| Scene from The Greatest Show on Earth courtesy of stagevu.com |
#50. Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf? (1966)
Lost to: A Man for All Seasons
It may be the greatest performance of Elizabeth Taylor's career, opposite her husband Richard Burton. Both actors scored nominations, plus supporting nods for Sandy Denis and George Segal. All in all, the film racked up 13 nominations and five wins, two of which were for Taylor and Denis. But, when all was said and done, Paul Scofield and his performance as Thomas Moore in the biopic of A Man For All Seasons took home the gold (both Lead Actor and Picture, respectively). Retrospectively, Virginia Woolf has gone down as one of the most brutal looks at a twisted family dynamic and almost felt like a look inside the roller coaster marriage of Taylor and Burton.
#49. 12 Angry Men (1957)
Lost to: The Bridge on the River Kwai
Sidney Lumet's definitive courtroom drama somehow only garnered three nominations - Director and Screenplay, in addition to Picture. Since Oscar night, it has been slowly built up as one of the greatest looks at the justice system, with Henry Fonda in a brilliant performance as the only doubter in a room full of frustrated jurors who just want to slap the handcuffs on an innocent man. Pitted against Lee J. Cobb as the most one-sided, blind-to-the-facts juror in the history of cinema, Fonda shines. I would never jump to the conclusion to say it's a better film than The Bridge on the River Kwai, but it's certainly a lot easier to re-watch and enjoy.
#48. M*A*S*H (1970)
Lost to: Patton
Robert Altman has a laundry list of brilliant films, most of which were nominated for something, but missed out on major gold. M*A*S*H was the first one to truly break into the mold, using the Altman-esque technique of filmmaking and screenwriting. The story fits together loosely, characters talk over each other, and it takes a serious topic and flips it on its head. Altman's skill would be honed and be injected into other wonderful Best Picture nominees (Nashville, Gosford Park), but this war comedy that gave birth to one of the greatest television shows of all time was the first to break into the fold. It lost to a good film and sits alongside Five Easy Pieces as another Best Picture loser from that year. Not bad company.
#47. Top Hat (1935)
Lost to: Mutiny on the Bounty
In the 1930's, the Academy essentially nominated anything that wasn't bad. Alongside eleven other nominees sat possibly the greatest Fred Astaire/Ginger Rogers collaboration Top Hat. While Astaire is a beloved performer, he never received any nominations for his acting in musicals with Rogers (or anyone else for that matter). In fact, his only Oscar nomination came in 1974 for Best Supporting Actor in...The Towering Inferno. Top Hat grabbed three nominations other than Best Picture, for Original Song, Art Direction, and Dance Direction, but won nothing. Regardless, other than the winner that year, Top Hat stands head and shoulders above its fellow nominees. Maybe even above Mutiny on the Bounty.
#49. High Noon (1952)
Lost to: The Greatest Show on Earth
It lost the Oscar to what has gone down in history as one of the worst Best Pictures of all time (no argument here). This western that grabbed seven nominations and four wins (Editing, Original Song, Music, Lead Actor) may not be as good as billed, but it's still an original film that works well. The film focuses on Gary Cooper's Will Kane as he struggles between sticking around until the clock strikes 12 to fight incoming enemies or leaving with his new bride, played by Grace Kelly. As the clock moves forward, he gets less and less support from the townspeople he is trying to protect. The movie is essentially filmed in real time, flashing back to the clock over and over. While Gary Cooper was never really that great an actor, the filmmaking techniques manage to cloak his stiff facade and create one of the greatest westerns of all time. Besides, Grace Kelly is an epic definition of beauty in it.
#45. Yankee Doodle Dandy (1942)
Lost to: Mrs. Miniver
The man who is better known for his gangster films gave what may be his best performance ever in this biopic of the great George M. Cohan. James Cagney won an Oscar for his lead performance, showing audiences a very different side to the man who would eventually become better known for playing a psychopath with an Oedipal complex (White Heat). Yankee Doodle Dandy grabbed seven nominations and three wins, for Cagney, Best Score, and Best Sound. Directed by the great Michael Curtiz, Cagney's love letter to the music of America still stands up as a shot of life, even against the nine other nominees.
#44. Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid (1969)
Lost to: Midnight Cowboy
It was the movie that forever embedded Paul Newman and Robert Redford as an iconic pair of actors and redefined the western genre. It was nominated for seven Oscars, winning four (Song, Music, Cinematography, Adapted Screenplay), but still didn't garner any nominations for acting. This story of two bank robbers on their way to Bolivia to escape the law is packed with memorable scenes and lines as Newman and Redford put a stamp on their illustrious careers. The catch: it lost to the first X-rated film to ever be nominated (and win) Best Picture. I'm not arguing - Midnight Cowboy is great.
#43. Guess Who's Coming to Dinner (1967)
Lost to: In the Heat of the Night
The nominees for Best Picture this year were loaded. Two of the other films nominated are higher on this list for various reasons. Unfortunately, Stanley Kramer's story of race relations and family dysfunction was up against another film about race relations, the other more visceral (though also starring Sydney Poitier). Oddly enough, none of this film's ten nominations or any of In the Heat of the Night's seven nominations included Poitier, who was wonderful in both films, in very different roles. Katharine Hepburn won an Oscar for her work, but the film's true gem was the final performance of Spencer Tracy, also nominated for an Oscar (he lost to Rod Steiger for In the Heat of the Night). Based on how the Academy likes to vote now, if this lineup of films were nominated again this year, I'd put my money on Guess Who's Coming to Dinner. Or, sadly enough, Dr. Doolittle.
#42. The Social Network (2010)
Lost to: The King's Speech
Since the mid-90's, there has slowly existed a building divide between critics and the Academy. When Oscar race tracking became so much more evident and easier, statisticians began recording numbers of precursor wins, critic society awards, and guild nominations. In the second year of the "let's have ten nominees" transition the Academy tried out, we saw the sharpest recent divide we've ever seen between two films. The Social Network all but swept the critical awards before the Oscars, only to lose to a light historical story about an English king overcoming a stutter. It's the most recent entry on this list, but if there was ever a year that showed clear evidence of the type of movie the Academy was looking for in recent memory, it was this one.
#41. The Philadelphia Story (1940)
Lost to: Rebecca
Screwball comedies aren't supposed to win Oscars. While The Philadelphia Story isn't exactly "screwball," it is an extremely light crowd-pleaser that suffered from two problems: it was up against the only Hitchcock film ever to win Best Picture and it was one of ten nominees, four of which would historically go down as truly classic films (one more is coming up on this list). That being said, Jimmy Stewart won his only Oscar for this wonderful film about relationships, storytelling, and the passion of the press. Among all the nominations, somehow Cary Grant missed out (though I would argue he was more the lead than Stewart and every bit as good). It's just more evidence of how perfectly crafted this film was, character to character, scene to scene.
Whew. That was exhausting. And that's only the beginning. We have forty more to go as we retrace Oscar history and diagram its mistakes, indecisions, and the monumentally difficult choices the Academy has made since 1927.
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