Best Picture: Some Like It Hot
Voted the best American comedy of all time in an American Film Institute survey 10 years ago, Billy Wilder’s fizzy farce earned nominations for its screenplay, its direction and Jack Lemmon’s performance as a Prohibition musician who goes on the lam disguised as a woman. (Tony Curtis, Lemmon’s partner in drag, deserved a nod too.) But the movie was denied one of the Best Picture slots, which were filled by two religious epics (Ben-Hur and The Nun’s Story), two “daring” melodramas (Anatomy of a Murder and Room at the Top) and The Diary of Anne Frank. Back then, elevated sentiments and hot-button social issues seemed so much more important than an ephemeral comedy starring Marilyn Monroe and two guys in dresses. Today, it’s the ephemeral that has lasted.
An Honor Not to Be Nominated
- Best Actor: Fred Astaire, Top Hat
- Best Actor: Cary Grant, His Girl Friday
- Best Actor: Bill Murray, Groundhog Day
- Best Actress: Barbara Stanwyck, The Lady Eve
- Best Director: John Ford, The Searchers
- Best Director: Martin Scorsese, Taxi Driver
- Best Director: Steven Spielberg, Jaws
- Best Picture: King Kong
- Best Picture: Some Like It Hot
- Best Picture: The Dark Knight
