10 Movie Legends Who Never Won an Academy Award

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Cinematic mastermind Stanley Kubrick consistently churned out four-star films. General audiences may best remember him for The Shining, or maybe 2001: A Space Odyssey, or perhaps A Clockwork Orange, or possibly... You get the idea.

You'd be hard-pressed to find someone who doesn't consider Kubrick to be one of the greatest American directors ever. Well, except for the AMPAS. Sure, he received a Best Visual Effects award as part of the team behind 2001, but Kubrick's a director, dammit, and one of the all-time best. One who unbelievably never won the Best Director honor.

Mia Farrow could have been a bigger star, but she chose motherhood, and for that, we give her props. Still, Farrow isn't exactly anonymous—she starred in The Great Gatsby (from 1974, not the modern, disjointed one with the hip-hop soundtrack) and Woody Allen's The Purple Rose of Cairo and Hannah and Her Sisters.

Farrow's best performance was in the horror classic Rosemary's Baby. In director Roman Polanski's creep-out classic, Farrow plays Rosemary Woodhouse, a married women who becomes pregnant and struggles to protect her unborn child against the Satanists living in her high-rise NYC building. The film fared surprisingly well at the Academy Awards despite being a horror film, but Farrow didn't even get the nomination for Best Actress. 

Saying that Marilyn Monroe transcended from film icon to pop culture icon is an understatement. You'd be crazy not to recognize the O.B. (original bombshell) who's been plastered on various kinds of memorabilia. But before she became an everlasting icon, Monroe was killing audiences with more than her curves.

That's right, she had killer comedic timing. This was especially true in Some Like it Hot, where she played Sugar "Kane" Kowalczyk, a ukulele-playing singer. The beautiful blonde more than held her own against comedic greats Tony Curtis and Jack Lemmon dressed in drag—she overshadowed them. Monroe's performance made the film one of the most iconic comedies ever, and yet, still no Oscar.

When people think of famous, let alone "great," directors, only the realest of cinephiles think of Robert Altman. The man's list of classic films is mighty: MASH (1970), Nashville (1975), The Player (1992), and Short Cuts (1993). 

Altman's films tackle tough, dark subjects but funnels them through humor and satire. The AMPAS generally seemed to agree with that praise, nominating him for Best Director five times. But not enough to ever give him an actual statue. As they always do after decades of mess-ups, the AMPAS gave him an honorary award a few months before his death. Too little, too late.

If her name alone doesn't ring a bell, chances are it's because you know her better as Dorothy, the young heroine in the beloved classic The Wizard of Oz.

She was more than Dorothy, though. Garland had 27 films under her belt by the time she passed away at the young age of 47. One of those films was A Star is Born, which housed Garland's greatest performance. In it she played an artist on the rise who meets the love of her life, an alcoholic movie star, when he crashes her performance one night. Sadly, the two don't go on to enjoy marital bliss.

And, shocker, the Academy robbed Garland of the Best Actress Oscar in 1954. What's even more bittersweet is that Garland's character in the film does win an Oscar. Reality doesn't always mirror fiction.

The AMPAS not awarding Akira Kurosawa at least one Best Director award is, frankly, a crock. He may not be a household name, but that doesn't mean his contributions to cinema are any less important. Ask any director or aspiring filmmaker about him and they'll start gushing before imploring you to watch Seven Samurai and Rashomon immediately.

Kurosawa's stories about war, love, and life went on to inspire great directors like Steven Spielberg and Martin Scorsese. How does the AMPAS honor the man who inspired today's greatest cinema? They don't. Sure, they gave him a lifetime achievement award, but the Best Director trophy is what he most deserved.

Bill Murray is, low-key, one of the greatest living actors. Best known for comedy goldmines like Ghostbusters and Groundhog Day, Murray goes deeper than that. He has a chameleon-like adaptability for roles both funny and serious.

Murray was a part of everyone's childhood with the beloved Space Jam, but he can just as effectively play an aging movie star going through a mid-life crisis and still come off as compelling (see: Lost in Translation). Murray received a Best Actor nomination for that performance, but ultimately lost. His day will (hopefully) come, but until then we'll keep considering him an underdog.

The only director/actor to appear on this list is the king of silent films, Mr. Charles Chaplin. Along with his iconic character "The Tramp," Chaplin gained popularity during the silent era, making cinematic classics like City Lights and Modern Times. 

He's regarded as a pioneer of early cinema and is credited for developing the comedy genre. All of that success, though, didn't earn him an Oscar until 1972 when he was given an honorary statue. Chaplin may have been one of film's all-time greatest comedic performers, but, in this case, the AMPAS is the real joke.

Yet another spectacular director who repeatedly went home empty-handed from the Academy Awards. Sidney Lumet is one of the greats, having directed Oscar-nominated films like 12 Angry Men, Dog Day Afternoon, Network, and The Verdict, but never won.

In an attempt to justify their wrong-doings, the AMPAS awarded Lumet an honorary award in 2006. He may not have been as outspoken as say other filmmakers, but that's because Lumet let his work speak for itself, and his work spoke volumes. It's a shame the Oscar folks never listened.

What kind of a world do we live in where Alfred Hitchcock never won an Oscar?! Hitchcock has become more than just a director; he's an undying, iconic master in the film industry. 

Hitchcock's biggest contributions to cinema were his revolutionary approaches to horror and suspense. He inspired many and continues inspiring the film industry today, but never reaped Oscar's benefits. It's no secret that the AMPAS doesn't always make the best decisions, but passing up on awarding Hitchcock an Oscar has no justification. And, nope, that honorary Oscar he received in 1968 doesn't cut it, either.