Academy Awards 2012: 15 Worst Best Picture Snubs in Oscar History

Yesterday, the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences announced its nominations for the 85th Academy Awards.

Now that Oscar season has officially begun, however, it seems only right to take a look back at some of the films that weren't treated as well by the Academy in the past.

Best Picture is the ultimate Oscar prize, the one every movie is trying to get. But many of the films that we consider some of the greatest in cinematic history not only didn't win this prize: they were never even nominated.

Some classic movies snubbed by the Academy include "O Brother, Where Art Thou?" (2000), "Malcolm X" (1992), "Sophie's Choice" (1982), and "Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind" (2004).

But fifteen films are regarded as such classics, and were in some cases so egregiously ignored, that they warrent a place on a list of some of the worst Best Picture snubs in Oscar history.

These include such iconic films as "Rear Window" (1954), "2001: A Space Odyssey" (1968) and even "King Kong" (1933).

This list is not meant to imply that choosing Best Picture nominees is easy. Far from it.

But with so many excellent movie overlooked or overshadowed due to their genre, their controversy or simply the competition that year at the Oscars, acknowledging these now-classic films is a way of honoring the beauty of hindsight.

Click through our slideshow to see the fifteen worst Best Picture snubs in Academy Awards history, and to find out who won the Oscar (and who was nominated) instead. Enjoy, and happy viewing!

Rotten Tomatoes Score: 100 percent
Oscar Winner: Cavalcade

Even back when the Oscars offered ten categories for Best Picture, one of the best films of the 20th century still lost out to titles like "She Done Him Wrong" and "State Fair."

Rotten Tomatoes Score: 100 percent
Oscar Winner: On the Waterfront

One of three Hitchcock titles to be snubbed for the Best Picture Oscar, losing out to "The Country Girl" and "Seven Brides for Seven Brothers."

Rotten Tomatoes Score: 88 percent
Oscar Winner: West Side Story

Few know remember movies like "Fanny" and "The Guns of Navarone," despite them being excellent pictures. But there is almost no one who doesn't know Holly Golightly.

Rotten Tomatoes Score: 98
Oscar Winner: The Apartment

The second of Hitchcock's films to be snubbed by the Academy Awards, and now considered one of the greatest movies of all time.

Rotten Tomatoes Score: 100 percent
Oscar Winner: In the Heat of the Night

To be fair, there were some fantastic movies in the lineup for the 1967 Oscars. "The Graduate," "Guess Who's Coming to Dinner"... "Doctor Doolittle."

Rotten Tomatoes Score: 97 percent
Oscar Winner: Ordinary People

In the days before "The Lord of the Rings" trilogy, sci-fi and fantasy epics, no matter how beautifully made, had no chance in the Best Picture category.

Rotten Tomatoes Score: 95 percent
Oscar Winner: Marty

The controversial film lost out to movies like "Love is a Many-Splendored Thing" and "Mister Roberts" at the 1955 Academy Awards.

Rotten Tomatoes Score: 98 percent
Oscar Winner: Oliver!

"Funny Girl" and "Romeo and Juliet" managed to snag the nomination instead, proving that horror films were still tough to get into the Best Picture category.

Rotten Tomatoes Score: 96 percent
Oscar Winner: Oliver!

Stanley Kubrick's best film is also one of his only masterworks not to be nominated for an Oscar Best Picture

Rotten Tomatoes Score: 98 percent
Oscar Winner: Ben-Hur

Up against films like "The Diary of Anne Frank" and "Anatomy of a Murder" this Oscar snub, while disappointing, is at least a little more understandable.

Rotten Tomatoes Score: 100
Oscar Winner: Ben-Hur

Alfred Hitchcock's movies were once again snubbed by the Academy Awards when "North By Northwest," arguably his best movie, failed to get the Best Picture nomination.

Rotten Tomatoes Score: 92 percent
Oscar Winner: Gandhi

Sure, "Blade Runner" had to battle classics like "Tootsie" and "E.T." But did "Missing," a movie with a 58 percent rating on RT about a frontier medicine woman, really deserve the slot more?

Rotten Tomatoes Score: 98 percent
Oscar Winner: Kramer vs. Kramer

Bob Fosse's quasi-autobiographical "All That Jazz" and romance "Breaking Away" joined movies like "Apocalypse Now" and "Normae Rae" to beat out "Manhattan" for the Best Picture nomination.

Rotten Tomatoes Score: 100 percent
Oscar Winner: The Greatest Show on Earth

"Singin' in the Rain" is widely regarded as one of the top movies, and quite possibly the best musical, in American filmmaking history. How it lost out to movies like the original "Moulin Rouge" is a mystery.

Rotten Tomatoes Score: 96 percent
Oscar Winner: Driving Miss Daisy

"Driving Miss Daisy" won the Oscar for Best Picture. "Do the Right Thing" wasn't even nominated. This says everything you really need to know about the 1989 Academy Awards