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| Oscar's Biggest Snubs |
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Maybe they didn't win the Oscar, but these movies and stars won our hearts.
Ever since 1929, the Academy Awards have honored some of our greatest cinematic performances and films -- but they don't always get it right. Welcome to the "snub club." It's a group of epic films, iconic directors and big-screen superstars that were underappreciated, unheralded and sometimes completely ignored by the Academy. As of 2022, we're talking movie titans such as Tom Cruise, Michelle Pfeiffer, Mia Farrow, Sigourney Weaver and Samuel L. Jackson, and fan favorites that got no awards at all ('The Shawshank Redemption', we're looking at you).
"There are so many factors that go into choosing a winner beyond aesthetic greatness," says historian and Oscars expert Noah Isenberg, who chairs the film department at the University of Texas at Austin and whose book 'We'll Always Have Casablanca' chronicles the story of one of Hollywood's all-time classics. "Tastes are subjective, and certain films accrue value in time." Join us as we salute the losers we love.
ACTORS
Cary Grant
He charmed his fans with his debonair British charisma but somehow couldn't sway the Academy to ever reward him (except for an honorary statue in 1970). Though Grant's impressive resume features classics such as 'Bringing Up Baby' (1938), 'His Girl Friday' (1940) and 'North by Northwest' (1959), he landed only two Oscar nominations. More puzzling, he was the only lead in 1940's 'The Philadelphia Story' to not get an acting nod. But his co-star James Stewart won.
Glenn Close
Close holds the record for the actress with the most Oscar nods who's never won, with eight, despite standout turns in films including 'Fatal Attraction' (1987), 'Dangerous Liasons' (1988), 'The Wife' (2018) and 2020's 'Hillbilly Elegy'.
Judy Garland
Can you believe the legendary star of 'Meet Me in St. Louis' (1944), 'A Star Is Born' (1954) and 'Judgement at Nuremberg' (1961) was virtually ignored by the Academy? She had just two nods, and her only trip to the podium was when she received an honorary juvenile award in 1940 for hopping down the yellow brick road in 'The Wizard of Oz'.
Peter O'Toole
The British thespian lost eight times, including twice for playing King Henry II (in 1964's 'Becket' and in 'The Lion in Winter' four years later). The Academy ultimately gave him an honorary award in 2003.
Cicely Tyson
In 2018, Tyson became the first Black woman to win an honorary Academy Award. Accepting the trophy, she called the honor "the culmination of all those years of have and have not." Until then, she had been nominated just once: for her 1972 Depression-era drama 'Sounder'. (Liza Minnelli took gold in the category for 'Cabaret' that year.) But her contributions live on, with notable work in films ranging from 'The River Niger' (1976) to 'The Help' (2011).
Charlie Chaplin
Passed over by the Academy for most of his career, the pioneering silent-film superstar received two honorary awards -- one near the start of his career (1929) and another at the end (1972). But in between, his masterpieces -- 'City Lights' (1931), 'Modern Times' (1936) and 'The Great Dictator' (1940) -- were ignored.
Bill Murray
It has been said: "Dying is easy, winning an Oscar for comedy is hard." Why else would the beloved star of 'Caddyshack' (1980), 'Stripes' (1981), 'Ghostbusters' (1984), 'What About Bob?' (1991), 'Groundhog Day' (1993) and 'Rushmore' (1998) have just one nomination -- for Best Actor for 'Lost in Translation' (2003) -- to show for his incredible 40-year movie career?
DIRECTORS
Alfred Hitchcock
The Master of Suspense never won, despite Best Director nominatoins for 'Rebecca' (1940), 'Lifeboat' (1944), 'Spellbound' (1945), 'Rear Window' (1954) and 'Psycho' (1960). "There's really no good explanation," Prof. Isenberg says. He eventually got a lifetime achievement award in 1968, but it was too little, too late. For his speech, Hitch simply said, "Thank you, very much indeed," then left the stage.
Barbra Streisand
In the well over 90-year history of the Oscars, just a handful of women have been nominated for Best Director. "The Academy was a boys' club for a long time," Prof. Isenberg says. "They've now finally started to course-correct." Perhaps the most egregious snub belongs to Barbra Streisand and her tearjerker 'The Prince of Tides'. It earned seven nominations in 1992, including Best Picture, but she was ignored in the director category. (She has wins for her starring role in 1968's 'Funny Girl' and for co-writing 1977's Best Original Song, "Evergreen", from 'A Star Is Born'.)
Stanley Kubrick
He directed some of the most iconic films ever -- 'Spartacus' (1960), 'Dr. Strangelove' (1964), '2001: A Space Odyssey' (1968), 'The Shining' (1980) and 'Full Metal Jacket' (1987) among them -- and was nominated for Best Director four times, but never won. "Artists who turn out to be ahead of their time tend not to win Oscars," Prof. Isenberg says. Kubrick's lone consolation prize: a special effects Oscar for '2001: A Space Odyssey', considered now an OG of visionary sci-fi filmmaking.
MOVIES
'The Shawshank Redemption'
Just about everyone's favorite prison drama landed seven nominations in 1995, including for Best Picture and honors for Morgan Freeman in the Best Actor category. But he, along with everyone else associated with the film, went home empty-handed. Blame Tom Hanks and 'Forrest Gump', which steamrolled the competition that year.
'Goodfellas'
Almost any of director Martin Scorsese's classics could be included here, from 'Taxi Driver' (1976) to 'Raging Bull' (1980). But let's single out 'Goodfellas', his dazzling take on the New York City mob scene in the 1960s and 1970s, which somehow didn't lead to glory in the Best Director and Best Picture categories in 1991. Instead, Kevin Costner and his Western 'Dances With Wolves' nabbed top honors. Scorsese woldn't win until 2007 for 'The Departed'.
'The Princess Bride'
Altogether now: Inconceivable! Mandy Patinkin, who played revenge-seeking swordsman Inigo Montoya once compared the Rob Reiner-directed gem's ageless legacy to that of 'The Wizard of Oz'. But the 1987 film was nominated for just one Oscar, for Best Original Song.
'Singin' In The Rain'
The 1952 romance starring Gene Kelly, Debbie Reynolds and Donald O'Connor is still considered a classic. Yet it won zero Oscars and was nominated only for Best Supporting Actress and Best Score. Its theme may have dinged its chances, Prof. Isenberg says: "Beneath that sparkling Technicolor surface and all that entertainment is a pretty harsh critique of Tinseltown. Hollywood likes to be celebrated."
'Do The Right Thing'
It was just wrong when Spike Lee's powerful commentary on race relations was omitted for Best Picture in 1990 -- the same year the more quaint 'Driving Miss Daisy' won. "I don't think voters were ready for his kind of radical storytelling style," Prof. Isenberg says. Lee did win an honorary Oscar in 2016 and a screenplay trophy for 'BlacKkKlansman' in 2019.
'E.T The Extra-Terrestrial'
The biggest blockbuster of the 1980s received nine nominations yet only succeeded in the technical categories of Best Original Score, Best Visual Effects, Best Sound and Best Sound Effects Editing. Richard Attenborough later declared that it should have won Best Picture as well -- and he directed 'Ghandi', the drama that bested it!
'The Searchers'
Directed by John Ford and starring John Wayne, the 1956 Western is an intense revenge-and-redemption tale that influenced everything from 'Star Wars' to 'Breaking Bad'. The film was rewarded with zero nominations. Wayne didn't receive his only Best Actor Oscar until 1970 for 'True Grit'.
- Mara Reinstein |
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