What Should've Won: Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring.

"The Official Story":  "Isn't it great Ron Howard won an Oscar?" Well, sure it is, yeah. But...

Our Take:  To be fair; Beautiful Mind wasn't a bad movie; it just wasn't Best Picture Of the Year. It's one of those rare cases on this list, where this film's win did not make us wince, as much as the films that were snubbed because of it. We had nothing against Ron Howard coming on stage, like an episode of Happy Days, gushing about how totally happy he was. It was cute. We don't mean to sound rather condescending here, but...yeah. That was cute.

So what happened...? Well, for one thing, The Academy made the 2001 race for Best Picture very...odd. In the Bedroom and Moulin Rouge were nominated for Best Picture, but not Director. Conversely, the directors of Mulholland Drive and Black Hawk Down were nominated, but not their films. As a rule, Oscar voters don't like being forced to give one film "Best Picture" and another "Best Director." This made the final race between three films: Beautiful Mind, Gosford Park, and, yes, Lord of the Rings.

So why did Lord of the Rings lose the majority vote? Some have said it was because the Academy could not (yet) find it in themselves to honor an epic fantasy movie. Others suggest that The Academy wanted to see the whole trilogy before passing judgment. How...odd. So you're saying that The Godfather 1 and The Godfather 2 should've been snubbed, until everyone got to see The Godfather 3? ...and that should've received Best Picture? Let's just put it this way; it's a very good thing the third film of Rings was as great as it was, because the snubbing the prior films got was uncalled for.

What Makes It So Embarrassing "Today":  Actually, not at all. Fortunately, LOTR was a trilogy, so in time, The Academy could correct their err, for once. As little as two years afterward, LOTR was a complete trilogy, and The Academy could no longer refute the truth: it rocked. It won as many Oscars as Ben Hur...and with reason.

Next up: "You Picked A Bad Night To Die!"

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