From “Doctor Strangelove” to “Fargo,” “Pulp Fiction,” and “Roma,” these Best Picture nominees deserved to go all the way.
“Pulp Fiction,” “Raging Bull,” and more deserving Best Picture nominees.
Everett Collection
Every cinephile knows that “What was the best movie of the year?” and “What movie will win Best Picture at the Oscars?” are two entirely different questions. 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.
Nobody can change the past, but it’s fascinating to look back and speculate what the Academy should have done differently. Keep reading for our 27 favorite movies that were nominated for Best Picture but should have won.
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“The Power of the Dog” (Winner: “CODA”)
Image Credit: ©Netflix/Courtesy Everett Collection The 2022 Best Picture race played out like a movie we’ve seen many, many times before: a warm, crowd-pleasing film ended up beating out less approachable but arguably superior work. Sian Heder’s “CODA” is not a bad movie by any means, but it’s hard to argue that it packs as much of an artistic punch as “The Power of the Dog,” Jane Campion’s meticulous exploration of masculinity in the American West. Campion took home the Best Director prize for her efforts, but giving “The Power of the Dog” Best Picture as well would have been a bolder choice by the Academy. —CZ
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“Judas and the Black Messiah” (Winner: “Nomadland”)
Image Credit: ©Warner Bros/Courtesy Everett Collection This one is a fairly minor grievance, as Chloe Zhao’s “Nomadland” was far from an undeserving winner. But as 2020 (mercifully) fades away in the rearview mirror, it feels like Shaka King’s “Judas and the Black Messiah” will be remembered as the year’s strongest film. The true story of the FBI’s infiltration of the Black Panther Party unfolds like a better thriller than anything Hollywood could have imagined, and LaKeith Stanfield and Daniel Kaluuya both give career-best performances. (Kaluuya won Best Supporting Actor, but it’s shame they couldn’t both win.) Both a sobering reminder that our darkest days are not that far behind us and a wildly entertaining movie in its own right, the film represents everything that the Oscars are supposed to honor. The film’s late release date prevented it from making many Best of 2020 lists and picking up the kind of buzz needed to win the top prize, but history will almost certainly remember it well. —CZ
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“12 Angry Men” (Winner: “Bridge on the River Kwai”)
Image Credit: Courtesy Everett Collection The 30th Academy Awards made you wish two movies could have won Best Picture, and choosing between two classics like “12 Angry Men” and “Bridge on the River Kwai” feels like splitting hairs. That said, “12 Angry Men” has stood the test of time better than its counterpart and likely deserved the win. Sydney Lumet’s courtroom drama about a jury debating whether to sentence a man to death is a brilliant study of human nature, and the way prejudices and past traumas affect the way we judge other people. Even more impressive is the fact that virtually the entire film takes place in one room and yet it never ceases to be riveting. Despite the fact that the material seems better suited to the stage (where it originated), Lumet’s stunning directing and the film’sexcellent performances make it a thrilling piece of cinema that still feels fresh. This masterclass in filmmaking deserves to be on a shortlist for the best films of the century and, in hindsight, it seems more than fair to call it the best film of 1957. —CZ
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“Her” (Winner: “12 Years a Slave”)
Image Credit: ©Warner Bros/Courtesy Everett Collection While Steve McQueen’s excellent historical drama “12 Years a Slave” is far from an undeserving winner, “Her” was a film truly ahead of its time, and seems like a more accurate prediction of the future with each passing year. With a premise that detractors reduced to “Joaquin Phoenix falls in love with his iPhone,” Spike Jonze’s masterpiece had no right to be as good as it is. But the film not only succeeds as a surprisingly touching love story, it did a prescient job of predicting America’s upcoming loneliness epidemic and our increased reliance on technology for interpersonal relationships. Joaquin Phoenix anchors the film with his subtle, melancholy performance, but the real standout is Scarlett Johansson’s stellar voice acting. While we’re airing Oscar grievances, her Best Supporting Actress snub was equally unforgivable. —CZ
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“Roma” (Winner: “Green Book”)
Image Credit: Everett Collection For many film critics and moviegoers, the 2019 Academy Awards ended at rock bottom when Peter Farrelly’s “Green Book” was named Best Picture. The victory was immediately met with outrage from movie journalists and critics on social media, who all felt a sense of déjà vu in watching a polarizing drama about race relations (as seen through a white lens) triumph over a critically acclaimed art house favorite. In this case, the critical daring was Alfonso Cuarón’s “Roma.” Film critics aren’t always right, but in this case they were. Cuarón’s “Roma” is a crowning achievement that earned 10 Oscar nominations and three wins: Best Director, Best Foreign Language Film, and Best Cinematography. A year before “Parasite” wrote itself into the history books, “Roma” deserved to become the first foreign-language film to win top honors at the Academy Awards. Cuarón’s masterpiece was named one of the best films of the decade by IndieWire. “Green Book” was not.
