Underrated and forgotten films and performances of Oscars past

This immensely satisfying seafaring epic promised the start of a franchise based on Patrick O’Brian’s Aubrey-Maturin series of novels, but despite racking up ten Oscar nominations (including one for Best Picture), it simply wasn’t a big enough hit to compel Fox to keep churning out pricey naval warfare adventures. A Best Picture win might’ve helped its cause, but “The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King” was not going to lose that year.

This low-budget Ozark noir from director Debra Granik was one of 2010’s most pleasant surprises, but it never really caught on outside of art houses. Eight years later, it’s best known for being the film that announced Jennifer Lawrence as one of the top talents of her generation. Her Best Actress nomination was the big story, but “Winter’s Bone” also earned well-deserved nods for Best Picture and Best Adapted Screenplay. It’s an essential, wholly authentic American movie about rural poverty and drug manufacturing/trafficking, but Academy voters were too in love with “The King’s Speech” to give it its due.

The 1994 Best Picture race was a hotly contested battle between the conservative pabulum of “Forrest Gump” and the comparatively punk-rock “Pulp Fiction.” Had the voting been held a year later, “The Shawshank Redemption” would’ve won in a walk. Meanwhile, the film that had been considered an early frontrunner for the top award, Robert Redford’s “Quiz Show,” has been largely forgotten, even though its tale of a national scandal driven by ratings and greed has much to say about where we are today.

Everyone loves gangster movies, and the Academy that gave Best Picture Oscars to two of Francis Ford Coppola’s “The Godfather” films is no exception. But Jonathan Demme’s was a five-category phenomenon at the 1992 Oscars, consigning Barry Levinson’s “Bugsy” to relative obscurity. Notable today for being the film that introduced Warren Beatty to Annette Bening, it deserves a higher profile as one of the great gangster films of the early 1990s.

John Boorman’s semi-autobiographical tale of growing up in London during The Blitz of World War II was nominated for Best Picture, Best Director and Best Original Screenplay, but the Oscars that year were all about “The Last Emperor” and “Moonstruck.” Thirty years later, “Hope and Glory” is hard to track down in the U.S., which is no way to treat one of the this perceptive and surprisingly funny movie about being a child in wartime.

Louis Malle’s “Atlantic City” is one of eight movies in Academy Award history to be nominated for the five major Oscars (Picture, Actor, Actress, Director and Screenplay) and go home empty handed. Alas, it never stood a chance against “Chariots of Fire,” “Raiders of the Lost Ark,” “Reds,” or “On Golden Pond”. The John Guare-scripted drama about an aging gangster (Burt Lancaster) and a down-on-her-luck waitress (Susan Sarandon) eking by in the depressing Oceanside gambling town deserves to be better known outside of cinephile circles.

Paul Mazursky’s “An Unmarried Woman” was a box office hit that established Jill Clayburgh as a bona fide movie star, earning nominations for Best Picture and Best Actress, and yet it’s currently out of print on physical media and unavailable to stream in the United States. The film was praised for realistically depicting the life of a single woman at a time when films simply weren’t doing that. It didn’t have a chance of winning Best Picture over “The Deer Hunter” that year, but it’s held up much better than the Vietnam War drama.

It’s rare that a family film earns a Best Picture nomination, but Martin Ritt’s “Sounder” is an exceptional drama about black sharecroppers trying to survive racial oppression and the Great Depression in 1930s Louisiana. The film earned rave reviews, but was never viewed as a serious Picture contender against “The Godfather.” It’s a wonderful film featuring superb performances from Paul Winfield and Cicely Tyson, both of whom were nominated in their respective performance category, but it should’ve had a much more profound cultural impact.

A long-gestating passion project for Robert Duvall, “The Apostle” repped the performer’s first Best Actor nomination since his win in 1983 for “Tender Mercies.” It was also his first time out as a director, and he did a mighty fine job guiding himself towards a fiercely committed portrayal of a Pentecostal preacher running from his past. He should’ve won his second Oscar that year, but the Academy opted for Jack Nicholson’s grandstanding performance in “As Good as It Gets.”

