Image via Complex Original
New year, same shit. The voting board that comprises the Academy Awards has a long and storied history of bricking it when it comes to both nominations and the actual award, going back decades. This year, weep for David Oyelowo, other neglected stars from Selma, and the like who came up with lint in their pockets and bare spaces on their shelves this year, but also keep in mind that they've just joined a prestigious crop of films, actors, and directors who've been frustratingly overlooked in years past. Here are some of the most glaring moments in history when the Academy gave the statue to the wrong people.
Pulp Fiction
Snubbed for: Best Picture; Best Director (Quentin Tarantino)
Lost to: Forrest Gump; Robert Zemeckis
Year: 1995
Does any film elicit awards remorse more than the perfectly basic TNT staple Forrest Gump? It's a good movie, and props to Tom Hanks for flourishing in the easy awards route Robert Downey Jr. would later detail perfectly in what we shall now refer to as the Tropic Thunder Theorem, but something's got to give. Pulp Fiction's screenplay was duly honored, but, considering the ways in which it would go on to influence film (and in some cases, be straight up swaggerjacked), Quentin Tarantino's first masterpiece deserved every award it was nominated for. And if a loss for the Big Two was in the cards, then at the very least not to a veritable Hallmark movie and its director. The world still waits for the Academy to finally give QT that Best Director statue he deserves.
Raging Bull
Snubbed for: Best Picture; Best Director (Martin Scorsese)
Lost to: Ordinary People; Robert Redford
Year: 1981
If Goodfellas isn't Marty's best, then the next logical choice is his boxing epic with his favorite actor collaborator, De Niro the god. At least the Academy recognized the greatness in that performance, but when it came down to the Big Two they instead chose to honor...Robert Redford's Suburban Problems melodrama. Just an early entry in many head-scratching Scorsese Snubs.
Memento
Snubbed for: Best Screenplay
Lost to: Gosford Park
Year: 2002
Christopher Nolan had a way to climb before achieving his God Level status today when he hit us over the head with the narratively trippy Memento. But if there's one area where his early genius couldn't be ignored, it's in the precisely-plotted, breathtakingly twisty script. Gosford Park is more fire from a fellow auteur in Robert Altman, but it's also a Clue send-up that nobody remembers half as fondly.
Fargo
Snubbed for: Best Picture; Best Director (Joel Coen)
Lost to: The English Patient; Anthony Minghella
Year: 1997
Elaine Benes said it best: The English Patient is washed on arrival, fuck a "sexy" bathtub scene. Meanwhile dudes are so inspired by Fargo they're spinning it off into engrossing one-off crime stories, meanwhile Patient's enduring legacy is...being ethered on Seinfeld.
Elizabeth
Snubbed for: Best Actress (Cate Blanchett)
Lost to: Shakespeare in Love (Gwyneth Paltrow)
Year: 1999
This is a clear-cut case of Academy voters geeking over a film whose notoriety went way down, very fast. The whole world sobered up and realized Shakespeare in Love is actually lightweight basic, and in the wake of its Oscar cleanup lies the enigmatic Cate Blanchett's regal performance as Queen Elizabeth in the rubble.
Rachel Getting Married
Snubbed for: Best Actress (Anne Hathaway)
Lost to: The Reader (Kate Winslet)
Year: 2009
Before Hathaway-hate reached peak levels—she's basically the Taylor Swift of faux-award-surprise-faces—the film streets were championing her to bring home the gold for her raw, endearing portrayal of a quirky recovering addict in Rachel Getting Married. Alas, she fell victim to another classic case of Academy Guilt™, when voters chose to finally acknowledge the great Kate Winslet for the mediocre The Reader. Of course, Anne would later cash in her dues for her own guilt win when she came up on a Best Supporting Actress statue for Les Miserables. The lesson here: lay low and wait for eventual acknowledgment, word to Marty.
Citizen Kane
Snubbed for: Best Picture
Lost to: How Green Was My Valley
Year: 1942
Leave it up to the Academy to brick properly awarding what would go on to be considered the best film of all time. What the hell is a How Green Was My Valley, even? OK, it's actually a pretty good John Ford flick, worthy of ending up on any self-respecting film buff's must-watch queue. But has it been taught in film courses across the country for the past several decades? And there endeth the debate.
Goodfellas
Snubbed for: Best Picture; Best Director (Martin Scorsese)
Lost to: Dances with Wolves; Kevin Costner
Year: 1991
Goodfelllas is the best mob movie of all time (no disrespect to The Godfather), one of the best movies of all time, and potentially Scorsese's best movie. And then there's Dances with freaking Wolves. This is the nature of the Academy Awards: forcing you to disparage otherwise fire movies that nevertheless didn't deserve the gold. Kevin Costner made a Western epic, no doubt. But against the saga of Henry Hill, Academy voters would've been better off getting their fucking shinebox.
Zero Dark Thirty, The Hurt Locker
Snubbed for: Best Picture; Best Actor
Lost to: Argo; Crazy Heart
Year: 2013/2010
Here's another case of a perfectly fine movie that has to get dragged simply because it wasn't the best in the crop. Argo is great fun for the whole family, and more importantly, solidified that Ben Affleck, Serious Thespian and Artiste, was an actual movement. Gone were the days of romancing J. Lo on-screen and ill-suited Marvel superheroes. But it ranks low on the tour de force scale when paired against Kathryn Bigelow's exhilarating, engrossing Zero Dark Thirty. At least Jessica Chastain got her due, though. Jeff Bridges' washed up country singer trumping her Bigelow lead predecessor in The Hurt Locker, on the other hand, does not. Jeremy Renner hasn't been the same since.