Oscar season is upon us, and that means that everyone will be busy fellating all the movies that managed to meet with the Academy’s approval. But what about all those great movies that never manage to win anything? Over the years, some of the best movies in history have never won an Oscar. Not one. Not best picture, best actor, writing, cinematography, not even costumes. This is almost unbelievable when you consider the sheer number of awards every year. I mean, even Harry and the Hendersons won an Oscar for best makeup. And yet, none of the following could even manage that. They are nine of the best movies never to win an Oscar.
9. ‘The Shawshank Redemption’ – 1994
The Shawshank Redemption is one of those movies everyone loves. In a world of haters, it seems like nobody has a bad word to say about it. How beloved is it? Well, over on imdb.com, it’s their highest rated movie. Of all time. And yet, it couldn’t manage to bring home one Oscar. It picked up seven nominations, including best picture, but lost out on most of those awards to Forrest Gump. Oh, and Speed. Yeah. I guess they should have included that scene where Red gets brain damage and then disarms a bomb on a speeding bus. They just didn’t want it bad enough.
8. ’12 Angry Men’ – 1957
12 Angry Men seems like one of those movies that the Academy Awards would fall all over themselves to honor. It’s serious, loaded with great actors, and builds tension without so much as leaving a single courtroom. At the very least, you’d think it would win for writing. Nope. It got three nominations, but ran into the buzzsaw that was The Bridge on the River Kwai. Perhaps most surprisingly, it didn’t get a single acting nomination. On the other hand, its title reportedly served as the mission statement for the Tea Party in its early days, so at least it has that going for it.
7. ‘It’s a Wonderful Life’ – 1946
This one’s almost shocking, isn’t it? I mean, this is the sort of movie that the Oscars love to gush over. Still, even though it picked up 5 nominations, it got smoked by The Best Years of Our Lives in all the major categories. Sure, that movie was perhaps the first to tackle the effects of war on veterans returning home, but you’d think a suicidal Jimmy Stewart would be like Oscar catnip. Maybe it just needed more explosions, or maybe a cross-dresser? I don’t know how Hollywood works.
6. ‘Rear Window’ – 1954
Fun fact: Alfred Hitchcock never won an Oscar. And you’d think that one of his best movies, Rear Window, would have at least gotten something, but no. It did get four nominations, but On the Waterfront was the hot shit that year, and so no luck. Poor Jimmy Stewart didn’t even get an acting nomination for his iconic performance, which was sadly perfectly appropriate as part of a career in which he never won the big one, at least not until the Academy felt bad for him and gave him an honorary Oscar in 1985, by which point he was so old, they were lucky he didn’t try to eat it.
5. ‘Once Upon a Time in the West’ – 1968
Fun Fact #2: Sergio Leone, aka the godfather of the Spaghetti Western, never won an Oscar either. In fact, he was never even nominated. It’s perhaps fitting then that one of his masterpieces, Once Upon a Time in the West, didn’t get a single nomination either. It’s not like the Academy hated Westerns – 11 Westerns were nominated for best picture in the 20th century, and three alone in the ‘60s – but I guess they just couldn’t overlook the awesome might that year of, uh, Oliver!
4. ‘Dr. Strangelove, Or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb’ – 1964
Dr. Strangelove is one of the best movies ever, a dark comedy and vicious satire that teamed up Stanley Kubrick with Peter Sellers, which is a lot like putting LeBron James and Kevin Durant on the same team. It got four nominations, but couldn’t beat out My Fair Lady, which makes a certain kind of sense when you realize that people have always been idiots. Okay, okay, My Fair Lady is a classic itself, but come on, it’s Dr. friggin’ Strangelove! Unless My Fair Lady ended with Audrey Hepburn riding the bomb like Slim Pickens, waving her cowboy hat and hee-hawing the whole time, then this is just a travesty. Also, I want to see that now.
3. ‘Psycho’ – 1960
It’s Hitchcock’s greatest masterpiece. Naturally, it didn’t win shit. It did get four nominations, but amazingly, none of them were for best picture. The Apartment was the big winner that year, which makes sense given that it’s a charming romantic comedy and Psycho is only one of the most influential movies ever. The other nominees that year? Elmer Gantry, The Alamo, Sons and Lovers and The Sundowners. I guess it was just too much to hope that Psycho could crack a murderer’s row like that.
2. ‘Seven Samurai’ – 1954
Oh, come on. If this can’t win a single damn Oscar, then what are we even doing? Akira Kurasawa’s masterpiece – and he never won an Oscar and was only nominated once, by the way – received only two nominations. One was for set decoration and the other was for costumes. I mean, how in the hell does this not even crack the best foreign picture category? Sure, it was good enough for Hollywood to steal – oops, I mean remake – only six years later with The Magnificent Seven, but apparently it wasn’t even good enough to get nominated the year it came out. Nope, instead, the Academy weirdly nominated it for set decoration and costumes in 1957, three years later. Even the MTV Movie Awards are better than that.
1. ‘The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly’ – 1966
Some call it the best movie ever. It’s almost certainly the coolest. Naturally, it didn’t even get a single nomination. That means that in a three year period, Sergio Leone made two of the best movies ever – and it’s four in five years if you count A Fistful of Dollars and For a Few Dollars More, and hey, why not? – and couldn’t even get a casual glance from the Academy. That is insane. I think we need to get Clint Eastwood to rush the stage and start screaming at people like they were empty chairs. Or at least give Sergio Leone one of those old dead dude honorary Oscars. We’re better than this, America. We’re better than this.