How about the Oscars 2021?
We already saw who’s nominated and who won, so let’s prepare for the year’s biggest entertainment award in a new way: by running down the biggest, and most unbelievable Oscar snubs in history.
Thought a favorite of yours won big? Think again. You’ll be super surprised to see just how many great movies…and actors, got nothing to thank the Academy for.
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Here’s the show transcript, if you wanna read about Oscars snubs instead.
Oscars Snubs: Goodfellas
This fantastic movie had not one, not two, but six Oscars nominations, but went home with just one for Joe Pesci’s supporting role.
One of the best Mafia movies ever made, it still lost…and it lost to Dances with Wolves in 3 categories, Best Picture, Film Editing and writing.
Oh yeah, and Martin Scorsese, the director, also lost the Directing Award to Kevin Costner for…you guessed it…Dances with Wolves.
Oscars Snubs: Taxi Driver
Fortunately, Scorsese knew how to deal with disappointment cause, if you rewind back like 15 years before, that’s exactly what happened with Taxi Driver.
That’s right, the Oscars snubbed the movie that went down in history as the best vigilante story ever…and gave us the Joker with his own 11 nominations.
But back on Taxi Driver. Back in 76, this Scorsese film was nominated to four categories and lost in all of them – Best Picture, Best Actor, Best Soundtrack, and even Best Supporting Actress, which would have gone to Jodie Foster.
Fun fact, if Foster would have gotten this award, she’d be the only person in history to get three Oscars before the age of thirty.
Since she’s one of only 2 people who got 2 Oscars before 30, this Taxi Driver snub hurts even more!
Oscars Snubs: A Clockwork Orange
After I went through my TiVo Stream 4K to check out past Oscars winners, I had a revelation – why do most movies featuring psychos or misfits get a lot of praise from critics, a lot of love from audiences, but nothing from The Academy?
.It’s not just Travis Bickle who didn’t snag the big statue – this is a common element with a lot of movies featuring misfits.
Back in 71, Alex also missed the landing. A Clockwork Orange might be a cult classic based on an exceptional novel, but back then it couldn’t secure any Oscars, despite being nominated 4 times. Stanley Kubrick lost 3 Oscars there, for Best Picture, Best Director aaand Best Adapted screenplay.
To make matters even worse, A Clockwork Orange also had 7 BAFTA and 3 Golden Globe nominations.
What did it win?
welly, welly, welly, well…nothing.
Sorry, you charming psycho!
Oscars Snubs: Psycho
You can’t run down the biggest Oscar snubs without mentioning Psycho, the 1960 Hitchcock movie that gave us a remake, a sequel, a spin-off, and a prequel TV series.
Despite its legacy, when it competed in the Oscars, Psycho lost in all 4 categories it was nominated. Nothing hurts more than the loss of the Best Director trophy tho, since Hitchcock never actually won Best Director…and got one of those Lifetime Achievement awards decades later.
Oscars Snubs: Fight Club
And I give you one last psycho movie that made history…just not on the golden statue front.
Fight Club.
This movie defined an era of discontent and toxic masculinity, with both Edward Norton and Brad Pitt at the very top of their game.
I know, I know, the first rule of Fight Club and all that, but we should talk more about how this movie never got the applause it deserves.
Just like it does audiences even nowadays, Fight Club polarized the critics…and at the Oscars, it only got a single nomination for Best Sound Editing, which it lost to The Matrix.
Can’t blame the voters for that one, since The Matrix did sound amazing, but Fight Club had an equally fantastic sound editing.
David Fincher was so dedicated to having realistic looking and sounding fights, his sound designers actually stuffed walnuts inside chicken carcasses and smacked them with baseball bats to create unique punch sounds.
Ouch!
Oscars Snubs: The Elephant Man
That’s what David Lynch must have felt like back in the 80s, when his movie The Elephant Man was nominated for 8 Oscars…and went home with none.
But still, in the end, The Elephant Man did win majorly, and not just the audience’s hearts.
People in the industry were so outraged that The Elephant Man didn’t get an Oscar recognition for the insane makeup effects, that the very next year The Academy created a new category.
And that’s how the Academy Award for Best Makeup was born… through a movie that didn’t get a single trophy.
Oscars Snubs: ET The Extraterrestrial
But let’s move on from the psychos and the misfits, cause the Oscars snubs spared no one, not even the cutest movies.
Case in point, ET the Extraterrestrial.
Despite being one of the most successful and influential scifi movies of all time, at the 83 Oscars it only got 4 awards for the secondary categories like Best Visual Effects and Best Sound.
It’s such a legendary snub, even the dude who won the Best Picture award that year agrees.
Richard Attenborough, who won for Gandhi, famously said that he thought ET would win…and it should win. He called the movie “inventive, powerful and wonderful” and said that his specialty is more mundane movies.
Talk about winning with grace!
Oscars Snubs: Saving Private Ryan
This next movie tho managed to clear 5 out of 11 nominations…and still didn’t get the major award.
Saving Private Ryan is arguably the best war movie in history…but not the best movie at the 98 ceremony.
You know who got it instead?
It was Shakespeare In Love, a decent enough flick, but not really deserving of this trophy.
I think Dame Judy Dench put it best – when she accepted her best supporting actress trophy, she said “The terrible thing is that somebody has to win”.
Oscars Snubs: Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind
I wish someone would have said that in 2005 too, when Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind competed.
This is a fantastic movie with two people who can’t cope being together or apart, then deleting the memories of their relationship. That unique story earned it 2 Oscars nominations but only got the one for Original Screenplay. Kate Winslet, who should have won for Best Actress, lost to Hillary Swank in Million Dollar Baby.
And what about Jim Carrey, who absolutely stole the show and proved just how great of a dramatic actor he is?
Nothing, nada, zilch. Not even a nomination.
Other Oscars Snubs for Actors
I’d like to take a moment to ask the Academy: where’s his Oscar?
For that matter, where is Edward Norton’s award? You know, for Primal Fear…or American History X, or even Fight Club!
Where is Jake Gylenhall’s? This dude had so many roles that should have brought him a statue – Donnie Darko, Nocturnal Animals, NightCrawler, Brokeback Mountain.
So, I ask you instead: which other movie or actor deserved the Oscar but didn’t get it?
Get into that award season spirit and let’s discuss in the comments.
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