The 15 Best Movies That Didn't Win Oscars

Wolf of Wall Street should watch out

By Nick Schager on February 28, 2014, Esquire

This Sunday night at the 86th Academy Awards, some nominees will be honored and others ignored, thereby motivating legions of viewers and "experts" to weigh in on Monday morning about who was "snubbed" the worst. Yet any such injustices will be merely par for the Oscar course, as the ceremony's history is littered with glaring, if not downright inexcusable, omissions. Peter O'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 — 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's City Lights — is just about jaw-dropping.

Suffice it to say, the Academy'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'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?). 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.

(More here.)