Although the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences® has awarded many deserving honors to its nominees over the years (Academy Awards® Winners from 1927/8 to the present), a large number of excellent performances by Film Actors and Actresses have been ignored, overlooked, snubbed, or passed over. Entertainment Weekly recently published an article entitled "The 100 Best Moments Snubbed by Oscar" (November 22, 2002), listing their selections of the top 100 Oscar-snubbed performances.

Did you know that Great Performances such as these (there are many more examples below) weren't even nominated:

• Cary Grant as David Huxley and Katharine Hepburn as Susan Vance in Bringing Up Baby (1938)
• Judy Garland as Dorothy in The Wizard of Oz (1939)
• Ingrid Bergman as Ilsa Lund in Casablanca (1942)
• Humphrey Bogart as Fred C. Dobbs in The Treasure of the Sierra Madre (1948)
• Gene Kelly as Don Lockwood in Singin' in the Rain (1952)
• James Dean as Jim Stark in Rebel Without a Cause (1955)
• John Wayne as Ethan Edwards in The Searchers (1956)
• James Stewart as Scottie Ferguson in Vertigo (1958)
• Orson Welles as Hank Quinlan in Touch of Evil (1958)
• Marilyn Monroe as Sugar Kane in Some Like It Hot (1959)
• Cary Grant as Roger O. Thornhill in North By Northwest (1959)
• Robert Redford as The Sundance Kid in Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid (1969)
• Anthony Perkins as Norman Bates in Psycho (1960)

And many more 'nominated' performances lost, such as these 'classic' performances:

• Laurence Olivier as Heathcliff in Wuthering Heights (1939)
• James Stewart as Jefferson Davis in Mr. Smith Goes to Washington (1939)
• Bette Davis as Judith Traherne in Dark Victory (1939)
• Clark Gable as Rhett Butler in Gone With the Wind (1939)
• Greta Garbo as Ninotchka in Ninotchka (1939)
• Orson Welles as Charles Foster Kane in Citizen Kane (1941)
• Humphrey Bogart as Rick in Casablanca (1942)
• Barbara Stanwyck as Phyllis Dietrichson in Double Indemnity (1944)
• Montgomery Clift as Private Prewitt and Deborah Kerr as Karen Holmes in From Here to Eternity (1953)
• Peter O'Toole as T. E. Lawrence in Lawrence of Arabia (1962)
• Richard Burton as George in Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf? (1966)

Please note: Oscar omissions and losses are also described for each year
in the complete Oscar history found on this site.

• Academy Awards®-Nominated Great Films
  That Didn't Win a Single Oscar®
  
  
• Great Films That Weren't Nominated
  For A Single Academy® Award
  
  
• 'Best Pictures' Not Nominated for Best Picture
  
  
• Great Acting Performances That Weren't Nominated
  For Academy Awards®
  
  
• Great Actors, Great Actresses, and Great Directors
  Who Have Not Won Actor, Actress and Best Director Academy Awards®

Note: Films that have been selected as the 100 Greatest Films are identified by a yellow star

