Modern Oscar Snubs: Directing Trivia Quiz

Answer: Gran Torino (2008)

"Gran Torino" (2008) stars Eastwood as Walt Kowalski, a widower dying of cancer who helps a Hmong family that moves into his neighborhood. He gets to say "Get off my lawn" (a line Clint was born to say). The film did not receive a single Academy Award nomination.

Eastwood earned his first directing award for the western "Unforgiven" (1993), in which he played a retired bounty hunter. Eastwood directed himself to a nomination and Gene Hackman to an Academy Award as Supporting Actor. "Unforgiven" was also named Best Picture.

In 2005, Eastwood would win again, for another Best Picture, "Million Dollar Baby" (2004). Eastwood plays a boxing trainer of a young woman (Hilary Swank). Swank and Morgan Freeman would both win Oscars for their work on the film.

Eastwood was nominated for "Mystic River" (2003), a crime drama set in Boston. Sean Penn and Tim Robbins both earned Oscars for their work.

Eastwood did win Irving Thalberg Award in 1995. He was born San Francisco in May 1930.

Answer: Manhattan (1979)

"Manhattan" (1979), which has one of the greatest openings in film history, received two Oscar nominations: Best Supporting Actress (Mariel Hemingway) and Best Screenplay (Allen and Marshall Brickman).

Woody won the Academy Award for "Annie Hall" (1977), both as Director and Writer (along with Marshall Brickman). The picture was also named Best Picture and Diane Keaton won Best Actress for the title role.

Allen has an incredible number of nominations for Best Screenplay, from "Annie Hall" (1977) to "Blue Jasmine" (2014). He won twice more: "Hannah and Her Sisters" (1987) and "Midnight in Paris" (2011).

Allen was nominated for directing "Hannah and Her Sisters" (1986), but only won for his screenplay. Michael Caine and Dianne Wiest won Supporting awards for their roles.

He was also nominated for "Bullets over Broadway" (1994), Directing and Screenplay. Dianne Wiest won Best Supporting Actress (Golden Globe and SAG Award as well), and both Chazz Palminteri and Jennifer Tilly were nominated.

Allen has directed at least 17 actors to Academy nominated performances, and six of them have won.

Allen's Directing nominations include "Interiors" (1978), "Crimes and Misdemeanors" (1989) and "Midnight in Paris" (2011). Allen was born in Brooklyn in December 1935.

Answer: Patton (1970)

Coppola did win an Academy Award for "Patton", for his screenplay with Edmund North. Franklin Schaffner was the director and he did win the Academy Award. The film was also Best Picture and George C Scott won Best Actor for the title role.

Francis Ford Coppola is responsible for not simply the greatest mafia films of all time, but one of the greatest film sagas ever: "The Godfather" (1972) and "The Godfather Part II" (1974). Both films won Best Picture and Best Screenplay for Coppola. Coppola was nominated for "Godfather" but lost to Bob Fosse for "Cabaret" (1972); he would win for "Godfather II" (1974).

Coppola was nominated for Best Picture, Director and Screenplay for "Apocalypse Now" (1979), a Vietnam war version of "Heart of Darkness".
The film earned eight nominations, including Director, Supporting Actor (Robert Duvall); it won for Cinematography and Sound.

Coppola was nominated for Best Picture and Director for "Godfather III" (1991) which is generally seen as a weak finale to the trilogy.

Coppola also won the Irving Thalberg Award in 2011. He was born in Detroit in April 1939.

Answer: Taxi Driver (1976)

Scorsese was not nominated for "Taxi Driver" (1976), in which Robert DeNiro delivers one of the greatest ad-libs of all time. The film was nominated for Best picture, DeNiro was nominated for Best Actor and Jodie Foster was nominated for Best Supporting Actress, but Scorsese was not nominated for directing. Jon Avildsen won for "Rocky" (1976).

Scorsese's first nomination was for "Raging Bull" (1980), the biopic about boxer Jake LaMotta that earned Robert DeNiro an Academy Award. Ten years later, Scorese would direct Joe Pesci to an Oscar in "Goodfellas" (1990).

