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" This Sunday night at the 86th Academy Awards, some nominees will be honored and others ignored, thereby motivating legions of viewers and &amp;quot;experts&amp;quot; to weigh in on Monday morning about who was &amp;quot;snubbed&amp;quot; the worst. Yet any such injustices will be merely par for the Oscar course, as the ceremony&amp;#039;s history is littered with glaring, if not downright inexcusable, omissions. Peter O&amp;#039;Toole and Cary Grant never won a statuette. Neither did Stanley Kubrick or Alfred Hitchcock. And the number of classics that failed to snag even a single nomination \u2014 King Kong, The Searchers, The Big Sleep, The Seventh Seal, The Night of the Hunter, Aguirre, the Wrath of God, Badlands, Heat, Mean Streets, The Big Lebowski, The Shining, The Red Shoes, His Girl Friday, Touch of Evil, and even Chaplin&amp;#039;s City Lights \u2014 is just about jaw-dropping. Suffice it to say, the Academy&amp;#039;s track record is less than impeccable. Yet what of the many deserving films that were rightly recognized with nominations, only to then be denied access to the stage podium? That&amp;#039;s also a not-inconsiderable club, and one that will likely have at least one new member come this Sunday (The Wolf of Wall Street? Update: Sadly, we weren&amp;#039;t\u00A0wrong.). In honor of those who were invited to the ball and then sent home empty-handed, we present the greatest Oscar nominated films to ever go o-fer on award night. Do the Right Thing (1989)      Spike Lee&amp;#039;s incendiary race drama was hardly the type of film to become an Oscar darling, but its two nominations \u2014 for Danny Aiello as Best Supporting Actor, and Lee for Best Original Screenplay \u2014 are still a paltry showing. The fact that it lost out in the latter category to Tom Schulman&amp;#039;s mushy Dead Poets Society script makes Do the Right Thing&amp;#039;s fate even more ridiculous. Taxi Driver (1976)      While Robert De Niro at least lost the Best Actor trophy to Peter Finch for his iconic &amp;quot;I&amp;#039;m mad as hell&amp;quot; Network role, the fact that Taxi Driver (four noms) received no bald golden men continues to be a joke, especially since director Martin Scorsese not only didn&amp;#039;t win Best Director (that went to John G. Avildsen for his competent work on Rocky), he wasn&amp;#039;t even nominated. The Thin Red Line (1998)      Terrence Malick&amp;#039;s return to filmmaking after a twenty-year hiatus nabbed seven nominations, largely thanks to the reputation of the director and his WWII epic&amp;#039;s illustrious cast. Oscar voters predictably preferred the less ruminative, more traditional Saving Private Ryan, though completely shutting out Malick&amp;#039;s magnificent opus, while rewarding the already-forgotten-a-year-later Shakespeare in Love (and the score of Life is Beautiful?!), remains a laugher. The Shawshank Redemption (1994)      A commercial dud that nonetheless snagged seven nominations, Frank Darabont&amp;#039;s The Shawshank Redemption never had a chance against the Forest Gump juggernaut. Now, however, its status as one of the decade&amp;#039;s most beloved Hollywood dramas makes its shutout (and especially its loss for Best Cinematography to Legends of the Fall) a conspicuous Academy oversight.  Dr. Strangelove or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb (1964)      Stanley Kubrick never got much love from the Academy, and that was true even when, in 1964, Dr. Strangelove was feted with four nominations. Shut out largely thanks to My Fair Lady, its loss to Becket in the Best Adapted Screenplay is, in hindsight, nothing short of silly. Grand Illusion (1937)      Considered one of the greatest films ever made (French or otherwise), Jean Renoir&amp;#039;s WWI masterpiece was the first foreign film to ever receive a Best Picture nomination from the Academy. That distinction was apparently enough for voters, who then chose to give that award to Frank Capra&amp;#039;s severely inferior You Can&amp;#039;t Take It with You.  