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“Get Out” (Winner: “The Shape of Water”)
Image Credit: Everett Collection Guillermo del Toro’s rapturous fantasy movie “The Shape of Water” is a great choice for Best Picture, one of four Oscars the movie took home at the 2018 ceremony (it also won Best Director, Best Production Design, and Best Original Score), but it’s hard to deny that awarding Jordan Peele’s “Get Out” would’ve gone down as perhaps the most exciting Academy choice in Oscars’ history. There were a handful of worthy contenders in 2018, from “Shape of Water” to “Call Me By Your Name,” “Dunkirk,” “Lady Bird,” and “Phantom Thread,” but none reached the zeitgeist-defining levels of Peele’s horror breakthrough. “Get Out” took over the cultural conversation for over a year, and it just so happened to be an astutely made thriller with an Oscar-winning screenplay. How often does the Academy get the chance to reward a horror movie and the biggest conversation-starter of the year with Best Picture? “Get Out” was a time the Academy should’ve jumped at this opportunity.
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“Mad Max: Fury Road” (Winner: “Spotlight”)
Image Credit: Everett Collection With its ripped-from-the-headlines true story, “Spotlight” was always going to be more appealing to the Academy at large than George Miller’s bombastic and explosive “Mad Max” sequel “Fury Road.” No wonder the latter title cleaned up the crafts categories at the 88th Academy Awards (“Fury Road” took home Oscars for Costume Design, Production Design, Makeup and Hairstyling, Film Editing, Sound Editing, and Sound Mixing) while never nabbing a win in the top categories for Best Picture or Best Director. Six years later, “Mad Max: Fury Road” remains one of the best action films ever made and, according to IndieWire, the ninth best movie released in the 2010s. “Spotlight” has not endured in the same way, which just goes to show you the Oscar for Best Picture doesn’t mean a film will burn bright forever.
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“Boyhood” (Winner: “Birdman”)
Image Credit: Everett Collection Shortly before the 2015 Oscars, IndieWire chief critic Eric Kohn wrote a memo to Oscar voters explaining why Richard Linklater’s 12-years-in-the-making opus “Boyhood” deserved the Best Picture prize over Alejandro González Iñárritu’s “Birdman,” which had established itself as the frontrunner thanks to its flashy one-take style, star-studded ensemble cast, and self-reflexive Hollywood DNA. As Kohn wrote, “A win for ‘Birdman’ over “Boyhood” would signal that the Academy prefers to wallow in the frustrations of the industry rather than embracing alternatives to its restrictions. After all, the Oscars carry major symbolic ramifications. No matter the rush that ‘Birdman’ offers with its simulated long take and gonzo narrative, it doesn’t show or tell us anything new. ‘Boyhood’ offers a fresh experience impossible to replicate.” The Academy ended up awarding “Birdman,” but “Boyhood” remains to this day one of cinema’s most seminal representations of America in the 21st century.
