That film should have won; not only did it not win, it wasn’t even nominated. Driving Miss Daisy won.

Also Amistad should also have at least been nominated for Best Picture and was not (though it could have been the Academy was scared off by a lawsuit underway after the film’s release claiming copyright infringement)

Several people have mentioned Blade Runner, which, if it came out today, would be a shoo in for a nomination, but it was made in the early 1980’s when suggesting that a Science Fiction film receive consideration was tantamount to letting out a really, really loud and long fart in polite company.

Rob Roy was also a film that did not get any recognition. It was just as good as Braveheart, which won that same year.

Miller’s Crossing, I also felt was at least deserving of a nomination.

I think the Academy at least TRIED to make it up to Kurosawa for snubbing The Seven Samurai and Ran by nominating some of his later pictures, but it will forever remain a stain on the repute of that board that two of the best films ever made didn’t garner a nomination.

For the poster above who mentioned The Thin Red Line and Life Is Beautiful; it’s hard to make a nomination based on ‘Which of these films do I think people will still be watching 20 years from now?’.

If they just used commercial success as a barometer for nominations then Wall-E is the winner. Or Kung Fu Panda.

Hollywood has long admitted it will use the Oscar nominations to call attention to what it considers to be good films that are being ‘overlooked’ by audiences.

Which is a fancy way of saying “OK you’ve all been lining up to see Kung Fu Panda and Wall-E and 300, yes yes, we know you like that stuff but hey, look over here! We’ve got a bunch of politically themed PC movies you’ve been ignoring at the box office, so we’d like you to go see them because we say they are really really good – Lions For Lambs, Frost/Nixon, etc etc.”

Once you accept the fact the nominations aren’t being handed out to champion SIMPLY great movie-making, but also to help MARKET and ADVERTISE films that need a boost with the public, alot of the nominations start to make better sense.

“Well I had no interest in seeing this politically themed film, but now that’s it’s nominated for an Oscar, I guess I’d better check it out.”

Of course, this worked much better in the 1970’s and 1980’s before the public figured out what the Academy was doing. Now the Academy has to be open and above board about what they are doing, but I still remember back in the early 1980’s when my friends would all be going, “Well we skipped this movie at the theaters so far; why the heck did it get an Oscar nomination? We’d better go check it out before it’s gone!”

Sad to say, the movies that are ‘overlooked’ for these Best Picture nominations are often passed over because:

1. They came out in a year in which there were many, many good films worthy of a nomination and

2. The Academy decided to use their nominations to boost pictures that were struggling at the box office rather than simply calling more attention to great films that were already performing smashingly well.

Wow, someone else who remembers this neat little flick. It was nominated for Best Makeup, but lost to “Mask” which I always thought was a travesty. Mask was, when all was said and done, just monster makeup while Joel Grey actually looked like an anceint Korean man. Amazing! Those two were great in their scenes together, but Ward (a personal favorite of mine) was a little flat interacting with others, especially Kate Mulgrew.

1. The Lives of Others is a great film. But it did win the Oscar for best foreign film.

2. In terms of Oscar snubs, earlier I forgot to mention Breach.

3. I just saw Last Chance Harvey. It is a highly entertaining film: well-acted, well-written, well-acted. Probably not Oacar material, except that it’s probably better than several of the films nominated this year and last.

growltiger, it isn’t heresy to criticize The Dark Knight (Mr. Nolte mentioned what he thought were the film’s flaws in Dirty Harry’s Place), but your criticism of Christian Bale warrants a response, as you in my opinion underrate his abilities as an actor.

Having seen all three of the films you mentioned, none of the actors you named (Michael Caine, Hugh Jackman, Heath Ledger, etc.) acted rings around him. He held his ground with all of them, and they all delivered in their roles. Liam Neeson was memorable in Batman Begins, but he didn’t steal the film from Bale.

As for disappearing into the scenery, I never got that impression when seeing Bale in these films; never as Batman and never as Borden. I believe Bale is a versatile actor with more talent than you’ve given him credit for. Naturally, of course, it’s my opinion and you can disregard it entirely.

HOW COULD I FORGET…HOW DID ALL OF US FORGET
******

The Lives of Others – See it! ANYONE and EVERYONE on this thread should see this movie. The lefties in Hollywood gave it an Oscar for Foreign Film because they thought it was a parable of Bush’s wiretapping/Patriot act totalitarianism. Don’t buy it. It’s the finest indictment of the East German Stasi ever put on celluloid. See it! See it! See it! See it! See it! See it! See it! Don’t believe me? None o

‘BTW, if anyone is still interested (how could you not?), I’m updating my list.

Rear Window
North By Northwest
Vertigo
Alien
Das Boot
Bladerunner
The Manchurian Candidate
The Big Sleep
Scarface (Pacino)
Groundhog Day
Toy Story
The Terminator
The African Queen
Rosemary’s Baby
A Christmas Story -It *was* nominated for a Genie! (Canada’s Oscars)
NEW!!!!!
Notorius – (Hitchcock)
Miller’s Crossing
The Apostle
Key Largo
The Outlaw Josy Wales
Pale Rider
Tora! Tora! Tora!

Good Lord. Are you suggesting that musicals in the fifties (or ANY musical at all, for that matter) were the peak of Hollywood?!?!?

And let me add this—> !?!?!?!?!?!