Saving Private Ryan
Saving Private Ryan lost Best Picture in 1999 to Shakespeare in Love…yeah, I’m just going to leave that up there for a while.
Unlike many of the other movies featured on this list, Saving Private Ryan had a great showing at the Academy’s big night, taking home five Oscars, including one for director Steven Spielberg and getting nominated for another six. In fact, it’s nearly impossible to say that the film was “overlooked,” but its subsequent loss that evening was and still is considered to be one of the biggest foul-ups in the history of the awards. It’s a question no one, even 18 years later, can answer, especially since the war epic has reached its inevitable iconic status.
Saving Private Ryan made over $100 million more than its conqueror. Given, you could argue that Shakespeare was a blockbuster itself, but obviously not to the same extreme the Spielberg film was. In my eyes, the victory boiled down to members choosing to watch heels and gowns over blood and guts, but as is the case with these other nine pictures, the audience chose the better movie.