There are a handful of mistakes that the Academy cannot escape, and the failure to reward Hitch for his movies is probably the worst. Five nominations for Best Director between 1941 and 1961 doesn't sound nearly enough, and the failue to win a single one was a travesty. A 'Memorial Award' in 1968 was, frankly, rubbish.<\/p>","url":"2009/2/20/Alfred-Hitchcock-4.jpg","width":570,"height":364,"alt":"Alfred Hitchcock"},{"captionHeading":"Brief Encounter","caption":"
David Lean's love story, about a married woman who dallies with the idea of having an affair with a man she met at the station, was the very best movie Britain had to offer for many a year after. Best Actress, Best Director and Best Screenplay nominations hardly made up for the lack of awards, or even Best Picture recognition.<\/p>","url":"2009/2/20/Brief-Encounter-4.jpg","width":570,"height":364,"alt":"Brief Encounter"},{"captionHeading":"Orson Welles","caption":"
He might not have deserved one for his efforts in Transformers: The Movie, or indeed, THAT whiskey advert, but Citizen Kane's failure to pick up a thing at the 1941 awards is one of the most infamous Academy snubs of all time. Being given the obligatory honorary award in 1970 hardly made up for it.<\/p>","url":"2009/2/20/Orson-Welles-4.jpg","width":570,"height":364,"alt":"Orson Welles"},{"captionHeading":"Easy Rider","caption":"
Before Easy Rider, films were shot on sets in studio backlots using heavyweight cameras. After Easy Rider, filmmakers realised that you could actually go out on the road with a camera, and make a movie free from the limits of a studio set. <\/p>
Without Easy Rider, we might still be watching actors in front of carboard sunsets. Try teling that to the Academy - a supporting nom for Jack Nicholson and a Best Original Screenplay nomination was as good as it got.<\/p>","url":"2009/2/20/Easy-Rider-4.jpg","width":570,"height":364,"alt":"Easy Rider"},{"captionHeading":"Tom Cruise","caption":"
Like Harrison Ford, Tom Cruise has long been one of Hollywood's most bankable stars. Yet, despite his occasional offbeat roles, Cruise has just three nominations to his name - Born On The 4th Of July, Jerry Maguire and Magnolia - with not a single Oscar triumph.<\/p>","url":"2008/12/11/tom-cruise-3.jpg","width":570,"height":364,"alt":"tom cruise"},{"captionHeading":"Empire Of The Sun","caption":"
During the Spielberg years in which the legendary beard failed to woo the Academy, it was most surprising that Empire Of The Sun was not his first breakthrough award winner. Nominated for a number of technical and division 2 awards - Best Cinematography was about as good as it got - Empire lost out to boreathon The Last Emperor in all catergories.<\/p>","url":"2009/2/20/Empire-Of-The-Sun-4.jpg","width":570,"height":364,"alt":"Empire Of The Sun"},{"captionHeading":"Once Upon A Time In America","caption":"
Sergio Leone's epic tale of gangs in New York was masterful filmmaking. Stunning cinematography combined with expert storytelling and stand out performances were not enough to earn so much as a nomination in the year of Amadeus.<\/p>","url":"2009/2/20/Once-Upon-A-Time-In-America-4.jpg","width":570,"height":364,"alt":"Once Upon A Time In America"},{"captionHeading":"Peter O'Toole","caption":"
When Peter O'Toole's performance as the eponymous Lawrence Of Arabia lost out to Gregory Peck in To Kill A Mocking Bird at the 1962 awards, the actor must have consoled himself in the thought that his day would come. It did, but not quite in the manner he would have wished. <\/p>
41 years and seven nominations later, an honorary Oscar, the kind given out when the Academy realises the foolishness in overlooking a legend, came O'Toole's way.<\/p>","url":"2009/2/20/Peter-Otoole-4.jpg","width":570,"height":364,"alt":"Peter O'toole"},{"captionHeading":"Taxi Driver","caption":"
Some say it's a joke that Taxi Driver lost out to Rocky and Network in 1976. It certainly doesn't ring true that Taxi Driver ended up with nothing, but in a post-Vietnam climate, the hope that Rocky provided was far more pleasing to the masses, and apparently the Academy, than Scorsese's tale of a misfit Vietnam vet who wanted to be somebody.<\/p>","url":"2008/8/13/bad-hair-gallery-taxi-driver-4.jpg","width":570,"height":364,"alt":"bad hair gallery - taxi driver"},{"captionHeading":"Robert Altman","caption":"
The maverick director took an honorary award in the year before he died, having directed numerous classics without recognition. Short Cuts, Gosford Park, The Player and M*A*S*H all managed Best Picture noms, but all lost out on the night.<\/p>","url":"2009/2/20/Robert-Altman-4.jpg","width":570,"height":364,"alt":"Robert Altman"},{"captionHeading":"Steve McQueen","caption":"
There are a myriad of actors who could be described as Hollywood legends, but few truly deserve the title. Steve McQueen is one of those legends that nobody would deny, yet, despite a string of box office records and timeless roles, McQueen received just one nomination for his efforts - 1966's The Sand Pebbles - but no statuette.<\/p>","url":"2009/2/20/Steve-Mcqueen-4.jpg","width":570,"height":364,"alt":"Steve Mcqueen"},{"captionHeading":"Frankenstein","caption":"
Horror movies are not exactly favoured by the Academy, so it's perhaps not that surprising to find Boris Karloff's archetypal performance as the reanimated monster was completely ignored by Oscar. <\/p>
But this is a movie that still finds reference to this day in popular culture, and has been seen by quite a few more people in modern times than that year's winner, Grand Hotel.<\/p>","url":"2009/2/20/Frankenstein-1.jpg","width":570,"height":364,"alt":"Frankenstein"},{"captionHeading":"Stanley Kubrick","caption":"