• Buster Keaton as Johnnie Gray in The General (1927)
• Al Jolson as Jakie Rabinowitz (Jack Robin) in The Jazz Singer (1927)
• Mary Pickford as Maggie Johnson in My Best Girl (1927/28)
• Renee Maria Falconetti as Joan in The Passion of Joan of Arc (1928/29)
• Buster Keaton as Steamboat Bill, Jr., in Steamboat Bill, Jr. (1928/29)
• Lillian Gish as Letty in The Wind (1928/29)
• Edward G. Robinson as Rico in Little Caesar (1930/31)
• Charles Chaplin as The Tramp in City Lights (1931/32)
• Bela Lugosi as Count Dracula in Dracula (1931/32)
• Boris Karloff as Frankenstein's "Monster" in Frankenstein (1931/32)
• Joan Crawford as Flaemmchen and John Barrymore as Baron Felix von Gaigern in Grand Hotel (1931/32)
• James Cagney as Tom Powers in The Public Enemy (1931/32)
• Marlene Dietrich as Helen Faraday in Blonde Venus (1932/33)
• John Barrymore as Larry Renault in Dinner at Eight (1932/33)
• Groucho Marx as Rufus T. Firefly in Duck Soup (1932/33)
• Joan Blondell in Gold Diggers of 1933 (1932/33)
• Claude Rains as Invisible Man Jack Griffin in The Invisible Man (1932/33)
• Greta Garbo as Queen Christina in Queen Christina (1932/33)
• Jean Harlow as Vantine in Red Dust (1932/33)
• Paul Muni as Tony Camonte in Scarface: The Shame of the Nation (1932/33) (He was nominated for I Am A Fugitive From a Chain Gang (1932/33) and lost)
• Herbert Marshall as Gaston Monescu/Monsieur LaValle in Trouble in Paradise (1932/33)
• W. C. Fields as Harold Bissonette in It's A Gift (1934)
• Bette Davis as Mildred Rogers in Of Human Bondage (1934) (a write-in candidate only)
• Leslie Howard as Sir Percey Blakeney in The Scarlet Pimpernel (1934)
• Myrna Loy as Nora Charles in The Thin Man (1934)
• John Barrymore as Oscar Jaffe in Twentieth Century (1934)
• Boris Karloff as the "Monster" in The Bride of Frankenstein (1935)
• Errol Flynn as Dr. Peter Blood in Captain Blood (1935)
• Groucho Marx as Otis B. Driftwood in A Night at the Opera (1935)
• Robert Donat as Richard Hannay in The 39 Steps (1935)
• Edward G. Robinson as Arthur Ferguson Jones/Killer Mannion in The Whole Town's Talking (1935)
• Frances Farmer in the dual role as Lotta Morgan/Lotta Bostrom in Come and Get It (1936)
• Sylvia Sidney as Katherine Grant in Fury (1936)
• Myrna Loy as Billie Burke in The Great Ziegfeld (1936)
• Jean Harlow as Gladys Benton and Myrna Loy as Connie Allenbury in Libeled Lady (1936)
• Jean Arthur as Babe Bennett in Mr. Deeds Goes to Town (1936)
• Charlie Chaplin as The Tramp and Paulette Goddard as the Gamine in Modern Times (1936)
• Cary Grant as Jerry Warriner in The Awful Truth (1937)
• Sylvia Sidney as Drina in Dead End (1937)
• Carol Lombard as Hazel Flagg in Nothing Sacred (1937)
• Katharine Hepburn as Terry Randall and Ginger Rogers as Jean Maitland in Stage Door (1937)
• Sylvia Sidney as Joan Graham and Henry Fonda as Eddie Taylor in You Only Live Once (1937)
• Errol Flynn as Sir Robin of Locksley/Robin in The Adventures of Robin Hood (1938)
• Cary Grant as David Huxley and Katharine Hepburn as Susan Vance in Bringing Up Baby (1938)
• Katharine Hepburn as Linda Seton in Holiday (1938)
• James Stewart as Tom Destry in Destry Rides Again (1939)
• Jean Arthur as Saunders in Mr. Smith Goes to Washington (1939)
• Judy Garland as Dorothy in The Wizard of Oz (1939)
• Henry Fonda as Abe Lincoln in Young Mr. Lincoln (1939)