The Delbert Mann-directed, Paddy Chayefsky-written “Marty” took home Best Picture in a weak year (over “Love Is a Many-Splendored Thing,” “Mister Roberts”, “Picnic” and “The Rose Tattoo”), which may account for why it isn’t as well remembered as other winners. But the beautifully humane drama about a thirty-something butcher (Ernest Borgnine) desperate for romance is a timeless classic that deserves more praise.

Let’s clear up some confusion: the Warren Beatty-directed afterlife comedy “Heaven Can Wait” (Best Picture nominee in 1978) is actually a remake of the afterlife comedy “Here Comes Mr. Jordan” (Best Picture nominee in 1941). It shares only a title with the 1943 Best Picture-nominated afterlife comedy “Heaven Can Wait.” Does that help? Still confused? How about this: the Ernst Lubitsch-directed “Heaven Can Wait” is the best of the three, and would’ve been a fine choice for Best Picture had it not been nominated in the year of “Casablanca.”

The estimable British actor earned his first Academy Award nomination for his shattering portrayal of a grieving father driven to unthinkable measures to avenge the death of his son (and perhaps save his marriage). The turn Wilkinson makes in this film from happy husband to potential killer is stunning, but he was overlooked in favor of Denzel Washington in “Training Day” (a long overdue Best Actor win after being snubbed for “Malcolm X”).

The stuntman-turned-actor Farnsworth had been one of Hollywood’s most beloved character actors for decades when he finally earned his first Best Actor nomination in 2000 as a man who hops on his riding mower and travels from Iowa to Wisconsin to make amends with his estranged brother before they both pass away. It’s a subtle performance that deftly alternates from quiet sadness to warmth. The Academy’s selection of Kevin Spacey for “American Beauty” over Farnsworth was understandable at the time, but they’d undoubtedly like to have that one back given recent events.

After providing decades of enjoyment in films like “The Americanization of Emily," “The Great Escape” and “Victor/Victoria,” James Garner received what felt like a lifetime achievement nomination for his turn as Sally Field’s widowed lover in the disgracefully underrated (if not forgotten) “Murphy’s Romance.” It’s a star turn with subtle shadings of regret and sadness, and Garner just didn’t stand a chance against William Hurt in “Kiss of the Spider Woman” that year. But this is the film and performance you want to watch over and over again.

This was Robin Williams’s third Best Actor nomination after “Good Morning, Vietnam” and “Dead Poets Society,” and the one he should’ve won. As a man driven mad (and homeless) by grief, Williams belts out a sustained aria of sorrow and fury that has you howling with laughter one moment and sobbing the next. But no one had a shot that year against Anthony Hopkins, whose supporting performance (at least in terms of screen time) as Hannibal Lecter in “The Silence of the Lambs” got bumped up to lead.

It’s hard to believe, but Jeff Bridges was long considered one of the most underrated actors working in Hollywood. The son of a TV star, Bridges had received two Best Supporting Actor nominations before getting his first nod as a lead for his quirkily moving work in John Carpenter’s “Starman.” It’s hard to argue he was robbed by F. Murray Abraham for his portrayal of the jealous Salieri in “Amadeus,” but when you’re watching “Starman” it feels like you’re observing an all-time great performance.

Gary Busey used to be a highly regarded portrayer of volatile misfits before becoming one himself. After exhibiting promise in films like “Thunderbolt and Lightfoot” and “A Star Is Born” (1976), Busey rocketed to acclaim and stardom as the fiery lead of “The Buddy Holly Story.” The film is a fairly straightforward showbiz biopic, but Busey breathes unruly life into it as the short-lived rock-and-roll star. He was never a threat to beat out Jon Voigt (who gave the performance of his career in “Coming Home”), but there’s no shame in that.

