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15 Famous Oscar Snubs

Yesterday’s Oscar nominations came with major snubs, but it certainly wasn’t the first time the Academy stuck it to likely contenders.

Academy Awards

No Kathryn Bigelow?! No Ben Affleck?! Yesterday’s Oscar nominations brought their fair share of shocking snubs, but it certainly wasn’t the first time the Academy stuck it to likely contenders. Looking back over Academy Awards history, there are many dumbfounding, surprising omissions to be found—realizations that underscore the belief that Oscar nods hardly indicate long-term quality. Be them unforgivable or just bewildering, we’ve selected 15 snubs that no doubt had people talking…heatedly.


City Lights

Best Picture, City Lights (1930)

At Oscar’s fourth ceremony, Cimarron walked away with Best Picture, and Best Director went to Norman Taurog for Skippy. But there was no love at all for Charlie Chaplin’s City Lights, now considered a priceless treasure of the silent era. Failing to earn nods for Director, Actor, and, most egregiously, Picture, the iconic romance wasn’t the last Chaplin classic to be stiffed by the Academy—they also passed on Modern Times six years later.


Of Human Bondage

Best Actress, Bette Davis in Of Human Bondage (1934)

Scandal swept through Hollywood when Bette Davis’s lauded work in Of Human Bondage failed to make the Academy’s 1934 ballot. Swayed by the outcry, the group agreed to its first sanctioned write-in, and Davis’s competitors (Claudette Colbert, Grace Moore, and Norma Shearer) were so convinced she’d emerge the victor that none even went to the ceremony. Arguably the first of the now rampant de-glammed, baity Best Actress turns, Davis’s performance still couldn’t keep the gold away from Colbert, who won after all for her work in It Happened One Night.


Bringing Up Baby

Best Adapted Screenplay, Bringing Up Baby (1938)

Howard Hawks’s Bringing Up Baby didn’t manage a single Oscar nod, and furthermore, it was a flop upon its release, so much so that star Katherine Hepburn got labeled “box office poison.” These days, the film is widley regarded as the mother of screwball comedies, its madcap nature and sexual undertones perfectly calibrated. So while one might be able to swallow the snubbing of Hawks, Hepburn, Cary Grant, and even the picture itself, the dismissal of the script, by Dudley Nichols, Robert McGowan, and Hagar Wilde (based on Wilde’s short story), seems downright criminal.


His Girl Friday

Best Actress, Rosalind Russell in His Girl Friday (1940)

Another Hawks triumph jilted by the Academy, His Girl Friday was left out in the cold, missing the cut for Picture, Director, Screenplay, Actor (Cary Grant), and Actress (Rosalind Russell). The latter snub stings the most, as Russell’s portrayal of Hildy Johnson became her signature performance, a verbose yet focused embodiment and a big step forward for actresses in the biz.

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Singin' in the Rain

Best Picture, Singin’ in the Rain (1952)

The Best Picture snub of Singin’ in the Rain is one of Oscar’s biggest head-scratchers, as the Gene Kelly classic, now regarded among America’s all-time greatest, has the uplifting spectacle oft-favored by Oscar, and it’s a Hollywood story to boot. As is typical of many snubbed films on this list, the musical was coolly received upon release, and only mustered a WGA win and a Golden Globe for star Donald O’Connor.


The Searchers

Best Picture, The Searchers (1956)

With a record four director Oscars to his credit, John Ford didn’t exactly need a fifth for helming The Searchers, but it’s a bit of a shock that neither he nor his signature western landed nominations. The AFI isn’t always the greatest source for what’s best, but in 2008, they did rightly name this film the greatest western of all time, not to mention placing it 12th on the list of greatest films in general. Particularly complex for its day, the film at least mustered commercial success, no doubt thanks to John Wayne, who, incidentally, also failed to score a nod.


Vertigo

Best Picture, Vertigo (1958)

And speaking of best-of-all-time lists, recent Sight & Sound poll victor Vertigo was given the shaft by Oscar too, failing to make the cut in Director (Alfred Hitchcock), Actor (Jimmy Stewart), Actress (Kim Novak), and Picture. The classic thriller fell to the crowd-pleasing power of Gigi, Vincente Minelli’s alleged copy of My Fair Lady. It’s often said, of course, that the best art isn’t understood in its time, and Hitchcock’s best film is a testament to just that.