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“Amour” (Winner: “Argo”)
Image Credit: Everett Collection Oscar pundits always say the Academy loves rewarding movies about Hollywood, which helps explain why Ben Affleck’s rousing crowd-pleaser “Argo” sailed through awards season as the Best Picture frontrunner before claiming the top prize on Oscar night. And yet, of the nine movies nominated for Best Picture at the 2013 ceremony (including Quentin Tarantino’s “Django Unchained,” Steven Spielberg’s “Lincoln,” and Kathryn Bigelow’s “Zero Dark Thirty”), none came close to matching the emotional knockout and unflinching honesty of Michael Haneke’s “Amour.” The Academy did right by the Palme d’Or winner by giving it top nominations beyond Best Foreign Language Film, including Best Director, Best Actress for Emmanuelle Riva, and Best Original Screenplay, but this was years before “Parasite” opened the door for foreign-language films winning Best Picture so it never stood a chance for the top prize. IndieWire named “Amour” the 25th best film of the decade.
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“The Tree of Life” (Winner: “The Artist”)
Image Credit: Everett Collection Michel Hazanavicius’ “The Artist” was a loving recreation of Hollywood’s silent film era, which made it catnip for Oscar voters during the 2011-2012 Oscars season. On the opposite end of the spectrum was Terrence Malick’s Palme d’Or-winning magnum opus “The Tree of Life,” a dense and polarizing coming-of-age story that riffs on Malick’s own upbringing in Texas and the entire creation of the universe. “The Tree of Life” is not the kind of movie the Academy honors, so it was a victory that it even bagged top nominations for Best Picture and Best Director. Its third nomination came in the Best Cinematography category. There was never any doubt during this Oscar season that “The Tree of Life” would lose the Oscar for Best Picture (the biggest competition “The Artist” faced was from Alexander Payne’s “The Descendants”), which tells you everything you need to know about the Academy’s preferences. IndieWire named “The Tree of Life” the 13th best film of the 2010s.
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“The Social Network” (Winner: “The King’s Speech”)
Image Credit: Everett Collection The Academy awarding Tom Hooper’s “The King’s Speech” with the Best Picture prize over David Fincher’s “The Social Network” is widely considered one of the most egregious decisions in Oscars’ history. The win proved that a crowd-pleasing biographical period piece about overcoming an obstacle was always going to fare better with Oscar voters than the biting social commentary from an original vision (yes, “The Social Network is also a biographical drama, but Fincher does not concern himself with the trappings of the genre that are on full display in “The King’s Speech”). At least Aaron Sorkin and Trent Reznor and Atticus Ross didn’t get overlooked in the Best Adapted Screenplay and Best Original Score races. To this day, “The Social Network” plays out like a wacky Shakespearean tragedy that takes on added resonance by the minute. It’s both a thrilling, queasy exploration of how Facebook came to be and a searing indictment of what it would inevitably become. IndieWire named it the 16th best film of the 2020s.
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“Brokeback Mountain” (Winner: “Crash”)
Image Credit: Everett Collection Aside from “Green Book” winning over “Roma,” the Oscars don’t get more ridiculed than awarding “Crash” the Best Picture prize over “Brokeback Mountain” at the 78th Academy Awards. Ang Lee’s emotional tour-de-force and landmark gay romance scored eight Oscar nominations and won prizes for Best Director, Best Adapted Screenplay, and Best Original Score, but it still wasn’t enough to prevent Paul Haggis’ ensemble-driven race drama “Crash” from taking home the top prize. “Brokeback” started the season strong by winning the Golden Globes, BAFTA, and Producers Guild of America top prizes, but the Screen Actors Guild awarding “Crash” its Oustanding Cast in a Motion Picture honor turned the awards season tides in Haggis’ favor. IndieWire named “Crash” the worst Best Picture winner of the 21st century.
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“In The Bedroom” (Winner: “A Beautiful Mind”)
Image Credit: Everett Collection Ron Howard’s “A Beautiful Mind” is the prototypical Oscar winner for Best Picture: A well-made biographical drama about a misunderstood genius facing an obstacle he needs to overcome — in his case, mental illness. It’s not a surprise the Academy went for Howard’s film over blockbuster contenders like “Moulin Rouge!” and “The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring,” but the fact remains that Todd Field’s blistering family drama “In the Bedroom” was the most searing and resonant drama of the lot (unless you count Robert Altman’s also searing “Gosford Park”). Featuring Oscar-nominated performances from Tom Wilkinson, Sissy Spacek, and Marisa Tomei, “In the Bedroom” is one of only two films Todd Field has released since 2001 (the other being “Little Children” five years later). It was his directorial debut, and it was a worthy Best Picture winner.
