21 brilliant films that should have won the Oscar for Best Picture
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...and the movies that beat them. It’s easy to get caught up in awards season excitement as the Oscars approach – the glitz and glamour of the red carpet generating global talking points, memes and pub chatter for weeks on end. But when it’s really broken down, the Oscars are essentially just a microcosm of Hollywood. It’s a depressing fact that films directed by previous winners appear to have more chances of being nominated than those directed by newcomers.
![[Robert De Niro in ‘Taxi Driver’]](https://static.independent.co.uk/2024/02/28/15/newFile-4.jpg)
Because of this, the best film in any given year almost never wins the evening’s most coveted prize – in fact, it’s sometimes not even nominated in the first place. Parasite’s victory in 2022 was a recent rare exception. Over the decades, there have been countless glaring omissions – films that were nominated but were beaten by far inferior films and classic films that failed to secure a single nomination.
![[Spike Lee’s ‘Do the Right Thing’]](https://static.independent.co.uk/2024/02/28/15/newFile-3.jpg)
As the 2024 Oscars approach, we’ve run through 21 brilliant films that you would have expected to have won Best Picture winner – but didn’t. Citizen Kane (1941). Long revered as one of the greatest films ever made, Orson Welles’ debut – a film following newspaper tycoon Charles Foster Kane – was just another nominee back in the day, losing out to the admittedly brilliant How Green Was My Valley.
![[Morgan Freeman and Tim Robbins in ‘The Shawshank Redemption’]](https://static.independent.co.uk/2022/04/06/15/fullres-00348557%20%283%29.jpg)
The Searchers (1956). The Searchers may be considered John Ford’s greatest film, but it was not treated as such back in the 1950s. In fact, the western starring John Wayne failed to earn a single nomination. Around the World in 80 Days turned out to be more the Academy’s cup of tea.
![[Steven Spielberg’s ‘Saving Private Ryan’]](https://static.independent.co.uk/2023/11/29/11/newFile.jpg)