In the 2000s, Scorsese began collaborating with Leonardo DiCaprio, in "The Gangs of New York" (2002) and "The Aviator" (2004), the biopic about Howard Hughes. Scorsese would finally win an Academy Award for "The Departed" (2006), a crime drama set in Boston.

More recently, Scorsese was nominated for "Hugo" (2012) and "The Wolf of Wall Street" (2013).

Other notable films by Scorsese that did not earn a Directing nomination: "Mean Streets" (1973), "Casino" (1995) and "Shutter Island" (2010). Scorsese was born in Queens, NY in November 1942.

Answer: Gallipoli (1981)

"Gallipoli" (1981) is about the doomed ANZAC attack on the Turkish coast during World War II. It is one of Mel Gibson's first films. Australia presented the film to the Golden Globes as Best Foreign film but they didn't win. It received no Academy Award nominations.

Weir's first nomination was for the 1985 Harrison Ford thriller "Witness" (1985), which won for its screenplay and editing.

He was next nominated for "Dead Poets Society" (1989) which starred Robin Williams as an inspirational teacher. The film won for Best Screenplay and Williams was nominated for Best Actor.

"The Truman Show" (1998) featured Jim Carrey as a man whose life was a television program. Ed Harris was nominated for playing the show's creator and Andrew Niccol was nominated for his screenplay.

Weir was also nominated for the Russell Crowe naval drama "Master and Commander" (2003) and for his screenplay for "Green Card" (1990). Weir was born in Sydney, NSW in August 1944.

Answer: Jurassic Park (1993)

"Jurassic Park" did receive three Academy Awards, for Sound, Sound Effects Editing and Visual Effects, but received no nominations in any of the major categories. The film is based on a book by Michael Crichton, about an amusement park with dinosaurs. What could go wrong?

Spielberg won his first Academy Award for "Schindler's List" (1993), the story of a German industrialist who rescued hundreds of Jews from the Holocaust. He won his second Oscar for "Saving Private Ryan" (1998), a story of a platoon of soldiers sent to rescue a man whose brothers died in combat.

Spielberg received his first nomination for "Close Encounters of the Third Kind" (1977), the Richard Dreyfus film about extra-terrestrial visitors. In 1982, he made another film about extra-terrestrials, "E.T. The Extra Terrestrial". "E.T." won four Oscars, for Sound, Visual Effects, Sound Effects and John Williams' musical score.

In between, Spielberg and George Lucas created one of the greatest adventure films ever, "Raiders of the Lost Ark" (1981). Spielberg was nominated, and the film won four Academy Awards, for Art Direction, Sound, Editing and Visual Effects. Incredibly, John Williams did not win for his score.

Spielberg was nominated for "Munich" (2005), which tells the aftermath of the terrorist attacks on the 1972 Olympic Games, and for "Lincoln" (2012), the story of the American president during the latter days of the US Civil War.

In recent years, Spielberg has been as much a producer as a director, with multiple nominations for Best Picture since 2007, including several films he did not direct personally. Spielberg won the Irving Thalberg Award in 1987. He was born in Cincinnati, Ohio in December 1946.

Answer: Carnal Knowledge (1971)

"Carnal Knowledge" (1972) starred Jack Nicholson and Art Garfunkel. Ann-Margaret won a Golden Globe and was nominated for Best Supporting Actress. But she was the only one on the film to be recognized by the Academy.

Nichols received his first nomination for his debut film, "Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf?" (1966), with powerhouse actors Richard Burton and Elizabeth Taylor. Everyone in the cast was nominated and Taylor won her second Oscar.

Nichols second film was the immortal comedy "The Graduate" (1967) starring Dustin Hoffman as a young man trying to figure out what to do with his life, who fall in with an older married woman, Mrs Robinson (Anne Bancroft). Nichols won for his Direction, and Hoffman, Bancroft and Katharine Ross were all nominated.

In 1984, Nichols was nominated for "Silkwood" (1983), which starred Meryl Streep as the ill-fated nuclear power plant whistle-blower. Both Streep and Cher were nominated.