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“Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon” (Winner: “Gladiator”)
Image Credit: Everett Collection There’s no disputing “Gladiator” is a triumph for director Ridley Scott, there just so happened to be more inspired choices for Best Picture at the 73rd Academy Awards, from Ang Lee’s Wuxia masterpiece “Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon” to Steven Soderbergh’s Best Director-winning drug trade drama “Traffic.” Either film deserved the Oscar for Best Picture over “Gladiator,” but the edge here goes to “Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon” as it rivaled (and ultimately surpassed) the jaw-dropping craft on display in “Gladiator.” If the Academy wanted to give Best Picture in 2001 to a big-budget period piece with heart-pounding action sequences and breathtaking crafts work, “Crouching Tiger” was right there.
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“Saving Private Ryan” (Winner: “Shakespeare in Love”)
Image Credit: Everett Collection The nasty Oscar battle between “Saving Private Ryan” and “Shakespeare in Love” has been well documented, and the latter’s Best Picture win over Steven Spielberg’s war epic is often called the biggest upset in Oscars’ history. What’s gotten lost in all the drama surrounding “Saving Private Ryan” vs. “Shakespeare in Love” is that the latter is a lovely period romance that does not deserve all the backlash that came its way following Oscar night. It just so happens that “Saving Private Ryan” is Spielberg’s most muscular feat of filmmaking and a definitive war movie that should have been a no-brainer for Best Picture based on its Normandy invasion opening alone.
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“Fargo” (Winner: “The English Patient”)
Image Credit: Everett Collection Diving into the history of Best Picture winners reveals the amount of times Oscar voters went for a glossy historical period drama over something far edgier and bracingly original. Case in point: Anthony Minghella’s “The English Patient” taking the Best Picture Oscar over the Coen Brothers’ “Fargo” at the 69th Academy Awards. “Fargo” won Frances McDormand the Best Actress Oscar and Joel and Ethan Coen their first Oscar for Best Screenplay, but it missed the mark for Best Picture despite being the most original entry out of the five nominees (“Jerry Maguire,” “Secrets & Lies,” and “Shine” rounded out the category). “Fargo” losing Best Picture is a reminder the Academy often gives an emerging new voice in cinema a screenwriting Oscar over Best Picture. The Coen Brothers would land their Best Picture Oscar 11 years later with “No Country for Old Men.”
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“Pulp Fiction” (Winner: “Forrest Gump”)
Image Credit: Everett Collection The Academy awarding “Forrest Gump” the Best Picture Oscar over “Pulp Fiction” and giving Quentin Tarantino the Best Original Screenplay prize follows the great Oscar tradition of only letting a breakthough new voice in cinema shine in the writing categories, and not going all in on these emerging talents for Best Picture (see “Fargo” and “Get Out” losing above). “Forrest Gump” is the definition of 1990s Oscar bait with its crowd-pleasing, history-spanning, tear-jerking story, so it wasn’t necessarily a shock that it beat out the rebellious underdog “Pulp Fiction” for the top prize. Tarantino’s crime film won the Palme d’Or at Cannes and radicalized the ’90s indie film boom. Tarantino is still waiting for his Best Picture Oscar.
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“Goodfellas” (Winner: “Dances with Wolves”)
Image Credit: Everett Collection The 63rd Academy Awards didn’t do right by Martin Scorsese’s “Goodfellas,” widely considered to be one of the greatest films ever made. The film lost Best Picture to “Dances With Wolves,” and Scorsese lost the Best Director prize to “Wolves” helmer Kevin Costner. “Goodfellas” was the season’s critical darling, winning Best Film prizes from NYFCC and LAFCA, and it was a four-time BAFTA winner (including Best Picture and Best Director), but the tides turned in favor of “Dances with Wolves” after Costner’s epic Western won the Golden Globe for Best Drama Film and the Directors Guild of America prize. “Wolves” had the Oscars-ready narrative on its side, with industry-favorite Costner making his feature directorial debut with a passion project that revitalized one of Hollywood’s most respected genres. Scorsese would have to wait until “The Departed” to claim his long-overdue Oscars.
