This Sunday evening the 97th Academy Awards take place in Hollywood where hopefuls from Anora to The Brutalist are expected to pick up some big gongs. Over the decades, many of the greatest films of all time have been honoured with Oscars, from Saving Private Ryan to The Godfather. However, there are some Award-season-worthy films which regularly make such lists but never win Oscars. Check out our Top 10 below, as there are some gobsmacking additions, especially No 1.
10. Psycho (1960)
Alfred Hitchcock, who never won an Oscar, directed some terrifying classics but the horror film considered his very best is this 1960 picture. Based on the novel of the same name, the serial killer movie stars Anthony Perkins as motel owner Norman Bates and Janet Leigh as an on-the-run embezzler who is infamously slaughtered in that iconic shower scene. At first, Psycho divided critics due to its controversial nature but ended up being a box office smash nominated for four Oscars, including Best Director and Best Supporting Actress. Now considered one of the greatest films of all time, Psycho raised the Bar of acceptability for sex and violence in American cinema.
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7. The Shining (1980)
Back in 1980, Jack Nicholson starred in a career-defining movie adaptation of Stephen King’s 1977 novel The Shining. The story follows Nicholson’s Jack, a writer who accepts a position as caretaker of the Overlook Hotel in the remote Rocky Mountains during the off-season. Yet when a snowstorm leaves him and the family isolated, Jack’s sanity deteriorates as the building’s ghosts come out to play. Upon its release, The Shining received mixed reviews and even controversial Razzie nominations for Worst Director for Stanley Kubrick (who also never won an Oscar) and Worst Actress for Shelley Duvall. Yet in the years since its release, the horror film has been hailed as an all-time great and often appears in polls of the best movies ever made.
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