FORESEEING OVERSIGHT

Here are the movies that will be remembered despite not being nominated Chris Knight

Would the Oscars be more in touch with reality if members of the Academy just took a deep breath and thought about it a little longer? Like, maybe 20 years?

You can bet 1941’s How Green Is My Valley wouldn’t have toppled Citizen Kane. There’s a fair chance 2014’s Boyhood will be better remembered in its 20th-anniversary year than Birdman. And imagine if voters last year had to choose between Saving Private Ryan and the actual 1998 best-picture winner, Shakespeare in Love, which was heavily promoted by Harvey Weinstein? The Oscars may be a snapshot of the industry, but they’re usually blurry and often half obscured by someone’s big fat thumb.

The year after the Shakespeare imbroglio, Toni Collette and Haley Joel Osment won for their supporting work in The Sixth Sense; Spike Jonze took the directing prize for Being John Malkovich while Charlie Kaufman won for its screenplay; and Fight Club was named best picture. Actually, none of that is true. Those pictures went home empty-handed, as did Toy Story 2, The Talented Mr. Ripley, The Iron Giant, Magnolia, Election and Run Lola Run.

Which raises the question of what great films of the last year are already being ignored by the Academy? Sure, Bradley Cooper wasn’t nominated for directing A Star Is Born, but you know there’ll be a fourth remake in another couple of decades. Here are some films that didn’t even make the ballot but will surely stand the test of time. If you don’t believe me, clip this out of the newspaper and get back to me in 2039.

EIGHTH GRADE

Like a grade- school version of last year’s Oscar nominee Lady Bird, writer/director Bo Burnham presents 13-year-old Kayla (Elsie Fisher) navigating the final week of Grade 8. The film will be remembered by today’s eighth graders long into their greying years.

HEREDITARY

Horror films generally get a bad rap at Oscar time; see the unheralded The Sixth Sense and, from the same year, The Blair Witch Project. This one deserves better, as (again!) does star Toni Collette.

A QUIET PLACE

Another horror that will still be scaring them in years to come, John Krasinski’s latest actually scored one Oscar nomination – for sound editing. That’s the Academy’s idea of a joke, right?

ANNIHILATION

About the only genre to fare worse than horror at Oscar time is science fiction. Alex Garland’s Ex Machina won for its screenplay in 2014, and his follow-up, based on the novel by Jeff VanderMeer, should have gotten at least that nomination.

SORRY TO BOTHER YOU

This politically trenchant, very funny first feature from writer/ director Boots Riley leaves no stone unthrown, and should have swelled the ranks of black nominees with its fine work by Riley and star Lakeith Stanfield.

LEAVE NO TRACE

You could make an alternate Oscar ballot out of the ignored films from female directors. Debra Granik’s searing story of a PTSD-addled veteran living in an urban forest with his 13-year-old daughter would top that list.

MARLINA THE MURDERER IN FOUR ACTS

Another fantastic film from a female director (Indonesia’s Mouly Surya), it feels like Quentin Tarantino and Nuri Bilge Ceylon collaborated on a western. It should have been Indonesia’s first nominee for Best Foreign Language Film.

WON’T YOU BE MY NEIGHBOR?

Inexplicably missing from the best documentary shortlist, this portrait of children’s TV host Fred Rogers feels like an antidote to the worst of the world of 2019, and will, if we know what’s good for us, still be celebrated in 2039.