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“My Left Foot” (Winner: “Driving Miss Daisy”)
Image Credit: Everett Collection The Academy loves awarding Best Picture to biographical dramas (see “Gandhi,” “A Beautiful Mind,” “Patton”), so it’s ironic that one of the best biographical dramas to be nominated for Best Picture did not win the Oscar. That would be Jim Sheridan’s extraordinary “My Left Foot,” starring Daniel Day-Lewis as artist Christy Brown. Unlike Best Picture winner “Driving Miss Daisy,” “My Left Foot” scored Oscar nominations in three top categories (Best Picture, Best Director, Best Adapted Screenplay), and won two acting Oscars for Daniel Day-Lewis (Best Actor) and Brenda Fricker (Best Supporting Actress). “Driving Miss Daisy” director Bruce Beresford didn’t even make the cut for Best Director. It goes without saying that the best film of 1989, Spike Lee’s “Do The Right Thing,” wasn’t even nominated for Best Picture.
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“E.T.” (Winner: “Gandhi”)
Image Credit: Everett Collection With 11 Oscar nominations and eight wins, including Best Director and Best Actor for Ben Kingsley, Richard Attenborough’s sweeping biographical drama “Gandhi” was the no-brainer pick to win Best Picture at the 55th Academy Awards by the end of the ceremony. “Gandhi” checks off many of the Academy’s most admired Best Picture qualities, which is why overlooking Steven Spielberg’s “E.T.: The Extra-Terrestrial” feels like such a missed opportunity. The Oscars rarely award science-fiction projects in top categories, but few science-fiction films are told with as much intimate self-reflection as Spielberg’s masterpiece. That “E.T.” became the highest grossing film of all time during its release gave the Academy a rare chance to award an artistic and populist blockbuster for Best Picture (on the scale of “The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King” and “Titanic”), but it went with “Gandhi” instead.
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“Raiders of the Lost Ark” (Winner: “Chariots of Fire”)
Image Credit: Everett Collection It was back-to-back Best Picture losses for Steven Spielberg as his beloved blockbusters “Raiders of the Lost Ark” and “E.T.” both were overlooked for the Oscars’ top prize in favor of more traditional historical dramas “Chariots of Fire” and “Gandhi,” respectively. At the 1982 Academy Awards, “Raiders of the Lost Ark” set the template for “Mad Max: Fury Road” (see above) by being a rousing action-adventure tentpole that deserved top prizes but had to settle for a handful of crafts wins: Best Film Editing (Michael Kahn), Best Art Direction (Norman Reynolds, Leslie Dilley, and Michael D. Ford), Best Sound (Bill Varney, Steve Maslow, Gregg Landaker, and Roy Charman), Best Sound Editing (Ben Burtt and Richard L. Anderson), and Best Visual Effects (Richard Edlund, Kit West, Bruce Nicholson, and Joe Johnston).
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“Raging Bull” (Winner: “Ordinary People”)
Image Credit: Everett Collection The Academy loves to reward a biopic, and yet it overlooked one of the greatest biopics ever made by awarding Best Picture to “Ordinary People” over “Raging Bull” at the 53rd Academy Awards. Martin Scorsese’s boxing masterpiece scored eight Oscar nominations and won for Best Actor (Robert De Niro) and Best Film Editing (Thelma Schoonmaker), but it could not take the two biggest prizes, Best Picture and Best Director, over “Ordinary People” and the family drama’s helmer Robert Redford. Perhaps the energized filmmaking and violence on display in “Raging Bull” split the Academy, as the tear-jerking domestic drama at the heart of “Ordinary People” was always going to appeal to a broader group of voters. Again, Scorsese lost out to an industry-beloved actor making his directorial debut.
