Classic Oscar Snubs: Best Director Quiz

Answer: Jezebel (1938)

"Jezebel" (1938) won both Bette Davis and Faye Bainter acting awards, but Wyler was not nominated for directing them. The film was also nominated for Picture, Cinematography (Ernest Haller) and Musical Score (Max Steiner).

"Ben Hur" (1959) was the first film to win 11 Academy Awards, including Best Director for Wyler. "The Heiress" received eight nominations, including Best Actress, and won four awards, including Best Actress (Olivia de Havilland). "The Collector" (1965) starring Terrence Stamp and Samantha Eggar, had three nominations, including Director.

Wyler won three Academy Awards for directing: "Ben Hur" (1959), the coming home drama "The Best Years of Our Lives" (1946) and the British war-time drama "Mrs Miniver" (1942). Other notable films of Wyler's include "Roman Holiday" (1953), "The Little Foxes" (1941) and "Dodsworth" (1936). Wyler won the Irving Thalberg Award in 1966.

Answer: Irma La Douce (1963)

Wilder was not nominated for "Irma La Douce" (1963), an amusing comedy starring Jack Lemmon and Shirley MacLaine. The film did win an Oscar for the musical score by Andre Previn, and MacLaine was nominated for Best Actress. In the film, Lemmon plays a policeman who falls in love with a prostitute (MacLaine).

Wilder's first directing nomination was for the film noir classic "Double Indemnity" (1945) which stars Fred MacMurray as an insurance agent seduced by a femme fatale (Barbara Stanwyck). He was nominated for "Sunset Blvd" (1950) and won for writing the screenplay. And "The Apartment" (1960) won best Picture, Best Director and Best Screenplay for Wilder.

Other remarkable films in Wilder's resume including "Some Like it Hot" (1959), nominated for Picture, Director and Screenplay; "Sabrina" (1954), nominated for Director and Screenplay; Stalag 17 (1953), nominated for Director; and "The Lost Weekend" (1945) nominated for Director and Screenplay. Wilder won the Irving Thalberg Award in 1988. Wilder began his career writing screenball comedies, including "Ninotchka" (1939) and "Ball of Fire" (1941) with Charles Brackett.

Answer: Ryan's Daughter (1970)

"Ryan's Daughter" (1970) was set during World War I Ireland, and starred Sarah Miles and Robert Mitchum. While Lean wasn't nominated the film did win Academy Awards for Supporting Actor (John Mills) and Cinematography (Freddie Young). Sarah Miles was also nominated for Best Actress.

Lean won his first Directing Award for the World War II drama "The Bridge on the River Kwai" (1957). Five years later, he would win for the World War I epic "Lawrence of Arabia" (1962). He was nominated for "Doctor Zhivago" (1965) but lost to Robert Wise for "The Sound of Music" (1965).

Lean was nominated both for writing and directing the 1946 version of the Charles Dickens tale "Great Expectations". He was also nominated for "Summertime" (1956) and "Brief Encounter" (1947).

Lean's last nomination was for "A Passage to India" (1984). Lean was knighted for his contributions to film in 1984, and died in April 1991.

Answer: The Men (1950)

Zinneman was not nominated for "The Men" (1950), which was about the struggles of a World War II veteran. It is notable as the first starring role for Marlon Brando.

Zinneman won his first Oscar for "From Here to Eternity" (1953), a drama set in the days right before Pearl Harbor was attacked. The film won Best Picture, Supporting Actor (Frank Sinatra), Supporting Actress (Donna Reed) and several other awards. He won his second Oscar for "A Man for All Seasons" (1966), the historical epic about Thomas More.

Zinneman was nominated for the Gary Cooper film "High Noon" (1952), which is generally seen as one of the greatest westerns ever made. The film won four Oscars, including Best Actor for Cooper. Politics prevented it from winning Best Picture (the lackluster "Greatest Show on Earth" won instead).

Zinneman was also nominated for "The Sundowners" (1960), the Robert Mitchum film about an Australian ranch family. His last nomination was for "Julia" (1977), a spy drama about Lillian Hellman. Zinneman died in March 1997.

Answer: Meet John Doe (1941)

"Meet John Doe" (1941) starred Gary Cooper and Barbara Stanwyck, and is a parable about politics. It received only one nomination, for its screenplay and lost out to "Here Comes Mr Jordan" (1941). Cooper did win an Oscar in 1942, for "Sergeant York" (1941).

James Stewart helped Capra to two Directing nominations with "Mr Smith Goes to Washington" (1939) and "It's A Wonderful Life" (1946). Stewart was nominated for both films, but won for "The Philadelphia Story" (1940).

Capra won for "You Can't Take it With You" (1938), a comedy about the world's worst house guest. He also won for the Gary Cooper classic "Mr Deeds Goes to Town" (1936). And "It Happened One Night" (1934) was the first film to win all five major awards (Picture, Director, Actor, Actress and Screenplay).

Capra continued directing until 1961, but didn't match the brilliance of his work in the 1930s and 1940s. Capra died in September 1991.

Answer: Mildred Pierce (1945)

Joan Crawford won a Best Actress Award for her work in "Mildred Pierce" (1945), and Eve Arden and Ann Blyth were both nominated as Supporting Actress. But Curtiz was not recognized for his directing work. The film was also nominated for Screenplay (Ranald MacDougall) and Cinematography (Ernest Haller).

Curtiz won the Academy Award for "Casablanca" (1942) which is widely regarded as the greatest love story ever filmed. It won Best Picture, and Humphrey Bogart and Claude Rains (but not Ingrid Bergman) were nominated for their acting.

