Year: 1942
Nominees: "Blossoms in the Dust," "Citizen Kane," "Here Comes Mr. Jordan," "Hold Back the Dawn," "How Green Was My Valley," "The Little Foxes," "The Maltese Falcon," "One Foot in Heaven," "Sergeant York," "Suspicion"
Who won: "How Green Was My Valley"
Who should have: "Citizen Kane"
Why: This one probably clocks in as a no-brainer at this stage. The defeat of "Citizen Kane," long considered the best film ever made in many circles (though knocked off that perch this year by "Vertigo," which itself received a meager two nominations), has long been the poster child for Oscar blights. This account of a turn-of-the-century Welsh family (which brought John Ford his third Best Director Oscar) is nice enough, but when you line it up next to not only Orson Welles's revolution of formalism but Alfred Hitchcock's "Suspicion" and John Huston's "The Maltese Falcon," it certainly comes off lesser than.

- Kristopher Tapley