Greatest movies of all-time that were never even nominated for Best Picture

Posted Wednesday, February 20, 2008 at 11:59 AM Central

by Tim Briscoe

In relaying Film School Rejects' Best Films That Never Won a Best Picture Oscar, we put out a plea for a list of great movies that didn't even get a nomination for Oscar's top prize. We have to hand it to Jeff from Ohio who answered the call.

Jeff broke down each year from 1971 to the current. He listed movies which failed to get Academy Awards recognition in the Best Picture category but yet are still considered truly great films. Some of these really make you wonder what the Academy voters were thinking by leaving out these choice cuts.

1971. Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory
1975. Monty Python and the Holy Grail
1977. Close Encounters of the Third Kind
1978. Superman: The Movie, Animal House
1979. Alien
1980. The Empire Strikes Back, The Shining
1983. Scarface
1984. The Natural
1985. Back to the Future
1986. Top Gun
1989. Glory, Batman
1991. Hook, Fried Green Tomatoes
1992. The Last of the Mohicans
1993. Tombstone
1994. Legends of the Fall
1995. The Usual Suspects, Toy Story, Casino
1996. Primal Fear
1997. Amistad
1999. Toy Story 2, The Matrix, Fight Club
2000. The Patriot
2001. Training Day, Black Hawk Down
2002. The Bourne Identity
2003. Pirates of the Caribbean: The Curse of the Black Pearl
2004. Collateral
2007. Gone Baby Gone

To Jeff's list for this year, I'd definitely add Zodiac.

Inspired by Jeff's contribution, I decided to delve into the Oscar results of choices on AFI's Top 100 Movies list. It's incomprehensible that these movies didn't get a Best Picture nod at the Academy Awards. The numbers below are the films' rankings on the 2007 AFI list.

5. Singin' in the Rain
9. Vertigo
11. City Lights
12. The Searchers
14. Psycho
15. 2001: A Space Odyssey
18. The General (Pre-Academy Awards)
22. Some Like it Hot
34. Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs (It did get an honorary award for innovation)
41. King Kong
48. Rear Window
49. Intolerance (Pre-Academy Awards)
55. North by Northwest
58. The Gold Rush (Pre-Academy Awards)
60. Duck Soup
61. Sullivan's Travels
65. The African Queen
78. Modern Times
79. The Wild Bunch
81. Spartacus
82. Sunrise (Pre-Academy Awards) Thanks to Chris in Illinois for correcting me here. This movie did when Best Picture for "Unique and Artistic Production" at the first Academy Awards. Wings won the Best Picture, Production that year.
84. Easy Rider
85. A Night at the Opera
88. Bringing Up Baby
90. Swing Time
91. Sophie's Choice
96. Do the Right Thing
97. Blade Runner
99. Toy Story (Similar to Snow White, it got a special achievement award as the first feature-length computer-animated movie)

The Academy Awards started honoring the annual best in film in 1929.

Also, here's a tidbit you can fire off at your friends and family on Oscar Night: Alfred Hitchcock never won an Oscar!