25 best movies that never won an Oscar

3. Psycho

You might want to sit down for this one: Alfred Hitchcock never won an Oscar. He was nominated for Best Director on five separate occasions for Psycho, Rear Window, Spellbound, Lifeboat and Rebecca and somehow never pulled out a victory. The Academy gave him the largely ceremonial Irving G. Thalberg Memorial Award in 1967, but he never received an Oscar for his individual work.

The fact that he didn’t win for Psycho is particularly shocking given how iconic characters and scenes from that movie have become over time. The film itself was entirely shut out at the 1961 Oscars despite being nominated for Best Director, Best Supporting Actress (Janet Leigh), Art Direction and Cinematography. Now THAT’S psychotic.

Honestly, I’m not well-versed enough in the other films that were released this year to have an opinion on what beat out Hitchcock’s masterpiece. But the fact that Anthony Perkins wasn’t nominated for originating the role of Norman Bates seems like a gross oversight, especially considering how enduring that character has been on the big and small screens over the years.

This also happens to be another situation where that year’s Oscars split Art Direction and Cinematography into “color” and “black-and-white” categories. The shower scene alone could have been worthy of winning either of those awards — or a Best Sound award for that matter, given how iconic the Psycho music is now. Sometimes the ones in charge just get it wrong.