La Dolce Vita

Best Actor, Marcello Mastroianni in La Dolce Vita (1961)

During his highly impressive career, Italian superstar Marcello Mastroianni scored three Best Actor Oscar nominations, cited for his work in Divorce Italian Style, A Special Day, and Dark Eyes. But he never received the love he deserved for his work with Federico Fellini, who directed him to perfection in 8 ½ and especially La Dolce Vita, a film that earned a nod for its maker but not its star. Terribly iconic, Mastroianni’s work rivaled that of victor Maximilian Schell (Judgment at Nuremberg) and fellow nominee Paul Newman (The Hustler)

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Rosemary’s Baby

Best Actress, Mia Farrow in Rosemary’s Baby (1968)

Though the film netted a win for Supporting Actress Ruth Gordon, Rosemary’s Baby didn’t even land a nom for its eponymous heroine, whom Mia Farrow scarily embodied like a ghostly pixie clinging to life. A masterwork among horror pictures, Roman Polanki’s movie wouldn’t be half of what it is without Farrow’s invaluable presence, which, one might argue, couldn’t even be better utilized by Woody Allen.


Saturday Night Fever

Best Picture, Saturday Night Fever (1977)

It may now be thought of as more of a punchline than a classic, but in its time, Saturday Night Fever was, to quote LL Cool J, something like a phenomenon, defining the disco era and boosting the hot career of head hip-shaker John Travolta. Still, it couldn’t charm the bell bottoms off of Oscar, as the film was snubbed in the Best Picture race, failing to join the ranks of Academy-favored hits like Star Wars.


Do the Right Thing

Best Director, Spike Lee for Do the Right Thing (1989)

One might have expected that Spike Lee’s incendiary race drama Do the Right Thing was a bit too divisive to land a Best Picture nod, but there was really no excuse for Lee’s exclusion in the Best Director category. As this season alone has proved, the directing field is a place for bold visionaries, and there was no one bolder than Lee in 1989, the year that saw the auteur release the film that remains cinema’s greatest treatise on race relations.


Hoop Dreams

Best Documentary Feature, Hoop Dreams (1994)

Considered by most to be one of the best films of the 1990s, Steve James’s celebrated documentary Hoop Dreams couldn’t win Oscar’s attention, despite following its Sundance debut with a string of prestigious honors (among them trophies from the PGA, the LA Film Critics, the National Society of Film Critics, and the Chicago Film Critics, home to chief champion Roger Ebert). The reaction to the movie’s snub resulted in an overhaul of the category’s nominating process, which previously involved voters “giving up” on films partway through.

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Mulholland Drive

Best Actress, Naomi Watts in Mulholland Drive (2001)

A lot of actresses have seen their Oscar chances squashed in recent years, but it’s hard to think of a more unjustly overlooked female turn than Naomi Watts in Mulholland Drive. True, Watts has been honored since, recently earning her second career nod for The Impossible, but her dual portrayal of Betty and Diane in David Lynch’s masterpiece may just be the performance of this century. Chew on that, Academy.


Sideways

Best Actor, Paul Giamatti in Sideways (2004)

Alexander Payne’s wine-country dramedy was a huge hit with Oscar voters, winning bids in the Picture, Director, and Supporting Acting categories, so it’s bit suspicious that Paul Giamatti was passed over in Best Actor, especially since his performance was the movie’s most indelible (has anyone gone to a tasting bar since without thinking of a certain desperate chugging scene?). Giamatti later earned a Supporting nod for Cinderella Man after the Academy realized the error, but that still leaves his most soulful work unrecognized.


The Dark Knight

Best Picture, The Dark Knight (2008)

Reportedly the film responsible for the Academy’s revised Best Picture rules (its snub incited the return of the 10-wide lineup, now changed to a field with an uncertain total) The Dark Knight was believed by nearly everyone to be a shoo-in—a critical darling that would finally change Oscar’s aversion to comic-book fare. But, alas, the caped-crusader sequel only managed technical nods and a posthumous win for Heath Ledger, who put his unforgettable stamp on The Joker. Oddly enough, Christopher Nolan’s threequel, The Dark Knight Rises, is this year’s biggest snubbee, shut out of every single category. Holy irony, Batman.

R. Kurt Osenlund

R. Kurt Osenlund is a creative director and account supervisor at Mark Allen & Co. He is the former editor of Out magazine.

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