• W. C. Fields as Egbert Souse in The Bank Dick (1940)
• Cary Grant as Walter Burns and Rosalind Russell as Hildy Johnson in His Girl Friday (1940)
• Cary Grant as C.K. Dexter Haven in The Philadelphia Story (1940)
• Greer Garson as Elizabeth Bennet in Pride and Prejudice (1940)
• James Stewart as Alfred Kralik and Margaret Sullavan as Klara Novak in The Shop Around the Corner (1940) - (James Stewart was nominated for Best Actor as Macauley Connor in The Philadelphia Story (1940) and won)
• Gary Cooper as Professor Bertram Potts in Ball of Fire (1941) - (Gary Cooper was nominated for Best Actor as Sgt. Alvin C. York in Sergeant York (1941) and won)
• Humphrey Bogart as "Mad Dog" Earle in High Sierra (1941)
• Barbara Stanwyck as Jean Harrington in The Lady Eve (1941)
• Humphrey Bogart as Sam Spade in The Maltese Falcon (1941)
• Irene Dunne as Julie Gardiner Adams in Penny Serenade (1941)
• Joel McCrea as John L. Sullivan and Veronica Lake as The Girl in Sullivan's Travels (1941)
• Vivien Leigh as Lady Emma Hart Hamilton in That Hamilton Woman (1941)
• Ingrid Bergman as Ilsa Lund Laszlo in Casablanca (1942/43)
• Errol Flynn as James J. Corbett in Gentleman Jim (1942)
• Joseph Cotten as Eugene Morgan in The Magnificent Ambersons (1942)
• Jack Benny as Joseph Tura and Carole Lombard as Maria Tura in To Be or Not to Be (1942)
• Spencer Tracy as Sam Craig in Woman of the Year (1942)
• Roger Livesey as Clive Candy in The Life and Death of Colonel Blimp (1943)
• Joel McCrea as Joe Carter in The More the Merrier (1943)
• Joseph Cotten as Uncle Charlie Oakley and Teresa Wright as young Charlie Newton in Shadow of a Doubt (1943)
• Fred MacMurray as Walter Neff and Edward G. Robinson as Barton Keyes in Double Indemnity (1944)
• Gene Tierney as Laura Hunt in Laura (1944)
• Humphrey Bogart as Harry Morgan and Lauren Bacall as Marie Browning in To Have and Have Not (1944)
• Edward G. Robinson as Professor Richard Wanley in The Woman in the Window (1944)
• Boris Karloff as Mr. John Gray in The Body Snatcher (1945)
• Edward G. Robinson as Christopher Cross and Joan Bennett as Kitty March in Scarlet Street (1945)
• Myrna Loy as Milly Stephenson, Dana Andrews as Fred Derry, and Teresa Wright as Peggy Stephenson in The Best Years of Our Lives (1946)
• Rita Hayworth as Gilda in Gilda (1946)
• Donna Reed as Mary Hatch/Bailey and Lionel Barrymore as Mr. Potter in It's a Wonderful Life (1946)
• Henry Fonda as Wyatt Earp in My Darling Clementine (1946)
• Ingrid Bergman as Alicia Huberman in Notorious (1946)
• Lana Turner as Cora Smith in The Postman Always Rings Twice (1946)
• Deborah Kerr as Sister Clodagh in Black Narcissus (1947)
• Robert Young as Finlay in Crossfire (1947)
• Charles Chaplin as Henry Verdoux / Varney / Bonheur / Floray / Narrator in Monsieur Verdoux (1947)
• James Mason as Johnny McQueen in Odd Man Out (1947)
• Robert Mitchum as Jeff Bailey and Jane Greer as Kathie Moffett in Out of the Past (1947)
• Edward G. Robinson as Joe Keller in All My Sons (1948)
• John Garfield as Joe Morse in Force of Evil (1948)
• Edward G. Robinson as Johnny Rocco in Key Largo (1948)
• Joan Fontaine as Lisa Berndle in Letter From an Unknown Woman (1948)
• John Wayne as Tom Dunson in Red River (1948)
• Anton Walbrook as Boris Lermontov in The Red Shoes (1948)
• Humphrey Bogart as Fred C. Dobbs in The Treasure of the Sierra Madre (1948)