The Tree of Life (2012)      As with The Thin Red Line, Terrence Malick was relegated to bridesmaid status in 2012 with The Tree of Life, an admittedly difficult but formally breathtaking religious-themed period piece that \u2014 having already snagged Cannes&amp;#039; Palm d&amp;#039;Or \u2014 was nominated for Best Picture, Director, and Cinematography, and yet won none. Good luck finding anyone who thinks it&amp;#039;s a less aesthetically assured work than The Artist. Singin&amp;#039; in the Rain (1952)      Singin&amp;#039; in the Rain only received a mind-bogglingly paltry two nominations \u2014 for Best Supporting Actress and Best Score \u2014 and took neither, despite the fact that it features legend Gene Kelly&amp;#039;s signature big-screen performance and is recognized as one of the greatest American films (much less musicals) ever produced.  Vertigo (1958)      Like Stanley Kubrick, Alfred Hitchcock was also habitually slighted by the Academy, never more absurdly than with his peerless Vertigo, which was recognized in two categories \u2014 Art Decoration and Sound \u2014 even though, multiple critical appraisals later, it&amp;#039;s now widely considered one of the Master of Suspense&amp;#039;s finest achievements. A Clockwork Orange (1971)      Stanley Kubrick suffered another shutout in 1971 when A Clockwork Orange lost in all four of its nominated categories \u2014 Picture, Director, Adapted Screenplay, and Editing \u2014 to William Friedkin&amp;#039;s The French Connection, a worthy winner but one that was hardly helmed with the same mastery that Kubrick brought to his blisteringly satirical sci-fi saga.  It&amp;#039;s a Wonderful Life (1947)      A holiday classic that was nominated five times, Frank Capra&amp;#039;s It&amp;#039;s a Wonderful Life couldn&amp;#039;t win in any of its categories in 1947, losing out to the night&amp;#039;s big winner The Best Years of Our Lives in most major categories \u2014 regardless of the fact that it boasts one of Jimmy Stewart&amp;#039;s most iconic performances.  Psycho (1960)      Failing to earn a nomination for Best Picture, Best Actor for Anthony Perkins, or Best Score for Bernard Herrmann are all unforgivable oversights, but Hitch&amp;#039;s Psycho was still recognized in four categories (Supporting Actress, Director, Cinematography, Art Direction) before being left out in the cold. History has cast a far more generous light on Janet Leigh&amp;#039;s performance than that of winner Shirley Jones (Elmer Gantry), while Psycho&amp;#039;s Best Cinematography loss to Sons and Lovers is borderline-absurd.  Mulholland Dr. (2001)      David Lynch&amp;#039;s hallucinatory L.A. story was too weird and oblique to merit serious Oscar frontrunner status. Nonetheless, given that critics have routinely hailed it as the past decade&amp;#039;s best film, Mulholland Dr.&amp;#039;s poor Oscar showing \u2014 only director David Lynch earned a nom \u2014 remains one of the Academy&amp;#039;s most embarrassing oversights of the new millennium. Rear Window (1954)      Losing out on a Best Director statuette to Elia Kazan (for On the Waterfront) wasn&amp;#039;t an Academy crime against Alfred Hitchcock \u2014 but denying Rear Window a Best Screenplay award in favor of The Country Girl was, to put it mildly, ridiculous. Rebel Without a Cause (1956)      James Dean gave one of the past century&amp;#039;s most iconic screen performances in Nicolas Ray&amp;#039;s Rebel Without a Cause, yet he wasn&amp;#039;t even nominated for it \u2014 a mistake even more inane than the Academy not giving the film any of the three Oscars (Best Actor for Sal Mineo, Best Actress for Natalie Wood, Best Screenplay for Ray) for which it was in contention.  Honorable Mention: Cat on a Hot Tin Roof (1958): six nominations Blade Runner (1982): two nominations The Color Purple (1985): eleven nominations, the most ever for a shut-out film Plus: Most Galling Oscar Winners Art Carney, Best Actor, Harry and Tonto (1974) - over Al Pacino in The Godfather Part II and Jack Nicholson in Chinatown The Greatest Show on Earth, Best Picture (1952) - over High Noon Elizabeth Taylor, Best Actress, Butterfield 8 (1960) - over Shirley Maclaine in The Apartment The King&amp;#039;s Speech, Best Picture (2011) - over The Social Network, True Grit, Toy Story 3 Driving Miss Daisy, Best Makeup (1989) - Best MAKE-UP?! "^^<http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema#string>
<http://www.esquire.com/entertainment/movies/a27575/best-movies-that-didnt-win-oscars/>