So since it's awards season and we are a week away from the Academy Awards I wanted to look back at some previous years and talk a bit about some movies I feel were left out. This is going to just be Best Picture talk since some of these movies were nominated for, and some winning, other awards. I just feel that the academy seems to choose a certain type of movie and decorate it and leave others out because of the type of movie it is and nothing more. Now I'm not saying that all of these movies should've won Best Picture, some I feel should've though, but they should have at least been given a nomination. I want the Academy Awards to be a celebration of film and give recognition to all types and not shut down a movie from getting the highest honor because it's a comic book movie or a horror movie. And this is my personal list so there may be movies that you don't agree with or hell, there might be some that you straight-up think are bad. Having said all that let's get going here!
10. Casino (1996)
This is my personal favorite Martin Scorsese movie! I know that the standard favorites are Goodfellas and The Departed but man Casino is so great! Seeing as it came out in 1996 I saw the movie probably like 10 years after it came out since I was like 10 then. The only award it was nominated for was Best Actress for Sharon Stone. It was very deserving of that but Joe Pesci gave the performance of his career in this movie! The close up shot of Pesci's car showing up to the desert from the reflection on Robert DeNiro's glasses is one of my favorite shots in cinema history. This movie absolutely deserved a Best Picture spot!
9. The Disaster Artist (2017)
I had not seen The Room when this movie got announced but watched it on YouTube before seeing this and I'm glad I did. They did such a great job of capturing Tommy Wiseau and what it was like making his movie. Seeing that Seth Rogan was in it along with others from other comedy movies, I was thinking it might be more of a comedy but this is a drama! There are a lot of funny moments but the serious scenes get real and it's some of the best acting I've ever seen out of James Franco. Franco has been accused of sexual assault/harassment and that may be the reason this movie was left out of the Best Picture category this year, or maybe the Oscar voters just didn't connect with it like others did. Apparently the votes were in for the nominees before the news broke but I guess we'll never really know. Great movie though!
8. Pan's Labyrinth (2006)
Seeing The Shape of Water up for Best Picture this year is awesome because I love Guillermo del Toro. I mainly knew him from Blade II and Hellboy but Pan's Labyrinth really put him on the list of A-list directors to me. This is such a beautify dark story that caught me off guard with how much I liked it. It captures the hardship of war along with a kind of Alice in Wonderland type fantasy story. The entire movie is in Spanish and I normally don't like watching subtitles for a long movie, cause I'm a lazy American, but I fell in love with the story and characters that I didn't mind. It really deserved a Best Picture slot!
7. Scarface (1983)
This movie has about as much hate for it as it does love. I'll admit that the popularity of this movie kinda got Godfather level and probably doesn't deserve to be that high, but it is an amazing movie! It tells a complete story about how the rise of power can corrupt. Al Pacino gave one of the biggest powerhouse performances in the history of cinema and he was not recognized at all for it by the Academy! Pacino was nominated for Best Actor at the Golden Globes though. This movie tends to not have the respect as some of the other crime movies among movie people and I've never really understood that! The ending of this movie is one of the best ending to a movie that I've ever seen! It's whatever I guess, it was good enough to earn a Best Picture nomination to me though!
6. The Lion King (1994)
Beauty and the Beast was the first animated movie to be nominated for Best Picture. Up and Toy Story 3 have been the only other 2 nominated since. I honestly can't believe that The Lion King was overlooked as a Best Picture contender! It's arguably one of the most important Disney movies ever made and completely set the world on fire in 1994! And I get that the Elton John's song might have been the biggest thing to come out of that movie, but the actual movie is amazing! It has one of the more polarizing scenes in Disney history when Mufasa dies.
5. Ex Machina (2014)
I know that this movie had 2 Nominations at the Academy Awards and actually won Best Visual Effects but this movie deserved more in my opinion. It did fall into a trope of what is human and what is machine but it handled it in such a different way. Cause I thought I would like this movie but didn't know I would fall in love with it. The way it's shot is gorgeous and the acting is so good. Alicia Vikander plays Ava and she is amazing! There's a dance scene with Oscar Issac and one of his androids that is one of the best scenes I've ever seen! It's one of those movies that I normally just have an urge to watch years later!
4. IT (2017)
So this was my personal favorite movie of 2017 and I think it's such a shame that it didn't get a single Oscar nomination at the upcoming Academy Awards! I get that it's only part 1 and they didn't give the Lord of the Rings movies any Oscar love until Return of the King but still. This movie is ultimately a horror movie but it has such deep character development. You get to know each kid and you actually care about them. And Bill Skarsgård as Pennywise is amazing! How he didn't get any award nominations is beyond me! I'm not one to get scared during horror movies but this movie has some of the more intensely disturbing scenes of any horror movie I've seen! It's so great!
3. Spanglish (2004)
This is the movie that inspired me to write this top 10 list and it's fine if you haven't seen it or even heard of it for that matter. It was pretty under the radar for an Adam Sandler movie. It's about a woman who takes a housekeeping job for the family of one of the bigger chiefs in the city, played by Sandler. It's narrated by her daughter who is writing a college acceptance essay. All of that is pretty standard but the acting and writing makes this movie work. It's Written and Directed by James L. Brooks who was one of the creators of The Simpsons and it has that kind of family humor in it. It does get emotional too and the ending is great! It always seems to be on HBO, STARZ, Showtime, if you ever want to check it out. It really deserved some awards love and I personally think it should've been up for Best Picture and maybe bump Finding Neverland off the list that year.
2. Heat (1995)
How in the world did this movie not get any Oscar love...like not a single nomination for anything?! Maybe it's just me, or I'm in a small group, but this is one of the best movies ever made! The shootout midway through the movie set the standard for what a big open area shootout scene could be and with every movie that has one of those, it all comes back to this movie. The performances are great, the directing is great, and even the music is really good! I mean this was the first time that Robert De Niro and Al Pacino were in the same scene together in a movie and the scene is awesome! This should've been up for Best Director for Michael Mann and Best Picture!
1. The Dark Knight (2008)
So I am a huge Batman fan and in my opinion this is a damn near perfect movie! Not only does this deliver the dark Batman that I love but gave me the dark take on the Joker that only the comic books delivered on. I will admit the Bale's Batman is not my absolute favorite but he is a good one. Now to be fair Heath Ledger did win an Oscar for this movie but I feel this movie deserved more. The academy has gotten better about this over the years but I'll never understand why a movie like this can't be up for Best Picture. Slumdog Millionaire won Best Picture that year and movies like Milk and Frost/Nixion were other movies nominated. And look, I mean no disrespect to those movies, but are you for real that those were better than The Dark Knight?? I'll go ahead and answer that, no they weren't!
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