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8 Of The All-Time Best Academy Award Losers

On one level, the Academy Awards can have an enormous effect selecting which movies or singular movie will be designated as the most prestigious films from a single year. However, it's also possible that they're simply a reflection of opinions that have already been formed about the best films of the year, and when the Oscar pick for Best Picture disagrees too much with the popular and critical opinion, it gets swept aside. Driving Miss Daisy, for example, isn't exactly hailed as a lasting contribution to the history of cinema. Meanwhile two movies that weren't even nominated, Spike Lee's Do the Right Thing and Woody Allen's Crimes and Misdemeanors, are considered two of the greatest of their decade at the least, despite Oscar's lack of recognition.

6) Singin’ in the Rain

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I always think I don’t like musicals and then I see a musical and love it and think “well that’s the exception to the rule that musicals are bad.” Except this happens all the time. So I don’t know what to make of it. But Singin’ in the Rain was possibly the most unexpectedly enjoyable musical, perhaps movie, I’ve ever watched. Now, it is unlike the other films in this list since it wasn’t even nominated for Best Picture at the Oscars, though it did receive a Best Supporting Actress win. Having watched it, this seems like one of the most bizarre oversights in Academy history.

It has a charm to it that’s similar to The Artist, so maybe that movie’s win was to make up for this one. From the opening scene, Singin’ in the Rain establishes a tone that is uniquely its own, a combination of absurdity and satirical jabs at Hollywood figures, the vapidity of stardom, and the desperation of the rich and famous. This combines with Gene Kelly’s charisma, which you want to resist because he seems way too smooth at first but then before you know it you’re looking up tap dancing lessons online. I don’t even want to know what won Best Picture for that year because it will just make me angry.