The Top 10 Worst Best Picture Snubs
1998- Shakespeare in Love vs Saving Private Ryan
Saving Private Ryan is, without question, one of the best World War II movies ever made. It’s an incredible epic that contrasts the horrors of war with the bond of the men forced to fight it. The film hits every emotional beat perfectly thanks to an incredible cast and detail-oriented production design. I’ve never once heard someone say, “Oh cool, Shakespeare in Love is on.” In fact, I’ve never heard anyone list it among the best anything before. Hell, I can’t remember the last time anyone even mentioned it. Looking back, I don’t even remember much of the movie. The point is that in 1998 the Academy chose to honor the most forgettable movie of the year rather than the Best Picture, but what else is new.
2010- The King’s Speech vs Inception
Now we’re getting to a point where I can remember just how angry I was when I actually heard the Academy announced the winner of Best Picture. Figures that a bunch of old white guys who love a movie about an old white guy talking. Seriously, The King’s Speech was a good movie. It was a solid pick that year. Inception though was a movie that challenged audiences. It forced them to think about philosophy and morality, as well as reexamining their own perception of free will. Somehow it did all this, while still including incredible action sequences, jaw-dropping visuals, and solid performances from a well-rounded cast. People were talking about it for months afterward. Debating what the ending meant and what really happened to the characters. You can’t really say that about The King’s Speech.
2015-Spotlight vs Mad Max: Fury Road
By now I was at an age where I started to realize that the Academy was too set in their ways for any hope of positive change. I started to adopt a “what I wanted to win” vs “what I think would win” mindset to my annual Oscar pool based on Spotlight beating out Mad Max: Fury Road. The academy tends to not have much tolerance for fiction when there are films based on true events and I have no idea why that is. After all, you can always look back at something that already happened and almost recreate it perfectly, but where’s the creativity in that? I’m not bashing the effort that goes into films like Spotlight, but it didn’t come up with one of the toughest female characters and best drivers to ever grace the silver screen in one of the most intense (yet easily accesable) feminist films in recent memory.
2018- The Shape of Water vs Get Out
I love Benicio del Toro. He’s probably one of my favorite directors working today. So, it’s with a heavy heart that I suggest he didn’t deserve Best Picture for his strange love story, The Shape of Water. It was good (in a weird kind of way), but it wasn’t the most talked-about movie of the year by a long shot. Get Out exploded onto the big screen, slowly getting bigger and bigger than anyone could have imagined because it was so damn good. Social commentary meets gut-wrenching horror in Jordan Peele’s directorial debut. I still remember sitting there, staring at my Oscar pool card and feeling guilt as I picked The Shape of Water over Get Out. Not because it was better, but because I knew that the Academy didn’t have it in them to give Best Picture to a movie that probably filled most of the voters with white guilt.
2019- Green Book vs Black Panther
Even as recently as 2019 the Academy’s been screwing up. I liked Green Book. In fact, it was one of my favorite movies of 2018. However, Black Panther was the biggest movie of the year. It managed to do everything right as it crafted a fictional kingdom celebrating African culture in dazzling ways and finally gave black superheros the kind of movie they deserved. It was a huge moment for children across America to see a black hero fighting to save the world. There were so many layers to it, but being a “comic book movie” many old white men don’t think that counts as “cinema.” Well, I think that’s a load of garbage, almost as big a load as Black Panther not winning Best Picture. The world is changing, and the Academy needs to stop clinging to their old world snobbery.
There were a lot more Best Picture snubs that I found in my research, but these were the ones that got my blood boiling the most. I think they accurately represent what’s wrong with the Academy and shows the need for them to change and grow. I’d love to hear what Best Picture snub pissed you off the most. Leave a comment below letting me know, and be sure to check back in the future to see if the entries on this list change. Knowing the Academy, it won’t be long until they disappoint us again.