"Working Girl" (1988) starred Melanie Griffith as a secretary with aspirations to higher things. Griffith, Joan Cusack and Sigourney Weaver were all nominated for their roles, and Carly Simon won an Academy Award for her song "Let the River Run."

Other notable films by Nichols include "Catch 22" (1970) and "The Birdcage" (1996). Nichols made his last film, the political drama "Charlie Wilson's War" in 2007. Nichols died in November 2014 at the age of 83.

Answer: Serpico (1973)

"Serpico" (1973) stars Al Pacino as a whistle blower in the New York Police Department. Pacino was nominated as Best Actor and Waldo Salt and Norman Wexler were nominated for their screenplay, but Lumet was not nominated.

Lumet started off his career in television before getting his big break with "12 Angry Men" (1957). The jury room drama stars Henry Fonda and an all-star cast, and is viewed as one of the greatest legal dramas ever made. Lumet earned his first nomination for it; the film was also nominated for Best Picture and Best Screenplay.

Lumet was next nominated for the Al Pacino crime drama "Dog Day Afternoon" (1975). The next year, he was nominated for directing "Network" (1976), a cynical look at television that won awards for Peter Finch, Faye Dunaway and Beatrice Straight and playwright Paddy Chayefsky.

"The Verdict" (1982) starred Paul Newman as a washed up attorney seeking redemption. It received five nominations, for Picture, Best Actor (Newman), Supporting Actor (James Mason), Director and Screenplay (David Mamet).

Lumet never won an Academy Award as a director, but did receive an Honorary Oscar in 2005.

Answer: The Shining (1980)

Kubrick was not nominated for directing "The Shining" (1980), the Stephen King story about demonic happenings at a Colorado hotel. The film did not receive a single Academy Award nomination.

Kubrick did win an Academy Award in 1969, for designing the special visual effects on "2001".

Kubrick was a triple threat on "Barry Lyndon" (1975), "A Clockwork Orange" (1971) and "Dr Strangelove" (1964). He was nominated as Producer (Best Picture), Director and Screenwriter. And despite nine nominations, lost all of them. Even decades after the end of the Cold War, "Doctor Strangelove" remains one of the funniest films ever made.

Kubrick was nominated as Director and Screenwriter (along with Arthur C Clarke) for "2001: A Space Odyssey" (1968). The film spans from the dawn of human intelligence to space exploration. Most of the films centers on a mission to Jupiter and the interplay between a sentient computer (HAL 9000) and two astronauts. It had incredibly revolutionary special effects.

Kubrick was also nominated for writing the screenplay to "Full Metal Jacket" (1987), which follows the training of a group of Marines sent to Vietnam. His last film was "Eyes Wide Shut" (1999), released a few months after Kubrick's death in March 1999.

Answer: Three Women (1977)

The "Three Women" of the title are Shelley Duvall, Sissy Spacek and Janice Rule. The film is quirky, even by Altman standards. It did not receive any Academy Award nominations.

Altman received his first nomination for the Korean War comedy "MASH" (1970), which starred Elliott Gould and Donald Sutherland as wise-cracking doctors.

His first nomination for Best Picture/Director came with the ensemble film "Nashville" (1975), in which politics and country music intersect. Lily Tomlin and Susan Blakely were nominated for Best Supporting Actress and Keith Carradine won for his song "I'm Easy".

Altman's most Hollywood centered film is "The Player" (1992) about a Hollywood studio insider (Tim Robbins) who commits murder. Along with Altman, the film was nominated for Screenplay (Michael Tolkin) and Film Editing (Geraldine Peroni).

In 2002, Altman was nominated for the British period piece "Gosford Park" (2001). The screenplay by Julian Fellowes (creator of "Downton Abbey") won. Both Helen Mirren and Maggie Smith received Supporting Actress nominations. The film explores the British upper class in 1932.

Altman did win an Honorary Academy Award in 2006, sort of a career achievement award. Altman died in November 2006 at the age of 81.