Award season isn’t always about who takes home the biggest prizes in the industry. It’s also about the snubs—the movies that weren’t nominated or missed out.
Only one film can win Best Picture every year, but that doesn’t always mean the “right” movie does. Sometimes, the Academy gets it wrong. Everyone knows that literally, any other film besides Crash should have won in 2006, so we’re going to move past that one.
These ten movies should have won Best Picture at the Academy Awards.
Citizen Kane
Lost to: How Green Was My Valley
Since we regard Citizen Kane as one of the greatest movies of all time, it’s easy to forget that it was not met with universal acclaim upon its release. That includes its performance at the 14th Academy Awards, as the Orson Welles film lost in three of the four major awards it was nominated for: Outstanding Motion Picture, Best Director, and Best Actor.
Double Indemnity
Lost to: Going My Way
Going My Way represents everything great about Hollywood’s Golden Age, but it’s a travesty that Double Indemnity did not cash in any of its seven Academy Award nominations in 1945.
Between Double Indemnity and Sunset Boulevard, director Billy Wilder established the noir genre as a legitimate art form in the 1940s. Backed by the performance of Barbara Stanwyck, who is the ideal femme fatale, Double Indemnity may be his best work.
Saving Private Ryan
Lost to: Shakespeare in Love
Saving Private Ryan won five Academy Awards in 1999, including Best Director for Stephen Spielberg, but it did not win the top prize.
Shakespeare in Love won Best Picture less because it was the better movie and more because of producer Harvey Weinstein’s aggressive campaigning. One reason for Weinstein’s aggressive campaigning is the next film on our list.
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Pulp Fiction
Lost to: Forrest Gump
Look, I love Forrest Gump, but at best, it was the third best movie out of the five nominated for Best Picture in 1995, falling behind Pulp Fiction and Shawshank Redemption.
As great as Shawshank is, it suffered from a poor box office performance or resonated with viewers at the time. Thankfully, it would eventually earn its flowers. On the other hand, Pulp Fiction was a success from day one, establishing Quentin Tarantino as one of the best movie makers in Hollywood. It has the better story, the better acting, and the better hook.
Goodfellas
Lost to: Dances with Wolves
The only explanation here is that Martin Scorses was cursed, which most people were beginning to believe until he eventually broke through, winning Best Director and Best Picture with The Departed.
Somehow, Goodfellas only won a single Academy Award (Joe Pesci for Best Supporting Actor), mainly losing out to Kevin Costner’s Dances with Wolves.
Fargo
Lost to: The English Patient
I’m with Elaine Benes on this one.
The Coen brothers eventually break through to win Best Picture and Best Director with No Country for Old Men; many argue that their best film is Fargo.
However, The English Patient dominated the 69th Academy Awards, with 12 nominations and nine awards.
MASH
Lost to: Patton
Before it became one of the greatest television shows ever, MASH was a 1970 film that won the Grand Prix du Festival International du Film and the Palme d’Or at the 1970 Cannes Film Festival.
However, it could not translate that success into the Academy Award for Best Picture, which instead went to the biopic on General George S. Patton.
The Exorcist
Lost to: The Sting
Horror fans know how often the genre is slighted at award shows. Sometimes, however, horror films can transcend the genre and earn the acclaim and praise they deserve. Demi Moore’s recent Golden Globes win for The Substance is the most recent example.
Sometimes, a horror film comes along that can’t be ignored. In 1973, that was The Exorcist, which was nominated for ten Academy Awards, tied for the most with The Sting. Despite taking home the Oscar for Best Adapted Screenplay, the 46th Academy Awards belonged to The Sting.
L.A. Confidential
Lost to: Titanic
Look, let’s get one thing out of the way: There was zero chance anything but Titanic was winning. The only question heading into the 70th Academy Awards was whether or not it would break Ben-Hur‘s record of 11 wins; it would tie it.
1998 rivals 1995 in terms of quality movies nominated for Best Picture. There could be only one winner, which will undoubtedly be the year’s dominant movie. But no other film that year featured the strong performances, storytelling, and writing of L.A. Confidential.
The Social Network
Lost to: The King’s Speech
Is it weird to say the Facebook movie should have won Best Picture? Over a decade later, it’s still strange to consider that the Facebook movie was even nominated for Best Picture.
Yet here we are, on the back of Aaron Sorkin’s impressive writing, David Fincher’s immaculate directing, and Jesse Eisenberg’s perfect performance as Mark Zuckerberg. Instead, all three of those awards went to The King’s Speech.
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