crash being nominated for anything, let alone winning, proves that the academy is incompetent and should be dissolved.
 
Ridley327

Ridley327

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Metallix87 said:
Hitchcock in general was robbed throughout his career.
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It is so strange to see how many of his films wound up getting snubbed, usually in favor of a musical that was barely remembered by the time the show started, let alone years down the line. Genre bias hurt him so bad at the time.

I'll have to read the full list when I get home, but the picks that have been excerpted have me confident that they know what they're talking about.
 
Rygar1126

Rygar1126

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Oct 27, 2017
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It's always weird going through these lists and seeing what now iconic films (Vertigo, Singin in the Rain, Meet me in St. Louis, etc.) didn't even get nominated for Best Picture.
 
Htown

Htown

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Oct 25, 2017
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I love that there's a mention of Rio Bravo on that list, but honestly North by Northwest probably was a bigger snub that year. That said, Hitchcock is all over this list so I don't mind.
 
Timeaisis

Timeaisis

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Oct 25, 2017
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I agree with a lot of this, but...Marie Antoinette is a terrible film and most definitely should not have been nominated in 2006.

2007, on the other hand, is stacked. I agree Zodiac deserved a nom.
 
SchrodingerC

SchrodingerC

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Oct 25, 2017
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A fucking Oliver Twist movie took both best picture and best director in 1968?!
That is so criminal it should be labeled a federal crime.
 
Disco

Disco

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- 1975 had the best lineup of nominees overall, god damn, not one bad or even meh movie in the bunch
- lmao at the likes of an Oliver Twist musical and Dr. Dolittle getting in over 2001 and Persona
- can't believe Heat got 0 nominations, looking at some of the others in that list...not even directing? or sound design? scust
- genre movies been getting shafted too often, all the way back to Hitchcock or James Whale before him. now Hitchcock is worshiped by those same circles
- Driving Miss Daisy won best picture in the year Do the Right Thing was snubbed lol
- I was initially indifferent to The Dark Knight getting looked over for best picture, but looking at the other nominees...its better than all of them
 
Metallix87

Metallix87

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By the way, the list doesn't mention Casino Royale for 2006, which I'm still convinced is absolutely criminal as a snub.

Timeaisis said:
I agree with a lot of this, but...Marie Antoinette is a terrible film and most definitely should not have been nominated in 2006.
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Agreed. Casino Royale was the 2006 film that got jack squat but deserved more.
 
RetroCCN

RetroCCN

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Oct 26, 2017
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Right on the money with Who Framed Roger Rabbit. One of the most amazing films ever created in every respect imo.
 
gforguava

gforguava

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Sound the alarm: The Leopard Man made the list.
Should've been The Seventh Victim, the best Lewton flick from that year, but it will do. The fact that there were three different classics by Val Lewton in that year alone, all worth a place on this list, is amazing.

Also nice to see Bright Star and Only Angels Have Wings get some notice but the majority of the rest was mostly just kind of ho-hum, pick a now considered classic and put it there.
 
Metallix87

Metallix87

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gforguava said:
Sound the alarm: The Leopard Man made the list.
Should've been The Seventh Victim, the best Lewton flick from that year, but it will do. The fact that there were three different classics by Val Lewton in that year alone, all worth a place on this list is amazing.
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Realistically, Lewton will never get the credit he deserves for the work he did in the horror genre.
 

Deleted member 31923

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Good list overall even if there are some ones I don't agree with. I like the inclusion of Blade Runner, Alien, etc. since the Academy does hate sci/fi so much.
 
Plinko

Plinko

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Oct 28, 2017
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Of all the movies to pick for 1998, they go with Rushmore instead of The Truman Show. Come on.
 
Psamtik

Psamtik

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Oct 27, 2017
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Good call on 2001. Not only should In the Mood for Love have been nominated, it should've won.
 
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