Curtiz was nominated for "Yankee Doodle Dandy" (1941), the biopic of George M Cohan that earned James Cagney an Oscar. He also directed Cagney to an acting nomination in "Angels with Dirty Faces" (1938), one of Humphrey's Bogart major early films.

Curtiz was also nominated for the Errol Flynn swashbuckler "Captain Blood" (1935). Curtiz worked on several films with Flynn, including "The Adventures of Robin Hood" (1938) and "The Sea Hawk" (1940).

Curtiz began his career in silents in 1912 and worked in Hollywood for fifty years. His last film was the John Wayne western "The Comancheros" (1961). Curtiz died in April 1962.

Answer: The Searchers (1956)

Incredibly, "The Searchers" (1956) did not receive a single Academy Award nomination. No directing for Ford, no acting for John Wayne or Natalie Wood. The film tells the story of Ethan Edwards (Wayne), who searches for his niece (Wood) who was abducted by Comanche warriors. It is regarded as one of the greatest westerns ever filmed. Not even the cinematography of Winton Hoch was nominated, and the film contains some of the most iconic shots in cinema history.

Ford won his first Academy Award for "The Informer" (1935). Four years later, Ford would launch John Wayne's career as a western star in "Stagecoach" (1939).

Ford and Wayne were frequent collaborators, making numerous great westerns, including "She Wore a Yellow Ribbon" (1949), "Fort Apache" (1948) and "Rio Grande" (1950). Ford was nominated for his work on "The Quiet Man" (1950) in which Wayne plays an ex-patriate American in Ireland.

Ford also won for "The Grapes of Wrath" (1940), based on the Steinbeck novel, which contains one of Henry Fonda's finest performances. The next year he would win for "How Green Was My Valley" (1941), a tale about Welsh coal miners.

Other notable snubs of Ford include "Mister Roberts" (1955) and "The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance" (1962). Ford died in August 1973.

Answer: Spellbound (1945)

Hitchcock was nominated for "Spellbound" (1945). The film stars Gregory Peck as an amnesiac under the care of a psychiatrist (Ingrid Bergman). It did win an Oscar, for the musical score by Miklos Rozsa.

"Vertigo" (1958) which was named by the readers of "Sight and Sound" Magazine as the Greatest Film of all Time, did not earn Hitchcock a nomination for Directing.

Same goes for the Cary Grant spy thriller "North by Northwest" (1959) and the murder exchange thriller "Strangers on a Train" (1951).

"Strangers on a Train" was nominated for its cinematography (frequent Hitchcock collaborator Robert Burks). "North By Northwest" was nominated for Screenplay, Art Direction and Film Editing.

Hitchcock was nominated five times during his career. In 1941 for "Rebecca" (1940), which did win Best Picture. In 1945 for "Lifeboat" (1944), one of his most technically demanding films. He was also nominated for "Rear Window" (1954), which starred James Stewart and Grace Kelly, and for the 1960 thriller "Psycho". Hitchcock did receive the Irving Thalberg Award in 1968.

Other Hitchcock films which did not receive the Directing nod include "Shadow of a Doubt" (1943), "Notorious" (1946), "Rope" (1948) and "Dial M for Murder" (1954).

Hitchcock's last great thriller was "Frenzy" (1972). The director died in April 1980.

Answer: A Tree Grows in Brooklyn (1945)

Kazan was not nominated for his debut film "A Tree Grows in Brooklyn" (1945). James Dunn did win a Supporting Actor award, and Frank Davis and Ress Slesinger were nominated for their screenplay.

Kazan won his first Oscar won "Gentleman's Agreement" (1947), in which Gregory Peck played a journalist investing anti-Semitism. The film was named Best Picture and Celeste Holm won for Best Supporting Actress. The film had five more nominations, including Best Actor (Peck), Actress (Dorothy McGuire) and Supporting Actress (Anne Revere).

Kazan was nominated for "A Streetcar Named Desire" (1951), which won Vivien Leigh, Karl Malden and Kim Hunter Oscars. He also directed Marlon Brando (Stella!) to an acting nomination. Brando would win for "On the Waterfront" (1954) in which he plays a dockworker fighting corruption.
The film won eight Oscars, including Best Picture, Director, Actor, Supporting Actress (Eva Marie Saint), Screenplay and Cinematography.

Kazan was also nominated for "East of Eden" (1955), the James Dean film based on the novel by John Steinbeck. Jo Van Fleet won as Best Supporting Actress, and Dean was nominated posthumously.

Kazan's last film was "The Last Tycoon" (1976), a Robert DeNiro film based on the novel by F Scott Fitzgerald. He died in September 2003 at the age of 94.

Answer: Nights of Cabiria (1957)

"Nights in Cabiria" (1957) was voted the Best Foreign Language film, but Fellini was not recognized for directing it. David Lean won the Oscar that year for directing "Bridge on the River Kwai" (1957).

Fellini was a brilliant writer, and was nominated eight times for his screenplays, starting with "Roma Citta Aperta" in 1947. He was nominated four times as Director, but never won.

Fellini's Directing nominations were for "Amarcord" (1973), "Satyricon" (1969), "8 1/2" (1963) and "La Dolce Vita" (1960). "Amarcord" and "8 1/2" both won as Best Foreign Language Film. "La Dolce Vita" won an Oscar for Costume Design (Piero Gherardi).

"La Dolce Vita" (1960) regularly appears near the top of "greatest film of all time" lists and contains some of the most iconic shots in film history, especially Anita Ekberg in the Trevi Fountain.

Fellini finally won an Honorary Academy Award in 1993. He died in Rome on Halloween in 1993.