• Katharine Hepburn as Amanda Bonner in Adam's Rib (1949)
• John Dall as Bart Tare and Peggy Cummins as Annie Laurie Starr in Gun Crazy (1949)
• Alec Guinness as multiple characters in Kind Hearts and Coronets (1949)
• Gene Kelly as Gabey in On the Town (1949)
• John Wayne as Captain Nathan Brittles in She Wore a Yellow Ribbon (1949)
• James Cagney as Arthur Cody Jarrett in White Heat (1949)
• Sterling Hayden as Dix Handley in The Asphalt Jungle (1950)
• Humphrey Bogart as Dixon Steele in In a Lonely Place (1950)
• Richard Widmark as Harry Fabian in Night and the City (1950)
• Richard Widmark as Ray Biddle in No Way Out (1950)
• Richard Widmark as Dr. Clinton Reed in Panic in the Streets (1950)
• Maureen O'Hara as Mrs. Kathleen Yorke in Rio Grande (1950)
• Alastair Sim as Ebenezer Scrooge in A Christmas Carol (1951)
• Kirk Douglas as James McLeod in Detective Story (1951)
• Robert Walker as Bruno Anthony in Strangers on a Train (1951)
• James Mason as Cicero in Five Fingers (1952)
• Judy Holliday as Florence Keefer in The Marrying Kind (1952)
• John Wayne as Sean Thornton and Maureen O'Hara as Mary Kate Danaher in The Quiet Man (1952)
• Gene Kelly as Don Lockwood and Debbie Reynolds as Kathy Selden in Singin' in the Rain (1952)
• Gloria Grahame as Debby Marsh in The Big Heat (1953)
• Marilyn Monroe as Lorelei and Jane Russell as Dorothy in Gentlemen Prefer Blondes (1953)
• Alan Ladd as Shane and Jean Arthur as Marion Starrett in Shane (1953)
• William Holden as Bernie Dodd in The Country Girl (1954)
• Charles Laughton as Henry Horatio Hobson in Hobson's Choice (1954)
• Grace Kelly as Lisa Carol Fremont in Rear Window (1954) - (Grace Kelly was nominated for Best Actress as Georgie Elgin in The Country Girl (1954) and won)
• Glenn Ford as Richard Dadier in Blackboard Jungle (1955)
• Julie Harris as Abra in East of Eden (1955)
• Doris Day as Ruth Etting in Love Me or Leave Me (1955)
• Henry Fonda as Lt. Doug Roberts in Mister Roberts (1955)
• Robert Mitchum as Preacher Harry Powell in The Night of the Hunter (1955)
• James Dean as Jim Stark in Rebel Without a Cause (1955) - (James Dean was nominated for Best Actor as Cal Trask in East of Eden (1955) and lost)
• Marilyn Monroe as Cherie in Bus Stop (1956)
• Sterling Hayden as Johnny Clay in The Killing (1956)
• James Stewart and Doris Day as Dr. Ben and Jo MacKenna in The Man Who Knew Too Much (1956)
• John Wayne as Ethan Edwards in The Searchers (1956)
• Andy Griffith as "Lonesome" Rhodes in A Face in the Crowd (1957)
• Robert Mitchum as Mr. Allison in Heaven Knows, Mr. Allison (1957)
• Kirk Douglas as Colonel Dax in Paths of Glory (1957)
• Tony Curtis as Sidney Falco in Sweet Smell of Success (1957)
• Toshiro Mifune as Taketoki Washizu in Throne of Blood (1957)
• Henry Fonda as Juror # 8 in 12 Angry Men (1957)
• Marlene Dietrich as Christine "Helm" Vole in Witness for the Prosecution (1957)
• Alec Guinness as Gulley Jimson in The Horse's Mouth (1958)
• Rita Hayworth as Ann Shankland in Separate Tables (1958)
• Orson Welles as Hank Quinlan in Touch of Evil (1958)
• James Stewart as Scottie Ferguson, and Kim Novak in a dual role as Madeleine Elster/Judy Barton in Vertigo (1958)
• Lee Remick as Laura Manion in Anatomy of a Murder (1959)
• Jean-Pierre Leaud as Antoine Doinel in The 400 Blows (1959)
