LOSERS WE LOVE

Maybe they didn’t win the Oscar, but these movies and stars won our hearts.

Ever since 1929, the Academy Awards have honored some of our greatest cinematic performances and films—but they don’t always get it right. Welcome to the “snub club.” It’s a group of epic films, iconic directors and big-screen superstars that were underappreciated, unheralded and sometimes completely ignored by the Academy. We’re talking movie titans such as Tom Cruise, Michelle Pfeiffer, Will Smith, Mia Farrow, Sigourney Weaver and Samuel L. Jackson, who don’t have a single win among them (though Best Actor nominee Smith may finally get one this year for King Richard), and fan favorites that got no awards at all (The Shawshank Redemption, we’re looking at you).

“There are so many factors that go into choosing a winner beyond aesthetic greatness,” says historian and Oscars expert Noah Isenberg, who chairs the film department at the University of Texas at Austin and whose book We’ll Always Have Casablanca chronicles the story of one of Hollywood’s all-time classics. “Tastes are subjective, and certain films accrue value in time.” On the eve of the 94th annual Academy Awards (March 27 on ABC), join us as we salute the losers we love.