32 Best Picture Nominees That Deserved to Win the Oscar

indiewire.com

For as long as there have been award shows, movie fans have been complaining about prizes going to the wrong films. From classic slights like John Ford’s “How Green Was My Valley” beating out “Citizen Kane” to more recent grievances like “The Social Network” losing to “The King’s Speech,” Oscar history is littered with what-ifs.

Ranking art is an inherently subjective activity, and it would be ridiculous to expect the Oscars to be able to please everyone. But with almost a century’s worth of data to look at, certain patterns emerge that reveal blindspots in the Academy’s voting tendencies.

Too often, it feels like filmmakers with bold new voices are shunned (or relegated to writing categories) in favor of more traditional fare for older audiences. That often leads to “Oscar bait” movies winning Best Picture before being largely forgotten, while the bolder films that they defeated go on to become classics. Or it can mean that culturally important films lose out to ones easier to market to white audiences, as with Alfonso Cuarón’s “Roma” and Peter Farrelly’s controversial “Green Book.”

Nobody can change the past, but it’s fascinating to look back and speculate what the Academy could — and, in our view, should — have done differently. Listed in no particular order, these are 32 beloved and celebrated movies that were nominated for Best Picture but didn’t take home the Oscar.

Full list and story: https://www.indiewire.com/gallery/best-picture-oscar-snubs/

12 out of the 32 (as picked by me, also in no particular order):

• “Citizen Kane” (Winner: “How Green Was My Valley”)
• “The Aviator” (Winner: “Million Dollar Baby”)
• "Judas and the Black Messiah” (Winner: “Nomadland”)
• “Get Out” (Winner: “The Shape of Water”)
• “Saving Private Ryan” (Winner: “Shakespeare in Love”)
• “Fargo” (Winner: “The English Patient”)
• “Pulp Fiction” (Winner: “Forrest Gump”)
• “Goodfellas” (Winner: “Dances with Wolves”)
• “Raging Bull” (Winner: “Ordinary People”)
• “Apocalypse Now” (Winner: “Kramer vs. Kramer”)
• “Taxi Driver” (Winner: “Rocky”)
• “Dr. Strangelove” (Winner: “My Fair Lady”)

One more, on my list, not Indiewire:
• “Malcolm X” (Winner: “Unforgiven”)

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I don't agree with all 32 of the Indiewire's selections, but I do with the thirteen I listed above.

What do you, classic film lovers, consider to be the biggest mistakes in the Best Picture category -- nominees that should have won but, for whatever reason, were overlooked, shunned, or blackballed?