10 Times A Movie Didn’t Deserve To Win An Oscar

Ordinary People was Robert Redford’s directorial debut and was released to critical and box office success, with audiences praising the moving story about a nuclear family dealing with the death of one son and the attempted suicide of another. The film was nominated for six Academy Awards and took home four, including Best Picture, which many critics believed should have gone to Raging Bull instead.

While Ordinary People was moving, the film lacked diversity. It’s a movie about a rich white family in Regan-era America, and while diversity and discussions of privilege weren’t really talked about in the 1980s, the topics and themes of this Oscar-winning movie have made it a product of its time. Additionally, the film deals with heavy themes and discussions of mental health, which critics believe reflected narrow and potentially stigmatizing views of mental illness.

Raging Bull, on the other hand, was a powerful and innovative exploration of masculinity, violence, and self-destruction, while The Elephant Man, another film up for the award, was a haunting and visually stunning depiction of the life of Joseph Merrick, a severely disfigured man in Victorian England.