The 35 Greatest Movies That Should've Won an Oscar

Most of Sidney Lumet’s drama about 12 jurors battling over the guilt or innocence of a minority youth charged with murder takes place in one room but is no less riveting, showcasing America’s racial attitudes of the 1950s front and center. The film failed to win any awards at the 1958 Academy Awards but has lived on as a classic. The film was the first of five Best Director nominations for Lumet. For this one, he lost Best Director to David Lean who directed “The Bridge on the River Kwai.” On Rotten Tomatoes, the film registers a 100% Freshness rating among critics, and 97% of audiences like it.

Stanley Kubrick’s sometimes disturbing dystopian vision earned the iconoclastic director three Oscar nominations personally, including Best Director — one of four nominations for that specific award he would receive throughout his storied career. However, William Friedkin won Best Director in 1972 for the crime drama “The French Connection.” “A Clockwork Orange” has an 87% Freshness rating among critics on Rotten Tomatoes, and 93% of audiences like the film.

Based on a play by Lorraine Hansberry, “A Raisin in the Sun” looks at the struggles of an impoverished black family living on the South Side neighborhood of Chicago in the 1950s. Although films that deal with social problems are often popular at the Academy Awards, “A Raisin in the Sun” failed to receive a single nomination. It did receive two Golden Globe nominations, one for actor Sidney Poitier, who would become the first African American to win the Best Actor Oscar a few years later for his lead role in “Lilies of the Field” (1963).

Starring Oscar-winners Christian Bale and Jennifer Lawrence, “American Hustle” tells the story of a con-man who becomes involved with the FBI. The star-studded film was considered a major contender at the 2014 Academy Awards, with 10 nominations. It failed to win any, however, despite winning Best Motion Picture (comedy) at that year’s Golden Globes. The Oscar for Best Picture that year went to “12 Years a Slave.”

This courtroom drama is admired by critics and audiences alike, with a 100% Freshness rating on Rotten Tomatoes and an audience score of 91%. The movie received seven Oscar nominations in 1960, including Best Picture and acting nominations for James Stewart, Arthur O’Connell, and George C. Scott. The movie, which has since been inducted into the U.S. National Film Registry, did not win any Oscars and lost Best Picture to historical epic “Ben-Hur.”

Vittorio De Sica’s celebrated movie about the struggles of Italians after World War II was given an honorary Academy Award — or a non-competitive award — for outstanding foreign film seven years before the academy established the foreign category. Critics on Rotten Tomatoes gave the film a 98% Freshness rating, and 94% of audiences responded favorably to the movie. Cesare Zavattini was nominated for Best Writing, Screenplay but lost to Joseph L. Mankiewicz for “A Letter to Three Wives.” De Sica, one of Italy’s greatest directors, only received one Oscar nomination, and that was for Best Supporting Actor in “A Farewell to Arms” in 1958. “All the King’s Men” won three Oscars in 1950.

The futuristic sci-fi film directed by Ridley Scott was a modest box office success, posting $27.6 million in gross revenue over six weeks before becoming a cult favorite. It failed to win either of the Oscars it was nominated for, including for visual effects, losing to Steven Spielberg’s “E.T. The Extra-Terrestrial” in 1983. Scott would go on to be nominated for Best Director for three other films, including the blockbuster “Gladiator.” “Blade Runner” enjoys favor on Rotten Tomatoes, with an 89% Freshness rating among critics and 91% among audiences.

The tense revenge drama with Robert Mitchum at his most menacing is about a man stalking the family of the lawyer who sent him to jail. The movie failed to earn an Oscar nomination as David Lean’s epic “Lawrence of Arabia” dominated the Academy Awards in 1963. “Cape Fear” made more than $60 million, adjusted for inflation in a strong movie year that included “The Longest Day,” “To Kill a Mockingbird” (also starring Gregory Peck), and “Dr. No.” Bernard Herrmann’s score of impending doom helps make “Cape Fear” a favorite among Rotten Tomatoes critics, who awarded the film a 100% Freshness rating, and 86% of audiences were absorbed by the white-knuckle drama. The film was remade in 1991 starring Robert De Niro.

