Every year since the Academy Awards were invented, somebody has been overlooked, ignored, passed over, disregarded or brushed off. You know what they say about beauty and beholders.
But perceived Oscar omissions — snubs, as we have come to call them — have grown into a frenzied annual conversation, with people left off the nomination list, or nominated but denied a statuette, sometimes receiving as much attention, or more, as those who win.
These are the 25 true snubs and unjust losses that Times film critics, columnists, writers and editors still can’t get over. Read more →
‘Do the Right Thing’ for Best Picture (1990)
Actual winner: “Driving Miss Daisy”
Spike Lee and Danny Aiello in the Brooklyn-set drama.Credit…Universal Pictures
Some people hated this movie. Others, more ominously, feared it, or claimed to. News articles and reviews imagined riots sprouting in its wake (they never came), seeing in the character of Mookie — who, in a fit of righteous fury, smashes a pizzeria window in the film’s famous climax — confirmation of Lee’s insidious intent. Did academy voters have similar misgivings? Lee, who was shut out of the directing category, did receive a nomination for his screenplay, suggesting at least one branch of the organization had his back. (Danny Aiello was also nominated for supporting actor.) But it’s hard to look at the eventual best picture winner, “Driving Miss Daisy” — a film in which Morgan Freeman plays Hoke Colburn, the patient chauffeur of a bigoted, elderly white woman — and not see a statement of preference. In 1990, it was the Hoke Colburns of the world, not the Mookies, who were welcome on the academy’s biggest stage. REGGIE UGWU, pop culture reporter