He might not have been the kind of director to go looking for one, but given the range of movies he directed - The Shining, Spartacus, Dr Strangelove - it's astonishing to think the only time he was recognised by the establishment was for the special effects on 2001: A Space Odyssey.<\/p>","url":"2009/2/20/Stanley-Kubrick-4.jpg","width":570,"height":364,"alt":"Stanley Kubrick"},{"captionHeading":"Psycho","caption":"
Alfred Hitchcock was a director capable of making classics that pleased the masses. His mainstream tendencies were not always of the liking for the Academy, and his films, despite being of the very best order, rarely got award recognition. <\/p>
Psycho was one such movie, losing out to Billy Wilder and The Apartment in the Best Director and Art Direction stakes and Sons and Lovers in Cinematograhy. Janet Leigh even missed out on Best Supporting Actress, which went to Shirley Jones for a movie called Elmer Gantry. No, we haven't seen it either.<\/p>","url":"2008/6/25/psycho.jpg","width":570,"height":364,"alt":"Gallery Images"},{"captionHeading":"The Searchers","caption":"
It might rank in the American Film Institute's top 100 movies of all time, and it might be the finest Western ever made (certainly the finest not to feature Clint Eastwood), but John Ford's tale of a former Confederate soldier who dedicates his life to finding a child stolen by Indians didn't earn so much as a nomination.<\/p>","url":"2009/2/20/The-Searchers-1.jpg","width":570,"height":364,"alt":"The Searchers"},{"captionHeading":"12 Angry Men","caption":"
Regarded as one of the finest pieces of storytelling in the history of cinema, 12 Angry Men was nominated for Best Picture, Best Adapted Screenplay and Best Director, which seemed a shoe-in given how utterly compelling Sidney Lumet's movie was, given that all the action takes place in just one room. <\/p>
But it received nothing on Oscar night in '57, losing out to David Lean's board-sweeping The Bridge On The River Kwai.<\/p>","url":"2009/2/20/Twelve-Angry-Men-02-1.jpg","width":570,"height":364,"alt":"Twelve Angry Men 02"},{"captionHeading":"Harrison Ford","caption":"
He may have had the most prolific run of hits in cinematic history - massive profits were made from Star Wars in '77 to Clear and Present Danger in '94 - but Harrison has been all but ignored by the Academy throughout his career. <\/p>
Now that he's churning out the likes of Hollywood Homicide and Firewall, it seems Ford has little interest in testing himself as he did in the 80s with the likes of The Mosquito Coast, so a Best Actor Nomination for Witness in 1986 will just have to do.<\/p>","url":"2009/2/19/Steven-Spielberg-And-Harrison-Ford-1999-1.jpg","width":570,"height":364,"alt":"Steven Spielberg And Harrison Ford - 1999"},{"captionHeading":"King Kong (1933)","caption":"
The awards had been going for several years before cinema's most important sci-fi/ horror flick came out. Be it Fay Wray's fantastic performance 70 years before Ewan McGregor complained about the amount of green screens in a Star Wars production, or the amazing stop-motion effects that led the way for a myriad of other effects movies, King Kong was completely ignored. <\/p>
In fact, it took 58 years to finally receive an honorary gong from Amercia's National Film Preservation Board.<\/p>","url":"2008/12/4/king-kong-1933-1.jpg","width":570,"height":364,"alt":"king kong - 1933"},{"captionHeading":"Blade Runner","caption":"
Classics often tend to either be hugely popular with audiences or critics on release, finding favour with the other crowd later in the cycle. Blade Runner managed to please neither in 1982, flopping at the box office and finding no joy in the critics' columns. <\/p>
That all changed 10 years after release, but at the 1982 Oscars the movie was up for Best Art Direction and Best Visual Effects, losing out to Gandhi and E.T. respectively. And, frankly, wrongly.<\/p>","url":"2009/2/5/blade-runner-1.jpg","width":570,"height":364,"alt":"blade runner"},{"captionHeading":"Snow White & The Seven Dwarfs","caption":"
They didn't have an Animated Film section when Snow White came out, mainly because it was the first full-length animated feature. <\/p>
So, despite being a major step in the history of cinema, it wasn't until the following year that the Academy gave Walt Disney and honorary Oscar, for \"a significant screen innovation which has charmed millions and pioneered a great new entertainment field\". Disney received one statuette, along with seven miniatures.<\/p>","url":"2008/11/7/Snow-White-The-Seven-Dwarfs-1.jpg","width":570,"height":364,"alt":"Snow White & The Seven Dwarfs"},{"captionHeading":"The Shawshank Redemption","caption":"
Although it made no money on release, Shawshank is now one of the most critically acclaimed and popular movies ever made. Nominated for Best Actor (Morgan Freeman), Cinematography, Editing, Music, Film, Sound and Adapted Screenplay, Shawshank won... nothing. The very fact that director Frank Darabont didn't get a Best Director nom was criminal enough. <\/p>
But the movie lost to Forrest Gump. Which is possibly the biggest Oscar travesty, rivalled only by Shakespeare In Love beating Saving Private Ryan, and Raging Bull losing to Ordinary People.<\/p>","url":"2008/6/25/shawshank-redemption-3.jpg","width":570,"height":364,"alt":"shawshank-redemption"},{"captionHeading":"Dr. Strangelove or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb","caption":"
The dark satire might have been Kubrick's best work, it might have gotten four major nominations, but it won nothing at the 1964 awards, mainly losing out to My Fair Lady. <\/p>
Even Peter Sellers, playing several leading roles, lost out to Rex Harrison from the George Cukor's Musical 'classic'.<\/p>","url":"2008/10/28/dr-strangelove-1.jpg","width":570,"height":364,"alt":"dr strangelove"}];