Oscar Fever!

As the 90th Academy awards are approaching, we cannot contain our excitement! Amidst all the glitz and glamour, let us look back at some kickass movies that missed out on the Oscars but when on to become cult films. Considering the movies in this list, Oscars should have a category for awarding these missed jewels. You can watch the best of Oscar winning and nominated movies on Sony PIX.

The Shawshank Redemption (1994)
This movie has known to resonate and create impact in countless lives, should have picked up at least one Academy Award at the 1995 ceremony. It was nominated for seven, including Best Picture, but went home empty handed. However, it lost Best Picture to Forrest Gump which, you have to hand it to the Oscar, was one of the toughest call to make.

The Graduate (1967)
Who wouldn't be seduced by Mrs. Robinson (Anne Bancroft) and this seminal 1967 release? Mike Nichols' generation-gap comedy, made a star of Dustin Hoffman and became the top-grossing film of the year. The movie also received seven Oscar nominations, including Best Picture, which it lost to ‘In the Heat of the Night’.

Pulp Fiction (1994)
It may come as a shock to some, but Pulp Fiction actually did not win an Oscar for Best Picture and nor did Quentin Tarantino and Uma Thurman won this accolade for their mind blowing performances!

Fight Club' (1999)
“The first rule of Fight Club is: you do not talk about Fight Club.” It's probably also best not to tell anyone that David Fincher's acclaimed movie didn't take home the Oscar for Best Picture.

The Terminator (1984)
James Cameron created a story ahead of its time about a killer robot chasing a terrified victim into a near-perfect example of blockbuster filmmaking. The result thrilled audiences and critics alike, but didn’t earn a single Oscar nomination.

The Matrix (1999)
Though it won all four of the technical Academy Awards it was up for, this hugely influential sci-fi action film fell prey to the genre films stereotype and didn’t get a best picture nomination.

The Dark Knight (2008)
Although Christopher Nolan is nominated for an Oscar this year for Dunkirk, it was his Batman thriller that took comic book movies to new heights. It also earned a slew of Oscar nominations – including a posthumous supporting actor win for Heath Ledger. What it didn’t do was score a best picture nod. It’s not clear if this snub was the reason for expanding the number of best picture nominations the following year, but it may have been a factor.

Taxi Driver (1976)
This cinematic brilliance is considered as one of the best work of Martin Scorsese. The story is about a mentally unstable veteran working as a nighttime taxi driver in New York City. The film received four Oscar nominations, including one for Best Picture. Scorsese arguably should have won the Oscar for Best Director, but the fact that he wasn't even nominated is a bit of a joke. ‘Taxi Driver’ lost the Best Picture Oscar to ‘Rocky Balboa’ that year.

Jurassic Park (1993)
Although the movie won three Oscars for its sound and visual effects, it was simply unfair to not include Steven Spielberg’s visual feast in the best movie nominations. This movie marked the beginning of a franchise that has been entertaining people for over 25 years now across the globe. Shame, that Steven Spielberg wasn’t even nominated for best director for it.

The Good, the Bad, the Ugly (1966)
Sergio Leone has a history of getting snubbed by the Academy. Things were no different in 1966 when the Italian director's third installment of his Dollars Trilogy failed to garner a single nomination. Many critics consider ‘The Good, the Bad and the Ugly’ the finest Western ever made. It certainly could have earned the Best Picture at the Oscar, and the fact that Leone has never even been nominated for any of his epic films is a cinematic crime.