Based on a Pulitzer Prize-winning play by Tennessee Williams, the film about a dysfunctional Southern family stars Oscar-winning actors Elizabeth Taylor, Paul Newman, and Burl Ives. Yet despite this award-winning talent and six Oscar nominations, “Cat on a Hot Tin Roof” failed to win any awards of its own. That year’s Best Picture winner was the now less popular musical comedy “Gigi.”

Director Barry Levinson was nominated for Best Writing, Screenplay Written Directly for the Screen, for the story of the passage of college grads into adulthood in 1959 Baltimore. It was a modest success and grossed more than $14 million. Levinson was thwarted from winning the statue by John Briley, who won for “Gandhi,” which dominated the Academy Awards in 1983. Levinson would eventually win a Best Director Academy Award in 1989 for “Rain Man.” “Diner” has a 92% Freshness rating among Rotten Tomatoes critics and 77% among audiences.

Spike Lee’s audacious look at smoldering racial differences in the Bedford-Stuyvesant section of Brooklyn that eventually leads to violence won over critics on Rotten Tomatoes with a 93% Freshness rating. Also, 90% of audiences liked the movie, which grossed more than $37 million worldwide and was a box office success. Spike Lee was nominated for Best Writing, Screenplay Written Directly for the Screen, but lost to Tom Schulman for “Dead Poets Society,” and Danny Aiello was beaten by Denzel Washington for Best Supporting Actor in “Glory.” Lee won his first Oscar in 2019 for Best Adapted Screenplay for “BlacKkKlansman.”

Martin Scorsese’s epic about Irish immigrants facing bigotry in 19th-century New York was nominated for 10 Oscars but came up empty. The films “Chicago” and “The Pianist” were the big winners at the 2003 Academy Awards. The film grossed more than $193 million worldwide and earned a 73% Freshness rating from Rotten Tomatoes critics, who applauded the spectacle but thought the film’s narrative was weak. Scorsese would eventually win Best Director for the mob film, “The Departed,” in 2007.

Musicals typically don’t do well at the Oscars, and neither did “Grease,” the nostalgic take on high school romance in the 1950s that was a box office smash, grossing almost $200 million domestically — one of the highest grossing musicals of all time. The film was nominated for Music (Original Score) for the song “Hopelessly Devoted To You” but was rebuffed by “Last Dance” in “Thank God It’s Friday.” Critics on Rotten Tomatoes gave the film a 75% Freshness rating and 87% of audiences liked it. The film added to the fame of star John Travolta.

“Imitation of Life,” about the friendship and business partnership of a white widow and an African American woman who is the mother of a mixed race child, was ahead of its time in its treatment of racial themes and depiction of women as savvy business owners. The film starred Claudette Colbert, who would win the Best Actress Academy Award in 1935 for “It Happened One Night,” which dominated the Oscars that year. Critics on Rotten Tomatoes gave the film a Freshness rating of 89%, and 85% of audiences liked the movie.

Director Jim Sherian’s impassioned film of Irish Catholics in Northern Ireland wrongly imprisoned for a terrorist attack in England in the 1970s gained seven Oscar nominations. Unfortunately for the film, it was nominated the same year as Steven Spielberg’s searing Holocaust epic “Schindler’s List,” which dominated the Oscars in 1994. “In the Name of the Father” has a 94% Freshness rating among Rotten Tomatoes critics, and 95% of audiences like the movie. It grossed just over $65 million worldwide, but only about $25 million domestically. Daniel-Day Lewis, who had already won a Best Actor Oscar in 1990, lost Best Actor to Tom Hanks for “Philadelphia.”

Director Frank Capra won the Oscar for Best Director three times, for his films “It Happened One Night,” “Mr. Deeds Goes to Town,” and “You Can’t Take It with You.” What has become the filmmaker’s most widely seen movie, holiday classic “It’s a Wonderful Life,” did not win any Oscars. It did receive nominations, including Best Director and Best Picture, the latter of which went to World War II era drama “The Best Years of Our Lives.”

British actor and filmmaker Charlie Chaplin is remembered as one of the greatest figures of the silent film era. And while he won one Oscar for Best Dramatic Score for “Limelight” more than 20 years after its release, “Modern Times” — his highest rated movie on Rotten Tomatoes and arguably his greatest film — did not receive a single Oscar. Neither did “The Great Dictator” (1940) or “City Lights” (1931), though the former received five nominations.

