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At last night's Oscars, the winners rightly took their place in history, but do spare a thought for the losers too.
Justice might have been done in the Best Picture category, with 12 Years A Slave the rightful winner, but it’s still something of a shock to see director Steve McQueen miss out on the award for Best Director after so many people had tipped him for it. But McQueen’s loss isn’t the only shock in the history of the Academy Awards.
Leonardo DiCaprio, for instance, also snubbed last night, has now lost out so many times he's practically more famous for it than his actual acting ability, considerable though it is. And it isn't just in the modern age that the right people haven't won. Time and again, throughout the Awards' (mostly) illustrious history, even luminaries like Stanley Kubrick, Orson Welles and Peter O'Toole have missed out on the recognition that should surely have been theirs.
Here are nine more injustices that history can’t rewrite…
Show all 9 1 /9In pictures: 9 surprising people who should have won an Oscar... but didn't In pictures: 9 surprising people who should have won an Oscar... but didn't Leonardo DiCaprio, practically every movie he’s ever made Steve McQueen wasn’t the only big name who didn’t see justice done this year – perennial Oscars bridesmaid Leonardo DiCaprio has now lost out so often that he’s becoming the butt of (mostly sympathetic) jokes. He might not have lost out as often as Peter O’Toole, but he has been pipped an impressive four times in the last 20 years. That said, he took the loss with admirable grace and a kind embrace for Matthew McConaughey
Michael Buckner/Getty Images
In pictures: 9 surprising people who should have won an Oscar... but didn't Edward Norton, American History X (1998) One of the true serious men of American cinema, that Edward Norton has never won an Oscar is an injustice in itself. 1998 was his best chance, after a bravura performance as a neo-Nazi in American History X saw him nominated for Best Actor. He lost out, to worldwide shock, to Italian actor Roberto Benigni’s turn in Life Is Beautiful, which was good, but not that good…
In pictures: 9 surprising people who should have won an Oscar... but didn't Anyone nominated alongside Dame Judi Dench, 1998 1998 was the year that Dame Judi Dench – an international treasure in anyone’s book – won the Best Supporting Actress award for roughly eight minutes’ worth of work on Shakespeare In Love. She’s since had seven nominations and this is her only win, but her competitors, best among them Brenda Blethyn (pictured) in Little Voice, might have a case for complaint about the shift they put in…
In pictures: 9 surprising people who should have won an Oscar... but didn't Annette Bening, in general Hilary Swank is a fine actress and absolutely deserving of her Best Actress Oscars, but Annette Bening must be a little put out to have lost out twice to her, in 1999 and in 2004 – not to mention a third time when she was beaten to it by Natalie Portman in 2010. She’s a fine actress however, and it would be a crime if she never won a thing
In pictures: 9 surprising people who should have won an Oscar... but didn't Stanley Kubrick, 2001: A Space Odyssey (1968) It might be deeply weird – and so much the weirder in 1968 – but 2001 was actually the highest grossing picture that year in America. It did win an Oscar for its visual effects, but Kubrick the auteur lost out in the Best Director category to Carol Reed’s Oliver!, which is madness when you think about it. Admittedly, Reed had been picked as a nod to his own past work which hadn’t won; but Kubrick would never win anything
In pictures: 9 surprising people who should have won an Oscar... but didn't Peter O’Toole, Lawrence of Arabia (1962) The late, lamented O’Toole actually holds the record for the number of nominations without a win – a total of eight. His best work is probably in Lawrence of Arabia, which was his first nomination for Best Actor, and in which he is majestic. But you can hardly suggest he wasn’t robbed without getting at least one
In pictures: 9 surprising people who should have won an Oscar... but didn't Judy Garland, A Star Is Born (1954) By all accounts, Judy Garland was at the height of her powers in A Star Is Born – the critical reception to her tragic portrayal of a starlet in love with an alcoholic was triumphant. However she lost out, cruelly, in the Best Actress category to Grace Kelly, also playing a woman struggling to cope with a drunken husband, though with rather less aplomb
In pictures: 9 surprising people who should have won an Oscar... but didn't Alfred Hitchcock, take your pick Alfred Hitchcock is a name absolutely synonymous with great cinema – one of the all-time greats. So one of the surprising things about him, then, is that he never won an Oscar for anything, despite FIVE nominations for Best Director, for the films Rebecca, Lifeboat, Spellbound, Rear Window and Vertigo. Sometimes there is no justice
In pictures: 9 surprising people who should have won an Oscar... but didn't Orson Welles, Citizen Kane (1941) The one film that everyone seems to have decided is the best ever, amazingly, only won one measily Award for Best Screenplay, despite scoring nine nominations. It missed out on Best Picture, Best Actor and Best Director, any and all of which would have vindicated Orson Welles, the driving force behind the whole project. This screenwriting Oscar was his only one – and even that was shared with Herman J Mankiewicz
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