Five Movies That Should've Won the Academy Award for Best Picture, But Didn't

The Academy Awards has been one of the most prestigious award ceremonies in Hollywood since first taking place back in 1929. Now 85 years later the Academy Award, more commonly referred to as the Oscar, is still one of the most coveted movie-related awards in the world and it's influence doesn't seem to be waning anytime soon.

The highest honor given out at the Oscars by far is the award for Best Picture, an award that has eluded some of the best films of all time. A lot of industry politics go into who wins this award and many times the best film of the year won't receive this honor due to things that have nothing to do with how good a picture is. Sometimes the Academy gets it right and other times they are way off base but there are some extremely notable examples of when an incredible film was denied Hollywood's highest honor due to politics. Here are a few...

Film that beat it: How Green was My Valley

Orson Welles directed, co-wrote, produced and starred in this cinematic masterpiece that for decades now has been declared the greatest film ever made. With all the current hype surrounding this film, many today can't even fathom how this work of art could be denied the Oscar for Best Picture. Every single frame of this picture is masterfully shot. Cinematographer Gregg Toland's use of a deep focus lens created a 3D-like effect that gives the film a visual depth unlike anything seen before. Everything about this film was unprecedented, from it's non-linear storytelling to Welles' breathtaking performance in which he ages several decades throughout the story.

So why did this film win only a single Oscar for Best Original Screenplay and was denied any wins in the other eight categories it was nominated for including Best Picture? Simple, a powerful man stopped this film from gaining any traction. The movie details the life of Charles Foster Kane, a man many believed to be based on American newspaper tycoon William Randolph Hearst. Hearst was outraged at the film and banned any mentioning of it in any of the newspapers he owned. Hearst tried hard to have the film destroyed and although failed at that, he did manage to heavily ruin the commercial success of the film and many blame him for the film's losses at the Academy Awards.

Film that beat it: An American in Paris

In the early 1950's the Hays Production Code was still in effect and it strictly kept sexual and violent content out of the Hollywood pictures. But that didn't stop this explosive film from rocking the very core of Hollywood with some of the best performances it had ever seen along with content not experimented with since Pre-Code Hollywood. A Streetcar Named Desire stars film legends Vivien Leigh (in a comeback role) and Marlon Brando (in the role that introduced him to Hollywood) in a highly risqué story based off a Tennessee Williams play about a woman with a sordid past who comes to stay with her sister and her sister's brutish husband.

Although today most of it's language comes off as subtle and mild, at the time audiences were shocked by such a film which spoke so candidly about sexual deviancy. Critics praised the film and it was nominated for 12 Oscars winning four including an unprecedented three wins for it's actors. However, the most stunning performance in the film given by Marlon Brando was denied a win for Best Actor and the film itself lost the award for Best Picture to a musical. Many believe Brando's raw power and the film's overall content was just a bit too much for viewers at the time.

Film that beat it: In the Heat of the Night

Yet another example of a film that was just too much for viewers at the time, The Graduate has been long held as one of the most revolutionary movies of all time. This film about a young college graduate, played by Dustin Hoffman, who begins to have an affair with an older woman only to fall for the older woman's daughter shocked many with it's counter-culture like approach to sex, relationships, and marriage. The highly inventive film was directed by Mick Nichols who shattered the industry a year earlier with his film Who's Afraid of Virgina Wolf, a film many believe to have ended the long held Hollywood Production Code and led to the creation of a ratings system still in use today.

The Graduate broke a lot of ground in terms of technical style, plot, and of course it's off-color content. The film won Nichols the Oscar for Best Director but lost Best Picture with many believing it's sexual content was simply too strong to win. Ironically, two years later a film also starring Hoffman called Midnight Cowboy would become the first and only X Rated film to win Best Picture with sexual content far greater than that of The Graduate.

Film that beat it: Ordinary People

Possibly the greatest film Martin Scorsese has ever created, Raging Bull tells the story of underdog boxer Jake LaMotta who rises to fame only to fall from grace in the worst of ways. Shot on stark black-and-white film at a time when black-and-white movies had been completely phased out, this bloody and gut-wrenching display of humanity, pride, and rage is cited as one the most powerful boxing movies ever made and recently the American Film Institute named it one of the top five films of all time. The film contains one of the best performances ever given by Robert De Niro and the only so far to win him an Oscar for Best Actor. However the film lost the award for Best Picture probably because, like most Scorsese films during this time period, the movie was just too explicit and violent for most viewers.

Film that beat it: Shakespeare in Love

Saving Private Ryan has been often cited as one of the greatest war films ever made. From it's incredibly violent opening which displays the American invasion of Normandy to it's intense battle scenes throughout, the film shows the struggles of World War II in a realistic and awe-inspiring manner that few films before it or after it have achieved. The movie was directed by Steven Spielberg whose name had become synonymous with film by the 1990's.

Although this film won Spielberg his second Oscar for Best Director, the film's lost of Best Picture may be due to the politics of the Academy not wanting to repeat itself. Spielberg's film Schindler's List had won the double honor of Best Picture and Best Director back in 1994, just a few years before Saving Private Ryan. The Academy may have thought it would be unfair to award another Spielberg film with that same honor in such a short time period despite the film deserving it.