A comeback performance for the ages. After a series of 1980s star turns that never quite took for one reason or another, Diane Lane got stuck in a supporting-actress rut for most of the 1990s before shaming Hollywood with her masterful performance in 2002’s “Unfaithful.” The film was a hit at the box office, but hasn’t endured as well as it should have over the years. Nicole Kidman had Best Actress locked down that year for her portrayal of Virginia Woolf in “The Hours,” but Lane’s triumph shouldn’t be overlooked.

Irish filmmaker Jim Sheridan dug deep into his past to tell this story of an immigrant family struggling to make ends meet in 1980s Hell’s Kitchen. In a movie filled with great performances, Morton stood out as a wife and mother sacrificing everything so that her aspiring actor husband can chase his unrealistic dream. Morton’s Best Actress nomination felt like an award in itself (Charlize Theron won for “Monster” that year), but it’s surprising that the film has been somewhat forgotten over the last fifteen years.  

Nicolas Cage was the focus as a man hellbent on drinking himself to death (spoiler: he succeeds), but, as is often the case in films with ultra-showy portrayals, it was the performer on the business end of the histrionics who turned in the most interesting work. Elizabeth Shue is absolutely devastating as the prostitute who falls for Cage’s suicidal alcoholic, and, in retrospect, gave a far more powerful performance than Susan Sarandon, who won Best Actress that year for “Dead Man Walking.” “Leaving Las Vegas” is not a film you should ever want to revisit, but what Shue does in that film cannot be undersold.

Laura Dern should’ve been nominated for her fearless performance in David Lynch’s “Wild at Heart,” but the Academy waited a year for her far more grounded portrayal of a sexually liberated housekeeper in Martha Coolidge’s underrated “Rambling Rose.” Both performances allowed her to set off thespian fireworks with her mother, Diane Ladd, who earned a Best Supporting Actress nod for her work here. Jodie Foster beat out Dern as part of the “Silence of the Lambs” sweep, but Dern’s day will come.

As the winner of Best Actress that year (over stiff competition from Shirley MacLaine and Natalie Wood), you can’t really argue that Patricia Neal’s tough-and-tender portrayal of housekeeper Alma Brown in “Hud” is “underrated,” but too often overlooked in favor of Paul Newman’s rowdy movie star turn as the title character. He’s great, but Neal is the earthy heart and soul of the film. It’s one to savor, especially since Neal worked infrequently thereafter.

Jane Alexander might’ve been robbed of a Best Actress Emmy when Paramount Pictures opted to release “Testament” theatrically before airing it on PBS’ “American Playhouse” as intended. Regardless, it’s a tribute to the shattering power of Alexander’s performance as a mother struggling to hold her family together in the aftermath of nuclear war that she cracked the Oscars’ Best Actress category in 1984 without much of an awards push from the studio. No one really tried that year, as Shirley MacLaine was the prohibitive favorite before she was even nominated for her feisty portrayal of Aurora Greenway in “Terms of Endearment.”

In a year that looked like a neck-and-neck contest between two veteran actors (Martin Landau for “Tucker: The Man and His Dream” and Alec Guinness for “Little Dorrit”), Kevin Kline shocked the world by sneaking past them to win Best Supporting Actor for his inspired turn as dimwitted (but don’t tell him that) criminal Otto West in “A Fish Called Wanda.” Thirty years later, Kline’s explosively funny work is still undervalued.

Mary Steenburgen had just two film credits to her name when she knocked out Academy voters with her portrayal of an aspiring dancer who reconciles with her ex-husband, who unexpectedly finds himself named as a beneficiary in Howard Hughes’s will. “Melvin and Howard” gave director Jonathan Demme his first major awards contender, but the film has been largely forgotten over the years due to erratic distribution. It’s a gem waiting to be rediscovered, and Steenburgen, who beat out a heavily favored Eileen Brennan (“Private Benjamin”) for Best Supporting Actress, is one of its many treasures.