The Academy Awards have been a staple of the film industry for almost as long as film itself has been around. Whether people love it for the shine and spotlight it gives to certain films that otherwise would not receive that much attention, or whether people hate it for mainly making the show the focus of whatever political agenda the higher ups are trying to push at the time rather than actually focusing on the quality of the movies, the Oscars still have quite a bit of clout when it comes to Hollywood. Every year, however, despite all the films that are nominated, there are always a massive amount of films that people yell, kick and scream are snubbed. While the Oscars have, for the most part, always had a reason for rewarding the films that they have, there have been a certain amount of times where certain people and/or films won that made everyone question whether the Academy actually knew what they were doing when it came to voting in the first place. In order to give this point some perspective, here are ten of the biggest mistakes the Academy has made over its 90-year run.
10. Adam Sandler not nominated for Best Actor for “Punch Drunk Love” (2002)
Granted, 2002 was not the best year in the Academy’s history, not to mention that the Oscars seemed to ignore Paul Thomas Anderson completely until 2007, but this one, by today’s comparison, feels especially sinful. Not only is this still Adam Sandler’s best performance of all time, but the sheer amount of damage and despair that he is able to so compellingly portray demonstrates a level of depth that nobody at the time even knew he was capable of.
9. “Sicario” getting little to no nominations (2015)
Everyone who talks about Denis Villeneuve today loves talking about his two most recent successes: “Arrival” and “Blade Runner 2049.” Without these films, however, he would still be the guy known for that one movie in 2013 that nobody saw, even though it contained Hugh Jackman’s best performance ever outside of the “X-Men” franchise. The fact that outside of cinematography, score and sound editing, this film, which contained some of the most tense scenes ever put to film, was nominated for absolutely nothing is tragic. Besides Villeneuve, enormous talent surrounded him including Emily Blunt, Benicio Del Toro and screenwriter Taylor Sheridan.
8. “Kramer vs. Kramer” winning Best Picture over “Apocalypse Now” (1979)
This is one that not a lot of people talk about. “Kramer vs. Kramer” is well known as the movie that got both Dustin Hoffman and Meryl Streep their first Oscars, with Hoffman having been snubbed twice at that point. But the movie itself winning over what many consider to be Francis Ford Coppola’s magnum opus upset many people, especially considering what a hardship it was for Coppola to actually make the movie. From running over budget to shooting and on-set problems, from Martin Sheen’s heart attack on set to every single problem with Marlon Brando, not to mention the fact that the film ended up taking three whole years to make. Laurence Fishburne, who lied about his age in order to get on the set of the film, stating he was 17 when he was actually only 14, did not have to lie anymore once the film was actually released. That’s how long it took. Not to say that “Kramer vs. Kramer” is a bad movie, but when put in perspective, there really is no comparison.
7. “The King’s Speech” winning Best Picture, Director and Screenplay over “The Social Network” and “Inception” (2010)
Another situation where the majority winner’s choice puzzled quite a few people without being that terrible of a movie. “The King’s Speech,” the largely fictionalized story about how King George VI had to overcome a horrific stammer in order to deliver a rousing speech, won Best Picture, Director for Tom Hooper, Actor for Colin Firth and Original Screenplay for writer David Seidler. The fact that this film beat out “The Social Network” and “Inception” for these four awards shocked many people, who found that both of those films largely exceeded “The King’s Speech” from many different points.
6. Roberto Benigni winning Best Actor over Tom Hanks, Ian McKellen and Edward Norton (1998)
1998 is a year that a lot of film fans would like to forget, and one of those reasons is this Oscars ceremony. A ceremony where a majority of the selections either felt very undeserving or just plain Oscar-baity, one of the many sins that people feel were committed that night was Roberto Benigni winning Best Actor for his Italian film, “Life is Beautiful,” which tried to put a slightly lighter touch on the Holocaust. The fact that his slapstick performance contended with Tom Hanks’ morally and physically compromised World War II captain in “Saving Private Ryan,” Ian McKellen’s touching portrayal of “Frankenstein,” director James Whale in “Gods & Monsters,” and Edward Norton’s shockingly amazing ability to make audiences sympathize with a Neo-Nazi in “American History X” and somehow beat out all of them is a memory that most Academy voters would very much like to forget.
5. Art Carney winning Best Actor over Al Pacino (1974)
Al Pacino is one of the greatest living actors of all time, and the fact that it took him almost 30 years after he started acting to win his one and only Oscar is ridiculous. But despite “Scent of a Woman” being an amazing performance, it still came off as feeling like a lifetime achievement award because of him getting snubbed for best actor 18 years before for his incredibly dynamic, three-dimensional and overall hauntingly amazing performance as Michael Corleone in easily one of the greatest movie sequels ever made, “The Godfather II.” And who won over him? “The Honeymooners” star Art Carney for a little-known movie called “Harry and Tonto” about an elderly man who travels across the country with his cat.
4. “Dances with Wolves” winning Best Picture over “Goodfellas” (1990)
While this is often regarded as one of the most glaring mistakes the Academy has made, one can at the very least understand where most Academy voters were coming from for this decision. The Oscars have a long-standing tradition of being suckers for historical epics, and “Dances with Wolves” checked off all those boxes. With all of that being said, this win is still a complete sham because the filmmaking techniques exhibited by Martin Scorsese, who was at the top of his game in “Goodfellas,” still holds up 28 years later. There is something to be said about kicking off two different decades with two of the best films ever made, both of which were snubbed for Best Picture.
3. “2001: A Space Odyssey” not even being nominated for Best Picture (1968)
Despite the many incredible films and filmmakers that have been nominated by the Academy, there were still plenty that were never given their just due, the most recent example being Christopher Nolan finally receiving his long-overdue Best Director nomination for “Dunkirk.” But despite his three nominations for the award, Stanley Kubrick, regarded by many as one of the greatest filmmakers of all time, never won his award. What makes it even worse is that the film that many consider to be his magnum opus, “2001: A Space Odyssey,” a film that critic after critic after critic has regarded as the pinnacle of science fiction in film, did not even receive a nomination for Best Picture.
2. “Shakespeare in Love” winning Best Picture over “Saving Private Ryan” (1998)
The biggest embarrassment to end the night of the Oscars 19 years ago is made even worse now by the fact that the studio behind this travesty was none other than the Weinstein Company, making this win feel even more shady and bought out than it already was. Not only does this film winning over “Saving Private Ryan” add a whole new definition to the word tragic, but it feels almost offensive how a fluffy period piece about a fictionalized account of William Shakespeare won over easily the greatest war film ever made. World War II veterans called that opening Normandy Beach scene the closest representation of that event they felt they would ever seen on screen.
1. “How Green was my Valley” winning Best Picture over “Citizen Kane” (1941)
There are many ways to be disrespectful to film, and there are plenty of people, both within the Academy and outside, who have done so. And if there is one thing that comes close to disrespecting war veterans and the dedication they put in to their country, it is disrespecting the origin of film today as viewing audiences know it, and that is what this victory feels like today. “Citizen Kane” is objectively the film that allowed for filmmaking as both a storytelling medium and an art form to progress to the level that it has today. The fact that “How Green was my Valley,” which is not even a good film by comparison today, won over it is downright embarrassing.
Image from Stanley Kubrick via YouTube.com
