With the 79th Academy Awards occurring next week, what better time to analyse these monumentous awards? But why are the Oscars so damn important? It’s a difficult question to answer, but it probably has something to do with the voters consisting of Hollywood’s major figures. And with Hollywood being the furthest-reaching film industry in the World, it’s no wonder that an Oscar win can boost sales instantly, and make some people (well, mostly actors) household names.

However, it’s interesting, if not obvious, to point out that the Oscars aren’t always right. Out of the top 25 films as voted by Internet Movie Database Members, only 6 won the prestigious Best Picture Award. And at times the winner, or even the list of nominees, seem downright lazy, representing the mainstream and neglecting the independent, while often sidelining foreign cinema into its own condescended subcategory. Below is a list of what I feel are the most unfair wins and worst omissions in this important award institution. Feel free to add your own in this tribute to aesthetic injustice.

The 1942 Oscars

I know, I know, anyone who knows anything about cinema knows about the travesty that was this event. This is entirely due to the neglect of Citizen Kane, pretty much acknowledged as the most important film ever made. Newcomer Orson Welles changed the face of cinema by incorporating the most impressive techniques of expressionist cinema, and placing it into a gripping yarn about lost innocence. Not only that but Welles played the lead role brilliantly, being in his mid 20′s but portraying Kane from young adulthood to old age with utter conviction. And what did it get form the Oscars? Best Screenplay. John Ford’s sentimental How Green Was My Valley picked up picture and director awards. But what do you expect? The Oscars aren’t exactly known for charting the future of cinema, but rather sticking to the easy. But besides Kane, it was also a shame that Preston Sturges’s charming Sullivan’s Travels and the moody The Maltese Falcon were largely ignored.

The Return of the King winning, well, everything in 2004

Come on. Admittedly, this is a well made action adventure romp (the best in over 15 years), but it delved into self-importance (the sentimental 20 min ending), and occasionally missed the mark in terms of action (the battle with Shelob). But it would be like Star Wars sweeping the 1978 Oscars. Was the year so bad that voters had only this to choose? Not at all, it was just publicised so much that its ubiquitous advertising campaign and schoolyard buzz pushed other films from the minds of most. Fernando Meirelles’s vision of Brazil’s favelas in City of God was both thrilling and deeply disturbing, more vibrant and passionate than Jackson’s directing. And winning Best Adapted Script over Berman and Pulcini’s witty, hip, and uniquely honest American Splendour was an utter shame.

How ‘…the West‘ Didn’t Win

You’d think the definitive Western, if not the Western that ended all Westerns, would have been acknowledged in the 1970 awards? Leone was one of those directors you could identify by watching a few frames of his films, so distinctive was his style. The action was brief, the scenes’ tension optimised through extreme angles and the strength to avoid relying on quick cuts all the time. I think Once Upon a Time in the West is his best, for its characterisation, especially its strong female lead, and for being genuinely thrilling. You’d think even Morricone would get a nod for his creation of specific themes for specific characters, blending into medley whenever characters clashed. Alas, this is not the first classic film to be neglected and not the last.

A Snubbed Malcolm X

Spike Lee was an angry young man who could translate that passion into his films. And Malcolm X was his first large-scale feature, charting the rise of the African American rights activist. The film is dark, imaginative, and unlike modern biopics, gets into the head of the complex and sometimes contradictory man, partly due to Denzel Washington’s astounding performance. While it can be argued that Clint’s The Unforgiven is a great film too (it beat Malcolm X to Best Film), it’s sickening that Washington was beaten by Al Pacino’s hammy hoo-hah-ing ferrari-driving blind-man performance in the soppy and silly Scent of a Woman. It must have been a tribute Oscar, much like Washington’s was for his over-the-top shouting through Training Day.

The Incredible Case of Kramer Vs Kramer

I sat down to this film hoping to see Seinfeld’s gangly neighbour battle it out with his doppelganger. Alas, the eponymous protagonists are man and ex-wife battling for custody over their kids. Whoever voted for this hyped-up TV-movie should be shot, or at least endure a severe ass-kicking. Dustin Hoffman’s performance was impressive enough, but nowhere near the poignancy of Peter Sellers in the touching yet satirical Being There. And of course there’s the mildly debatable issue of it winning Best Film over a little flick known as Apocalypse Now.