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“Apocalypse Now” (Winner: “Kramer vs. Kramer”)
Image Credit: Everett Collection Emotionally devastating family dramas were all the rage for the Academy going into the 1980s as Robert Benton’s “Kramer vs. Kramer” dominated the 52nd Academy Awards just a year before “Ordinary People” did the same. With wins for Dustin Hoffman (Best Actor) and Meryl Streep (Best Supporting Actress), “Kramer vs. Kramer” was the clear favorite among the Academy’s acting branch, which represents the largest group of voters. But the directing branch sided with Benton as well for Best Director, a shock considering “Apocalypse Now” and Francis Ford Coppola were also in the running. The greatest films of all time have always been overlooked by the Academy, but it’s still surprising that such a monumental piece of filmmaking as “Apocalypse Now” got shut out of the top categories.
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“Taxi Driver” (Winner: “Rocky”)
Image Credit: Everett Collection “Rocky” is a great Best Picture winner and a great Oscars underdog story. The scrappy boxing crowd-pleaser had a budget under $1 million (unadjusted for inflation) and went on to become a box office phenomenon ($225 million, which equates to over $1 billion today) and Oscar winner for Best Picture and Best Director (for John G. Avildsen). It was a success story that rivaled the character’s journey at the heart of the film and proved small indie productions could compete on the Oscars stage (flashforward to “Moonlight” so many years later). No one should take away from “Rocky’s” Best Picture victory, but it goes without saying that Martin Scorsese’s “Taxi Driver” was the best film among the Best Picture nominees (a stacked field that also included Sidney Lumet’s “Network”). Considering Scorsese did not even land a Best Director nomination, it wasn’t a surprise that his masterpiece didn’t take the top prize.
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“M*A*S*H” (Winner: “Patton”)
Image Credit: Everett Collection The 43rd Academy Awards was a battle between two classics of the war film genre: Robert Altman’s counter-culture masterpiece “M*A*S*H” and Franklin J. Schaffner’s grand World War II epic “Patton.” It’s no surprise Oscar voters sided in favor of the stately, more polished “Patton,” which won Academy Awards for Best Picture, Best Actor, Best Director, Best Original Screenplay (for Francis Ford Coppola and Edmund North), and more. “M*A*S*H” had to settle for just the Best Adapted Screenplay prize, although its pre-Oscars awards included the Palme d’Or at the Cannes Film Festival. Both war films were Best Picture worthy, but there’s something frustrating about the Academy getting an obvious chance to award a hugely popular comedy like “M*A*S*H” and not going all in on the opportunity. “Patton” was the safer, more prestigious-on-paper choice.
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“Dr. Strangelove” (“My Fair Lady”)
Image Credit: Everett Collection The only Oscar Stanley Kubrick ever won was Best Visual Effects for “2001: A Space Odyssey,” which tells you everything you need to know about the Academy’s insignificance when it comes to distinguishing the best voices in cinema. The director’s science-fiction opus, “2001,” didn’t even land a Best Picture nomination. “Barry Lyndon” and “A Clockwork Orange” did, but they lost to “One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest” and “The French Connection” (no reason to complain about that). “Dr. Strangelove” was Kubrick’s first Best Picture nominee and his most deserved winner, considering the nominees included “My Fair Lady,” “Becket,” “Zorba the Greek,” and “Mary Poppins.” “Strangelove” was the boldest and most original offering of the bunch, and yet the grand musical “My Fair Lady” won out at a time when grand musicals were Academy catbip (see “The Sound of Music” winning the following year).
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“Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf?” (Winner: “A Man for All Seasons”)
Image Credit: Everett Collection Fred Zinnemann’s “A Man for All Seasons” was the darling of the 39th Academy Awards, winning Best Picture, Best Director, Best Actor, and three more Oscars. Its biggest rival was Mike Nichols’ bracing feature directorial debut “Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf?,” nominated for 13 Oscars and winner of Best Actress (for Elizabeth Taylor), Best Supporting Actress (for Sandy Dennis), and more. The movie is one of only two films to be nominated in every eligible category at the Academy Awards (the other being 1931’s “Cimarron”), and it was the first feature to land Oscar nominations in all four acting categories. “Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf?” is one of the greatest directorial debuts, but Nichols would have to wait for “The Graduate” to win his Oscar.
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