best performance by an actor not to win the Oscar

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Jon Voight (Runaway Train) losing to William Hurt (Kiss Of The Spider Woman) in 1985. Al Pacino (Serpico) to Jack Lemmon (Save The Tiger) in 1973.

There are sooooo many Oscar robberies, but I agree that Pacino in Godfather II is among the most heinous in the leading actor category. Also, Peter O'Toole in Lawrence of Arabia and Richard Burton in Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf. As for Dog Day Afternoon, if I were choosing I would have awarded it to Pacino that year, but at least Nicholson's performance was worthy competition, unlike some other winners.

Among actress nods, the most embarrasing I can recall is Annette Bening's beautiful performance in American Beauty being passed over in favor of Hilary Swank's confused work in Boys Don't Cry. But then, I also thought that an embarrasingly bad movie, and still don't know why anyone cared.

Ill list the top ten in no particular order except for #1

10) Dustin Hoffman in Midnight Cowboy

9) Gene Hackman in The Conversation

8) Robert De Niro in Taxi Driver

7) Al Pacino in the Godfather Part 2

6) Jack Nicholson in Five Easy Pieces, althought George C Scott won that year for Patton, so maybe its too close to call

5) Marlon Brando in A Streetcar Named Desire

4) Al Pacino in Dog Day Afternoon, although once again with Nicholson and his performance in One Flew Over the Cuckoos Nest, its too close to call

3) Woody Allen in Annie Hall

2) Denzel Washington in Malcolm X

1) AL PACINO IN SERPICO! This is the greatest blunder of all other blunders that the academy has made. How could you not give it to Pacino for Serpico. I rank this as the number 2 performance of all time behind De Niro in Raging Bull

Let me let you guys in on a little secret, oscars don't matter. They DO, but they don't. They can lift an actor straight onto the A-list if they're just starting out, or it can even kill a promising career (i.e. Anna Paquin, or however you spell it, and even the great Orson Welles, who won screenplay for "Kane", and never acheived the heights the film promised of the young director/actor/writer.) Awards for acting are all self worshiping BS. Not that I'd ever turn down an Oscar mind you. But just look at the great filmakers who never won an oscar. Peter O'Toole, Stanly Kubrick, Alfred Hitchcock, Cary Grant, Harrison Ford, Martin Scorsese(until last year), Paul Newman didn't win an Oscar until 1986, well after his prime. Did Al Pacino deserve to win an Oscar for Dog Day Afternoon? I think so. As good as Jack was in "One Flew" he couldn't quite match the raw, for lack of a better word, "truthfullness" of Pacino's Sonny. This is a performance built around Pacino's personality, so when you see Pacino furiously ripping into his wife on the phone, and then quietly breaking down into a hole of self pity and regret, you are watching Pacino break down. Not a character, not a performance, but you are watching Pacino, not as an actor, but as a human being, live through that moment by himself. I've never seen a more honest or heartbreaking portrayal of a man who know's he made the wrong choices, and now finds out, he's paying for them. Forget the oscar, Pacino gets respect.

Sometimes...there's a man.

when i saw this movie i and heard that he was nominated and didnt win i screamed he was robbed than i realized that he lost to jack for cuckoo's nest. that is a tough call b/c he as well was excellent. there should have been a tie

The funny thing is that Pacino won for Scent of a Woman which was such an overacted and hammy performance.

But he was blind in the movie, and the academy loves when you get fat, get skinny, have a handicap, or a mental disease.

Hoo-Ha

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Taxi Driver was directed very well at all. Some scenes could have been filmed alot better, for example the scene in the end with the reading of Iris's parent's letter, the whole begining intro of the film, etc. The lighting and music in the film wasnt anything to be proud about either. In my opion Rocky deserved all the oscars it took home that year.

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Pulp Fiction did win best screenplay, but for a long time that's been the academy's consolation prize for the real best picture that doesn't win. Examples:

Citizen Kane in 1942

Dog Day Afternoon in 1975

The Usual Suspects in 1995

Pulp Fiction in 1994

Fargo in 1996

Eternal Sunshine in 2004

Traffic in 2000

LA Confidential in 1997

Dangerous Liaisons in 1988

The Lion in Winter/The Producers in 1968

Doctor Zhivago in 1965

There are probably others, but you get the idea. And they'll probably do the same with Crash this year.

Kubrick should have won for everything he was nominated for. But yet, they give him an oscar for visual effects instead...it's no where near as good as all the best directors, picturs, and screenplay nominations he recieved.

The biggest year of screw up in oscars would be 1994. Forrest Gump?! Why? Pulp Fiction all the way. Quentin should have also won for directed for PF. Lawrence Bender is a genius for producing Pulp Fiction. John Travolta, Uma, and Sam Jackson were amazing in it- but Samuel L. Jackson should have won, not Martin Landau. Hear him read Ezekiel 25: 17 and you get this vibe going through you.

Molest also means "to bother" so Michael Jackson is guilty of bothering kids