“North by Northwest,” one of the many cinematic masterpieces from the master of suspense, Alfred Hitchcock, was shut out of three Academy Awards. The movie was nominated for its Oscars the same year that “Ben-Hur” made cinematic history by winning 11 Academy Awards. That strong movie year also featured the comedy “Some Like it Hot” and the crime drama “Anatomy of a Murder.” The thriller “North by Northwest” has a 99% Freshness rating from critics on Rotten Tomatoes and a 94% rating among audiences.

“Out of the Past” is a deftly directed crime drama by Jacques Tourneur that starred Robert Mitchum as a former private investigator whose past catches up with him. Though the film was not nominated for an Oscar, it is lauded by critics as one of the greatest examples of film noir, and critics on Rotten Tomatoes gave it a Freshness rating of 94%, almost identical to the 92% approval from audiences. “Gentleman’s Agreement” was the big Oscar winner in 1948.

Renowned Japanese director Akira Kurosawa’s story of warriors tasked with defending a village under siege from bandits was the inspiration for “The Magnificent Seven” that came out six years later and has been analyzed by film schools for its direction and storytelling techniques. Little wonder that the film has a critics Freshness rating of 100% on Rotten Tomatoes, and 97% among audiences. The 3-hour, 27-minute film, released in the United States in 1956, was nominated for Oscars for costume and art direction in 1957 but lost both.

“The Shawshank Redemption” is currently the top rated movie on IMDb with a rating of 9.3 out of 10 with nearly 2.2 million users having submitted their scores. The drama about two imprisoned men was a hit upon its release and received seven Oscar nominations in 1995, including one for Best Picture. It lost all of them, with Best Picture going to “Forrest Gump.”

Produced by MGM during Hollywood’s big studio golden age, “Singin’ in the Rain” is considered to be one of the greatest movie musicals of all time. Yet despite the involvement of MGM and star Gene Kelly, the film did not receive much critical acclaim upon its release. It was nominated for two Oscars in 1953, including Best Musical Score, which ultimately was awarded to Alfred Newman’s scoring of the movie “With a Song in My Heart.”

While box office earnings are not necessarily a deciding factor in Oscars wins, extremely popular films that make a lot of money often do well at the awards. Nine of the 10 top grossing movies of all time, when adjusting for inflation, have won at least one Oscar, including the original 1977 “Star Wars.” However, “Star Wars: Episode VII – The Force Awakens,” which is the 11th top grossing movie of all time won no awards. The movie — which finds characters Finn, Rey, and others in the Resistance searching for Luke Skywalker — received five nominations, including Best Achievement in Visual Effects.

Martin Scorsese graphically depicted urban decay and alienation in “Taxi Driver,” about a seething, mentally unstable New York City cabbie who erupts in violence. It is famous for Robert De Niro’s confrontational line “You talking’ to me?” The film helped make Jodie Foster a star and solidified Scorsese’s reputation as a visionary director. The searing film has a Rotten Tomatoes Freshness rating among critics of 97% and a 93% rating among audiences. “Taxi Driver” was nominated for four Academy Awards but failed to win any in a competitive year that included Oscar-winning films “Rocky,” “All the President’s Men,” and “Network.”

The stylish and creepy film that paired ghoulish icons Boris Karloff and Bela Lugosi for the first time is about Satan worshippers in Hungary. The early horror classic has an 88% Freshness rating among Rotten Tomatoes critics, though audiences were a little more off-put, and just 70% liked it. Horror films have not received many Oscar nominations over the years, and this one didn’t either. “It Happened One Night” dominated the Academy Awards in 1935, and “The Thin Man” also won Oscars.

The work of famed filmmaker Steven Spielberg has historically done exceptionally well at the Academy Awards, with movies such as “Raiders of the Lost Ark” (1981), “E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial” (1982), “Schindler’s List” (1993), and “Saving Private Ryan” (1998) all winning multiple Oscars. It’s surprising that the director’s 1985 film “The Color Purple” — about the difficult life of an abused young black girl in the early 20th Century — did not win any awards. The movie, which received 11 nominations, is tied for having received the most nominations in the Awards’ history without a win. Amongst the losses was Best Actress in a Leading Role award for Whoopi Goldberg. She would win an Oscar in 1991 for her supporting role in “Ghost.”

