Raiders Of The Lost Ark
I know, I know, Raiders of the Lost Ark was nominated for Best Picture in 1981 – so I guess the Oscars didn’t miss it, per se. However, when they gave the award to Chariots of Fire, they certainly snubbed what’s perhaps the greatest adventure movie ever made.
A film which I admittingly have never had much interest in watching, Chariots of Fire didn’t even make $60 million at the box office, whereas Indiana Jones’ debut nearly reached an astonishing $400 million! And with Steven Spielberg at the helm, and Harrison Ford’s spilled-over celebrity from Star Wars, this shouldn’t come as too much of a surprise.
Also, Raiders is just a wonderfully made film, in every regard. Having never seen anything else aside from the iconic beach sequence, I cannot deny Chariots of Fire’s reputation as a great movie, but I can nearly guarantee there aren’t any scenes in that picture as ingrained in our culture as when Indy’s getting chased by that boulder, or when Ford topples over and groans, “why did it have to be snakes?”