Top 10 Oscars That Weren't

Film classics and actors the Academy overlooked
By Ambreen Ali,  Newser Staff
Posted Feb 24, 2008 12:00 PM CST
Top 10 Oscars That Weren't
Citizen Kane is at the top of many American classics lists, but it was robbed of its Oscar by "How Green Was My Valley."   (Archive Photos)

In the Academy Awards' 80-year history, many classic films, performers, and directors have been robbed of their statues. CNN's Screening Room names the 10 most crushing Oscars that weren't, many of which lost out to—gulp—musicals:

  • 1941: Seminal Citizen Kane loses to sappy How Green Was My Valley
  • 1956: James Dean gets bested by The King and I's Yul Brynner
  • 1958: Vertigo's Hitchcock loses best director to the man behind Gigi

  • 1964: Stanley Kubrick's Dr. Strangelove flattened by My Fair Lady
  • 1976: Al Pacino as Michael Corleone gets whacked by Joel Grey in Cabaret
  • 1979: Robert Duvall wows in Apocalypse Now, but Melvyn Douglas wins
  • 1990: Kevin Costner's Dances With Wolves bests Martin Scorsese's Goodfellas
  • 1994: Pulp Fiction takes a backseat to family-friendly Forrest Gump
  • 1997: LA Confidential gets sunk by Titanic and its flimsy script
  • 2005: Brokeback Mountain loses to just-OK Crash
(More Oscars stories.)

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