Oscar’s 1948 Best Picture was Laurence Olivier’s Hamlet, the first time the award went to a non-Hollywood film. The British film won over three Hollywood films, Best Director John Huston’s The Treasure of the Sierra Madre, John Negulesco’s Johnny Belinda, and Anatole Litvak’s The Snake Pit as well as another British film, Powell & Pressburger’s The Red Shoes. Left out of contention were Howard Hawks’ Red River, John Ford’s Fort Apache, and Fred Zinnemann’s The Search.

Oscar’s 1949 Best Picture was Robert Rossen’s All the King’s Men over William Wyler’s The Heiress, Best Director Joseph L. Mankiewicz’s A Letter to Three Wives and two late World War II films, Henry King’s Twelve O’clock High and William A. Wellman’s Battleground. Ignored were Vittorio De Sica’s honorary foreign language winner, Bicycle Thieves, Clarence Brown’s Intruder in the Dust , and John Ford’s She Wore a Yellow Ribbon.

Oscar’s 1950 Best Picture was Best Director Joseph L. Mankiewicz’s All About Eve over Billy Wilder’s Sunset Boulevard, with George Cukor’s Born Yesterday, Vincente Minnelli’s Father of the Bride, and Compton Miller and Andrew Marton’s King Solomon’s Mines also in contention. Overlooked were the likes of Carol Reed’s The Third Man, John Huston’s The Asphalt Jungle, and Cukor’s Adam’s Rib among others.

Oscar’s 1951 Best Picture award surprisingly went to Vincente Minnelli’s An American in Paris over Elia Kazan’s A Streetcar Named Desire and Best Director George Stevens’ A Place in the Sun with Mervyn LeRoy’s Quo Vadis and Anatole Litvak’s Decision Before Dawn also nominated. Left out in the cold were John Huston’s The African Queen and Alfred Hitchcock’s Strangers on a Train.

Oscar’s 1952 Best Picture was Cecil B. DeMille’s box-office hit The Greatest Show on Earth over Fred Zinnemann’s High Noon and Best Director John Ford’s The Quiet Man. Also nominated were John Huston’s Moulin Rouge and Richard Thorpe’s Ivanhoe, not Stanley Donen and Gene Kelly’s Singin’ in the Rain or Akira Kurosawa’s Rashomon.

Oscar’s 1953 Best Picture was Best Director Fred Zinnemann’s From Here to Eternity over George Stevens’ Shane, William Wyler’s Roman Holdiay, Henry Koster’s The Robe, and Joseph L. Mankiewicz’s Julius Caesar. Not nominated were Frtiz Lang’s The Big Heat, Samuel Fuller’s Pickup on South Street, and Anthony Mann’s The Naked Spur.

Oscar’s 1954 Best Picture was Best Director Elia Kazan’s On the Waterfront over Edward Dmytryk’s The Caine Mutiny, George Stevens’ The Country Girl, Stanley Donen’s Seven Brides for Seven Brothers, and Jean Negulesco’s Three Coins in the Fountain. Alfred Hitchcock’s Rear Window and George Cukor’s A Star Is Born were egregiously ignored.

Oscar’s 1955 Best Picture was Best Director Delbert Mann’s Marty over Joshua Logan’s Picnic, John Ford and Mervyn LeRoy’s Mister Roberts, and surprise nominees, Daniel Mann’s The Rose Tattoo and Henry King’s Love Is a Many-Splendored Thing. Shockingly ignored were Elia Kazan’s East of Eden and David Lean’s Summertime.

Oscar’s 1956 Best Picture was Michael Anderson’s Around the World in 80 Days over Best Director George Stevens’ Giant, Walter Lang’s The King and I, Cecil B. DeMille’s The Ten Commandments, and William Wyler’s Friendly Persuasion. Passed over were John Ford’s The Searchers, Vincente Minnelli’s Tea and Sympathy, and Don Siegel’s Invasion of the Body Snatchers.

Oscar’s 1957 Best Picture was Best Director David Lean’s The Bridge on the River Kwai over Billy Wilder’s Witness for the Prosecution, Sidney Lumet’s 12 Angry Men, Mark Robson’s Peyton Place, and Joshua Logan’s Sayonara. Stanley Kubrick’s Paths of Glory, Alexander Mackendrick’s Sweet Smell of Success, and Elia Kazan’s A Face in the Crowd were ignored.

FILMS THE ACADEMY SHOULD HAVE NOMINATED BUT DIDN’T

BICYCLE THIEVES, directed by Vittorio De Sica (1949)

Oscar hadn’t nominated a foreign language film for Best Picture since 1938’s Grand Illusion and wouldn’t again until 1969’s Z. De Sica’s heartbreaking studies of Post-World War II poverty in Italy reached their zenith with this gem about a hard-working man who needs his stolen bicycle for work. Producer David O. Zelznick proposed Cary Grant for the lead. De Sica countered with Henry Fonda before deciding to cast unknown Italian actors Lamberto Maggiorani as the film’s everyman and 8-year-old Enzo Stailoa as his son. Nominated for Best Original Screenplay, the film was given an honorary Oscar as Best Foreign Film.

THE THIRD MAN, directed by Carol Reed (1950)

This American-British coproduction, with its screenplay by Graham Greene, regularly shows up on lists of the greatest films British films as well as the greatest Hollywood films. The British release version was narrated by fourth billed Trevor Howard while first billed Joseph Cotton narrates the U.S. release version. Cotton plays an American pulp fiction writer who travels to post-war Vienna where he becomes involved in the disappearance and presumed death of his friend Orson Welles. Alida Valli is the mysterious woman Cotton falls in love with. Robert Krasker’s immaculate cinematography won the film’s only Oscar.

EAST OF EDEN, directed by Elia Kazan (1955)

Only the last part of John Steinbek’s massive novel was filmed with Oscar nominee James Dean in his first starring role as one of the sons of a strict, bible-touting father in the California of 1910. Richard Davalos was his brother, Julie Harris the girl who came between them, Raymond Massey the strict father and Jo Van Fleet in her Oscar-winning portrayal of Dean’s estranged mother, the madam of the local whorehouse. The film was also nominated for Best Director, Adapted Screenplay by Paul Osborn, and Best Actor. Dean’s nomination was the first of two posthumous ones, his having died in a car crash just after completing Giant.

SUMMERTIME, directed by David Lean (1955)

Katharine Hepburn was at her most radiant as the middle-aged secretary who spends her life savings on the trip of her life, a few weeks in Venice. Based on Artur Laurent’s play, The Time of the Cuckoo which starred Shirley Booth on Broadway, that later became the Richard Rodgers-Stephen Sondheim musical, Do I Hear a Waltz? , Lean’s first color film earned him the fifth of his eleven career Oscar nominations two years before his first win for The Bridge on the River Kwai. Hepburn’s nomination was the sixth of her twelve nominations, for what was arguably the best performance of her career.

THE SEARCHERS, directed by John Ford (1956)

Taken for granted in the era of almost daily westerns on TV, Ford’s late career classic has long since been considered the greatest western ever made and the most copied of all classic films. The opening of Star Wars, for example, is almost a carbon copy of its opening sequence. Ford, who already had four Best Director Oscars was not nominated, nor were John Wayne and Jeffrey Hunter for their iconic performances as the title characters in search of Natalie Wood, kidnapped by Indians as a little girl who turned her into a squaw. Vera Miles, Ward Bond, John Qualen, Olive Carey, Henry Brandon, and Hank Worden are also memorable in support.