• Cary Grant as Roger O. Thornhill and Eva Marie Saint as Eve Kendall in North by Northwest (1959)
• John Wayne as John T. Chance in Rio Bravo (1959)
• Tony Curtis as Joe-sephine and Marilyn Monroe as Sugar in Some Like It Hot (1959)
• Jean Simmons as Sister Sharon Falconer in Elmer Gantry (1960)
• Fredric March as Matthew Harrison Brady in Inherit the Wind (1960)
• Anthony Perkins as Norman Bates in Psycho (1960)
• Robert Mitchum as Paddy Carmody in The Sundowners (1960)
• Ralph Bellamy as FDR in Sunrise at Campobello (1960)
• Marilyn Monroe as Roslyn Taber in The Misfits (1961)
• James Mason as Humbert Humbert in Lolita (1962)
• Kirk Douglas as Jack Burns in Lonely Are the Brave (1962)
• Ralph Richardson as James Tyrone, Sr., and Dean Stockwell as Edmund Tyrone in Long Day's Journey Into Night (1962)
• Frank Sinatra as Bennett Marco, and Laurence Harvey as Sgt. Raymond Shaw in The Manchurian Candidate (1962)
• Robert Preston as Harold Hill in The Music Man (1962)
• Joel McCrea as Steve Judd and Randolph Scott as Gil Westrum in Ride the High Country (1962)
• Sean Connery as James Bond in From Russia With Love (1963)
• Audrey Hepburn as Eliza Doolittle in My Fair Lady (1964)
• Peter Sellers as Inspector Jacques Clouseau in The Pink Panther (1964)
• Tony Randall as Dr. Lao in The Seven Faces of Dr. Lao (1964)
• Julie Christie as Lara in Doctor Zhivago (1965)
• Sidney Poitier as Virgil Tibbs in In the Heat of the Night (1967)
• Audrey Hepburn as Joanna Wallace in Two for the Road (1967) - (Audrey Hepburn was nominated for Best Actress as Susy Hendrix in Wait Until Dark (1967) and lost)
• Steve McQueen as Frank Bullitt in Bullitt (1968)
• Tuesday Weld as Sue Ann Stepanek in Pretty Poison (1968)
• Mia Farrow as Rosemary Woodhouse in Rosemary's Baby (1968)
• Ali McGraw as Brenda in Goodbye, Columbus (1969)
• William Holden as Pike Bishop in The Wild Bunch (1969)
• Robert Redford as The Sundance Kid in Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid (1969)
• Malcolm McDowell as Alex in A Clockwork Orange (1971)
• Jessica Walter as Evelyn Draper in Play Misty for Me (1971)
• Robert Redford as Bill McKay in The Candidate (1972)
• Jon Voight as Ed in Deliverance (1972)
• Robert Redford as Jeremiah Johnson in Jeremiah Johnson (1972)
• Woody Allen as Allan Felix in Play It Again, Sam (1972)
• Sissy Spacek as Holly Sargis in Badlands (1973)
• Robert Mitchum as Eddie Coyle in The Friends of Eddie Coyle (1973)
• Robert DeNiro as Johnny Boy in Mean Streets (1973)
• Liv Ullmann as Marianne in Scenes from a Marriage (1973)
• Paul Newman as Henry Gondorff/Mr. Shaw in The Sting (1973)
• Gene Hackman as Harry Caul in The Conversation (1974)
• John Cazale as Fredo Corleone in The Godfather, Part II (1974)
• Gene Wilder as Dr. Frederick Frankenstein in Young Frankenstein (1974)
• Robert Mitchum as Phillip Marlowe in Farewell, My Lovely (1975)
• Robert Shaw as Quint in Jaws (1975)
• Michael Caine as Peachy Carnehan and Sean Connery as Daniel Dravot in The Man Who Would Be King (1975)
• Tim Curry as Dr. Frank-N-Furter in The Rocky Horror Picture Show (1975)
• Diane Keaton as Theresa Dunn in Looking for Mr. Goodbar (1977) (Diane Keaton was nominated for Best Actress as Annie Hall in Annie Hall (1977) and won)
• Richard Pryor as Zeke Brown in Blue Collar (1978)
• Woody Allen as Isaac Davis in Manhattan (1979)
