5. Network Loses Best Picture and Best Director to Rocky
Like 1994, 1976 had some incredible Best Picture nominees, including Taxi Driver and All the President’s Men. That year, they also included one of the best films ever made, the scorching television satire Network from director Sidney Lumet and Oscar-winning screenwriter Paddy Chayefsky. After winning Best Original Screenplay and three of the four acting awards, it was thought that perhaps the film was on its way to win the top prize, which it easily deserved over the other nominees. However, shockingly enough, Best Picture and Best Director went to Rocky and its director, John G. Avildsen.
Rocky is an overly-simplistic, straightforward boxing film with a languid pace that doesn’t really have much of anything special about it, but Network was relevant then and is still relevant now, showing that TV personalities can amass a large number of followers and have incredible influence over them. This is demonstrated most famously by the infamous scene (which you can watch below) in which Howard Beale (played by the great Oscar winner Peter Finch) tells his viewers to get up, go over to a window, and shout “I’m as mad as hell and I’m not going to take this anymore!,” which they do. To this day, it is still talked about and analyzed quite a bit. For sure, Rocky is still talked about as well, but mainly for its simple underdog story. Network is a film with great depth that the Academy should have taken better notice of. Of course, walking away with four major Oscars (one more than Rocky) isn’t bad, but for a film this good, the top two should have been included without question.