Lynched in 2002

2001 was a pretty good year for cinema. It brought us Donnie Darko, Amelie, the Royal Tenenbaums, the Pledge, and so on. And how was this represented at the 2002 awards? A Beautiful Mind taking up the Best Film category. But the real crime was in directing. You would image that when choosing for the best director, you try to look for a distinct use of visuals, imagination, and creative ways of bringing emotions to the audience. So why on earth did Ron Howard win for the sentimental, clichéd, corny, and insanely boring A Beautiful Mind? David Lynch (who should win an Oscar for Best Hair in Cinema) was nominated for Mulholland Drive, a film that achieves the very rare in boasting a very unconventional, non-linear manner of storytelling that manages to retain emotional authenticity, and have stunning cinematography. Maybe the category should be Most Typical Directing.

Stan is not the Man

Like Hitchcock, Bergman, and Lynch, Stanley Kubrick was another visionary that perhaps went too far into cinematic innovation for Academy members to take that awful risk and vote for something new. Kubrick’s 2001 still stuns most for its sets, he was the first to use extensive steadicam for The Shining, he was responsible for the creation of a super-sensitive lens in order to light scenes with candles in Barry Lyndon, and few films capture the quality of an unnerving dream better than Eyes Wide Shut. Kubrick was nominated several times, for his writing and producing as much as his directing, but his only Oscar was for his role in the special effects for 2001. I’m sure he’ll get an honorary award eventually, the typical consolation attempt the Academy makes to acknowledge those geniuses that were too far out there for the Academy’s collective conservatism.

No Place like Home

Whenever I get into a discussion about special effects in movies, the list of latest films boasting the best technology means very little to me. Technical advances do not necessarily mean better effects. And I’ve yet to see a film whose sets and fictional landscapes have impressed me as much as the dystopic realm of 2019, as featured in Ridley Scott’s Blade Runner. Combining modern (well, for 1982) Japanese design with ancient Mayan architecture, this tale of identity and rogue replicants remains one of the greatest sci-fi films ever devised. Sadly, it lost Best Special Effects to none other but the plastic figurine that is ET.

Leave Ullmann

One of the most under-rated actresses in cinema history had to be Liv Ullmann. Being a Scandinavian actress she was either going to end up in porn or in existential dramas, and fortunately she ended up in the latter. She is mostly known for her work with legendary Swedish director Ingmar “the comedian” Bergman. She was nominated for their 1976 film Face to Face. She also came close to receiving the award in 1973 for her performance in the epic The Emigrants, losing out to Liza Minelli for Cabaret (Ullman did get a Golden Globe for her efforts). Her greatest moment is the TV-drama turned feature film Scenes from a Marriage, in which she creates one of the most complex portrayals of a person in cinema’s history, as passive-aggressive Marianne, as we trudge through a decade of her rocky marriage. Domestic drama has never been so powerful, and Ullmann is the key factor. She returned to the same character in Bergman’s final film Saraband, but she didn’t use enough prosthetics to even be considered.

Hitch-Hiked

He’s rated as one of the best directors of all time. He was one of the few that could balance complex psychological theories with exciting and entertaining plots. And he was always trying to push the boundaries of movies. Occasionally that failed, but out of the 50 or so movies about a dozen are classics. Alfred Hitchcock remains possibly the most influential film-maker, inspiring those from Truffaut to Spielberg to Tarantino, to every modern thriller and chiller. He was nominated five times as director in his career, including Rear Window and his iconic Psycho, but never won. I think Vertigo is one of the greatest films ever made, and it was thrown scrap awards in 1959 (Best Sound, Best Art Direction). Anyone who hasn’t seen it should rush out and buy it, for this ultimate portrayal of obsession demands multiple viewings. It lost Best Film to the frivolous musical Gigi, of all films. Hitch eventually got an honorary Oscar in 1968 (and a commemorative stamp!), a bandage award on a wound of neglect.

Of course, there have been plenty of good calls (All Quiet on the Western Front, All About Eve, Lawrence of Arabia, The Godfather, Annie Hall, and Schlinder’s List, all winning Best Picture for their respective years), but does that suffice as compensation?