May the Best Win Trivia Quiz

Answer:

It may be hard to believe that the iconic movies featured in this quiz were not awarded the highest accolade - an Academy Award for Best Picture - unless you are familiar with the history of the Awards and the often puzzling choices of the members of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences. Though the vast majority of the winners were by no means bad movies, many cinephiles feel that they were not on a par with some of the movies that were overlooked.

In 1939, the ground-breaking (and enormously popular) fantasy musical "The Wizard of Oz", directed by Victor Fleming, was nominated for six awards, winning two (Best Original Score and Best Original Song), plus a honorary Academy Juvenile Award for Judy Garland's outstanding performance. The Best Picture winner was the sweeping Civil War epic "Gone With the Wind" (also directed by Fleming), which won a total of eight competitive and two honorary awards.

In 1941, Orson Welles' "Citizen Kane" was nominated for nine awards (winning only the one for Best Original Screenplay) in 1941, and passed over for Best Picture in favour of "How Green Was My Valley", the story of a Welsh mining family. It is now regarded as one of the best films ever made. A few years later, in 1944, Billy Wilder's quintessential film noir, "Double Indemnity", did not win any of the seven awards for which it had been nominated; the Best Picture award went to the musical "Going My Way", starring Bing Crosby.

Another beloved movie, the enduring Christmas classic "It's a Wonderful Life", directed by Frank Capra, was nominated for five awards in 1946, but won none. The Best Picture award went to "The Best Years of Our Lives", a movie about three servicemen returning home from WWII. In 1957, the tense courtroom drama "12 Angry Men", directed by Sidney Lumet and starring Henry Fonda, was nominated for three awards, but did not win any; the epic war movie "The Bridge on the River Kwai" won Best Picture, as well as another six awards.

Fast forward to 1971, when Stanley Kubrick's iconic "A Clockwork Orange" was nominated in four categories - not winning any of them, and losing the Best Picture award to the much less controversial "The French Connection". In 1979, another of the decade's landmark movies, Francis Ford Coppola's monumental "Apocalypse Now", won only two of the eight awards for which it had been nominated (Best Cinematography and Best Sound), while the Best Picture award went to divorce drama "Kramer vs. Kramer".

The biographical crime drama "Goodfellas" was the third of Martin Scorsese's films (after "Taxi Driver" and "Raging Bull") that had been unsuccessfully nominated for Best Picture. In 1990, it was nominated in six categories, winning Best Supporting Actor (Joe Pesci); the Best Picture award went to Kevin Costner's directorial debut, "Dances With Wolves", which won 7 awards out of 12 nominations. Four years later, in 1994, the riveting prison drama "The Shawshank Redemption", directed by Frank Darabont, and based on a novella by Stephen King, was nominated for seven awards, but did not win in any category. The feel-good Tom Hanks vehicle "Forrest Gump" was nominated in 13 categories, and won seven - including Best Picture.

In 1998, Steven Spielberg's epic war movie "Saving Private Ryan" - also starring Tom Hanks - was nominated in ten categories, winning in seven - including Best Director. However, the unexpected loss of Best Picture to the romantic comedy "Shakespeare in Love" is regarded as one of the greatest upsets in the history of the Academy Awards.

Of the six movies listed as wrong choices, "Gone With the Wind", "Dances With Wolves" and "Forrest Gump" have already been mentioned in the previous paragraphs. At the time of writing, "Titanic" (1997) is one of three movies holding the record for most awards won by a single film - a whopping 11 (including, of course, Best Picture). "My Fair Lady" won Best Picture (and another seven awards out of 12 nominations) in 1964. "The English Patient" (1996) was also nominated in 12 categories, winning nine of them (including Best Picture).