Superhero movies are exceptionally popular, and Christopher Nolan’s Dark Knight trilogy ranks among the most loved series by fans and critics. The last of the three films, “The Dark Knight Rises,” is the 72nd top rated movie on IMDb, and it also has a Certified Fresh rating of 87% from critics on Rotten Tomatoes. Yet while its predecessor “The Dark Knight” won two Oscars in 2009, “The Dark Knight Rises” failed to even receive a nomination.

The all-male international ensemble about the failed escape of Allied prisoners of war during World War II earned just one Academy Award nomination for Best Film Editing. It lost to “How the West Was Won,” which took home three golden statues. “The Great Escape” was a hit and grossed more than $11 million. Critics on Rotten Tomatoes gave it a 94% Freshness rating, and 95% of audiences liked the movie. Other major films that came out in 1963 were the budget-busting epic “Cleopatra” and the freewheeling comedy “It’s a Mad, Mad, Mad World.”

The brooding, thought-provoking offering from Swedish director Ingmar Bergman introduced Max von Sydow to American audiences. The film focuses on a disillusioned knight returned from the Crusades who plays Death in a chess match. It was not nominated for any Oscars, but it is in the pantheon of the greatest movies ever made for its visual aesthetic and storytelling approach. Critics on Rotten Tomatoes gave it a 93% Freshness rating, as did audiences. “The Bridge on the River Kwai” dominated the Oscars in 1958.

Four Oscar nominations went to “The Thin Man,” that led to five sequels about the urbane sleuth. The film starred William Powell and Myrna Loy, one of movie history’s greatest onscreen couples. It was the movie’s misfortune to be nominated for four Oscars the same year as “It Happened One Night,” which beat “The Thin Man” for Best Picture, Best Actor, Best Director, and Writing. The film holds a 97% Freshness rating from critics on Rotten Tomatoes and a 94% rating among audiences.

Director Herbert Ross’s 1977 drama about two women’s relationship with ballet is tied with Stephen Spielberg’s “The Color Purple” for the film with the most Oscar nominations and no wins at 11. The movie received two prestigious Golden Globe awards: Best Picture (drama) and Best Director. Ross, who passed away in 2001, never won an Oscar.

No Oscar nominations went to “Touch of Evil,” Orson Welles’ film noir about a corrupt, bullying police chief in conflict with a Mexican-born policeman investigating a bomb blast that killed an American contractor. Critics hailed the tense drama starring Charlton Heston and Welles, with 96% of critics on Rotten Tomatoes approving of the film. The Critics Consensus cites it as “artistically innovative and emotionally gripping.” The movie grossed more than $2 million worldwide. Film fans remember 1958 as the year the musical “Gigi” dominated the Oscars, winning nine statues.

As the first animated feature film to be completely computer generated, Pixar’s debut “Toy Story” was hugely influential. It was also a financial success, grossing more than $191 million at the domestic box office. The film was nominated for three Oscars — two for music and one related to writing — but won none. It did receive a non-competitive Special Achievement Award. The sequel “Toy Story 3,” released fifteen years later, won two Oscars.

The work of critically acclaimed filmmakers Ethan and Joel Coen has garnered numerous Oscars, including Best Picture for “No Country for Old Men” and Best Writing – Screenplay for “Fargo.” Yet the brothers walked away empty handed at the 2011 Academy Awards when their Western “True Grit” failed to win any awards despite 10 nominations, including Best Picture. The movie, which grossed more than $250 million worldwide at the box office, is the Coens’ top-grossing film of all time.

Director and co-writer Debra Granik’s second feature film “Winter’s Bone” follows a young woman named Ree — played by Jennifer Lawrence — who must track down her criminal father somewhere in the Ozarks. The movie’s bleak, realist approach won over critics — it currently holds a rating of 94% on Rotten Tomatoes — and earned it four Oscar nominations in 2011, including Best Picture, which was won by “The King’s Speech.” Had it won, “Winter’s Bone” would have been the second female-directed movie ever to win the award, after Kathryn Bigelow’s “The Hurt Locker.”