• Nick Nolte as Phillip Elliott in North Dallas Forty (1979)
• Donald Sutherland as Calvin in Ordinary People (1980)
• Jack Nicholson as Jack Torrance in The Shining (1980)
• Kathleen Turner as Matty Walker in Body Heat (1981)
• Faye Dunaway as Joan Crawford in Mommie Dearest (1981)
• Christopher Walken as Tom in Pennies From Heaven (1981)
• Sean Penn as Jeff Spicoli in Fast Times at Ridgemont High (1982)
• Christopher Walken in The Dead Zone (1983)
• Ed Harris as John Glenn in The Right Stuff (1983)
• Eric Roberts as Paul Snider in Star 80 (1983)
• Steve Martin as Roger Cobb in All of Me (1984)
• Molly Ringwald as Samantha in Sixteen Candles (1984)
• Cher as Rusty Dennis and Eric Stoltz as Rocky Dennis in Mask (1985)
• Robert Redford as in Out of Africa (1985)
• Mieko Harada as Lady Kaede in Ran (1985)
• Dennis Hopper as Frank Booth in Blue Velvet (1986)
• Gary Oldman as Sid Vicious in Sid & Nancy (1986)
• Anjelica Huston as Gretta in The Dead (1987)
• Vincent D'Onofrio as Leonard Lawrence (Pvt. Gomer Pyle) in Full Metal Jacket (1987)
• Joanne Woodward as Amanda Wingfield in The Glass Menagerie (1987)
• Holly Hunter as Ed-wina in Raising Arizona (1987)
• Michael Keaton as Beteljeuse (Beetlejuice) in Beetlejuice (1988)
• Susan Sarandon as Annie Savoy in Bull Durham (1988)
• John Malkovich as Vicomte De Valmont in Dangerous Liaisons (1988)
• Alan Rickman as Hans Gruber in Die Hard (1988)
• Divine as Edna Turnblad in Hairspray (1988)
• Morgan Freeman as John Rawlins in Glory (1989)
• Annette Bening as Marquise de Merteuil in Valmont (1989)
• Glenn Close as Sunny von Bulow in Reversal of Fortune (1990)
• Laurence Fishburne as Furious Styles in Boyz 'N the Hood (1991)
• Samuel L. Jackson as Gator in Jungle Fever (1991)
• Michelle Pfeiffer as Countess Ellen Olenska in The Age of Innocence (1993)
• Bill Murray as Phil in Groundhog Day (1993)
• Denzel Washington as Joe Miller in Philadelphia (1993)
• Alfre Woodard as Carolyn Carmichael in Crooklyn (1994)
• Johnny Depp as Ed Wood in Ed Wood (1994)
• Kate Winslet as Juliet Hulme in Heavenly Creatures (1994)
• Ralph Fiennes as Charles Van Doren in Quiz Show (1994)
• Kathy Bates as Dolores Claiborne in Dolores Claiborne (1995)
• Jennifer Jason Leigh as Sadie in Georgia (1995)
• Ian McKellen as King Richard III in Richard III (1995)
• Julianne Moore as Carol White in Safe (1995)
• Nicole Kidman as Suzanne Stone in To Die For (1995)
• Angela Bassett as Bernadine Harris in Waiting to Exhale (1995)
• Harry Belafonte as Seldom Seen in Kansas City (1996)
• Debbie Reynolds as Beatrice in Mother (1996)
• Eddie Murphy as Sherman Klump (and others) in The Nutty Professor (1996)
• Al Pacino as Lefty Ruggiero in Donnie Brasco (1997)
• Sigourney Weaver as Janey Carver in The Ice Storm (1997)
• Leonardo DiCaprio as Jack Dawson in Titanic (1997)
• Dylan Baker as Bill Maplewood in Happiness (1998)
• Christina Ricci as Dedee Truitt in The Opposite of Sex (1998)
• John Malkovich as Himself in Being John Malkovich (1999)
• Reese Witherspoon as Tracy Enid Flick in Election (1999)
• Matt Damon as Tom Ripley in The Talented Mr. Ripley (1999)
• Michelle Yeoh as Yui Hsui Lien in Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon (2000)
• Gillian Anderson as Lily Bart in The House of Mirth (2000)
• Ewan McGregor as Christian in Moulin Rouge (2001)
• Nicole Kidman as Grace in The Others (2001)