Earning any Academy Award nominations usually cements a movie's place in cinematic history and preserves its legacy for years to come, but wins are what every contender is really after in the end. It's absolutely an honor to be featured at any Oscar ceremony, but most movies are looking to leave with at least one trophy when all is said and done.
Unfortunately for a few films, despite receiving double-digit (or near double-digit) nominations, they ultimately left the Oscars empty handed. No matter if they were directed by acclaimed auteurs like Steven Spielberg or the Coen brothers, Oscar voters simply couldn't find a category to award them.
Double Indemnity (1944) - 7 Nominations
Released in 1944, Double Indemnity quickly became one of Billy Wilder's most successful films critically and commercially, setting a new standard for film noirs. The story follows Fred MacMurray's Walter Neff, an insurance salesman who is talked into a murder/insurance fraud scheme by a seductive housewife (Barbara Stanwyck's Phyllis Dietrichson), only to find themselves targeted by a claims adjuster who catches onto their plans.
The film was nominated for seven Oscars - Best Picture, Best Director, Best Actress (for Stanwyck), Best Adapted Screenplay, Best Cinematography - Black and White, Best Music - Scoring of a Dramatic or Comedy Picture, and Best Sound - Recording - and lost them all, as Leo McCarey's Going My Way swept the major awards.
The Godfather Part III (1990) - 7 Nominations
Though Francis Ford Coppola felt that the first two Godfather films told the complete Corleone saga, he was compelled to take Paramount's offer to make The Godfather Part III after the financial failure of 1982's One from the Heart. In his final installment in the trilogy - which Coppola refers to as the "epilogue" to the Godfather duology - this concludes the story of Michael Corleone, as he attempts to legitimize his criminal empire.
Reception to the film was mixed, but it still earned seven Academy Award nominations, for Best Picture, Best Director, Best Supporting Actor (for Andy García), Best Cinematography, Best Film Editing, Best Production Design, and Best Original Song (for "Promise Me You'll Remember" by Carmine Coppola). Regardless, it lost all of them, as Dances with Wolves dominated that ceremony.
The Shawshank Redemption (1994) - 7 Nominations
The Shawshank Redemption - the highest rated movie on IMDb's Top 250 - is one of the most beloved movies of all-time, and for good reason. It's an emotional epic with compelling characters - such as Tim Robbins' Andy Dufresne and Morgan Freeman's Red - and several stirring life lessons, never losing our attention as we watch Andy regain his hope and humanity while he aims to escape prison.
Shockingly, despite how beloved The Shawshank Redemption is today, it lost all seven of its Oscar nominations - Best Picture, Best Actor (for Morgan Freeman), Best Adapted Screenplay, Best Cinematography, Best Film Editing, Best Sound, and Best Original Score - as Forrest Gump was the awards darling that year.
The Elephant Man (1980) - 8 Nominations
David Lynch hasn't always been embraced by the Academy, but he stumbled into success with 1980's The Elephant Man the story of John Merrick (played by John Hurt), an intelligent and kind-hearted man who is feared by most people in his society because of his severe facial deformity.
The film was nominated for eight Academy Awards - Best Picture, Best Director (Lynch), Best Actor (Hurt), Best Adapted Screenplay, Best Costume Design, Best Film Editing, Best Production Design, and Best Original Score - tying Raging Bull for the most nominations at the 53rd Academy Awards. However, it lost in these categories to that film and the Best Picture winner, Robert Redford's Ordinary People.
The Remains Of The Day (1993) - 8 Nominations
The Remains of the Day is an adaptation of the 1989 novel of the same name, following Anthony Hopkins' Stevens, a butler who sacrificed his body and soul to service for his former employer, later coming to realize that this man may not have been as stoic and sincere as he once seemed. Emma Thompson stars as a hearty housekeeper named Miss Kenton, who gives Stevens a run for his money.
Nominated for Best Picture, Best Director, Best Actor (Hopkins), Best Actress (Thompson), Best Adapted Screenplay, Best Costume Design, Best Production Design, and Best Original Score, The Remains of the Day sadly lost all of these awards, as Steven Spielberg's Schindler's List proved to be the favorite that year.
Gangs Of New York (2002) - 10 Nominations
Martin Scorsese has been an Oscar darling for years, but that doesn't mean every film of his performs the same with the Academy. Case in point, 2002's Gangs of New York. The dark historical drama follows the valiant Amsterdam Vallon - played by Leonardo DiCaprio - as he returns to the Five Points area of New York City, seeking revenge against Bill the Butcher (Daniel Day-Lewis), his father's killer.
While mostly well-received and warmly embraced by the Academy - earning ten Academy Award nominations, including Best Picture, Best Director (for Scorsese), Best Actor (for Day-Lewis), Best Original Screenplay, Best Cinematography, Best Costume Design, Best Film Editing, Best Production Design, Best Sound, and Best Original Song (for "The Hands That Built America") - it went home with zero Oscars, as Rob Marshall's Chicago cleaned up.
True Grit (2010) - 10 Nominations
The 1969 True Grit may have earned John Wayne his first and only Oscar, but the Coen brothers' 2010 remake took things to a new level, elevating the material immensely with their signature fierce filmmaking. Telling the story of an alcoholic lawman named Rooster Cogburn (Jeff Bridges) who accompanies a feisty 14-year-old farm girl (Hailee Steinfeld's Mattie Ross) on her mission to hunt down the man who murderer her father (Josh Brolin's Tom Chaney), the film was the rare western to be embraced by modern-day audiences.
That adoration translated to the Academy as well, which nominated True Grit for 10 Oscars - Best Picture, Best Director (for Joel and Ethan Coen), Best Actor (for Bridges), Best Supporting Actress (for Steinfeld), Best Adapted Screenplay, Best Cinematography, Best Costume Design, Best Production Design, Best Sound Editing, and Best Sound Mixing. Still, voters didn't rally around it in any specific category, and it left the ceremony without a single award, as The King's Speech took home top prizes.
American Hustle (2013) - 10 Nominations
American Hustle was released one year after David O. Russell's runaway Oscar success Silver Linings Playbook, which netted star Jennifer Lawrence a Best Actress Oscar. His follow-up film felt like it could be even bigger, centering around the crimes of Christian Bale's Irving Rosenfeld and Amy Adams' Sydney Prosser, as they scam their way through life to survive and become embroiled in an elaborate sting operation on corrupt politicians set up by Bradley Cooper's FBI agent Richie DiMaso.
Though it earned ten Oscar nominations - Best Picture, Best Director, Best Actor (for Bale), Best Actress (for Adams), Best Supporting Actor (for Cooper), Best Supporting Actress (for Lawrence), Best Original Screenplay, Best Costume Design, Best Film Editing, and Best Production Design - and was one of only of 15 films in history to receive nominations in all four acting categories, it couldn't leave with a single Oscar, while 12 Years a Slave and Gravity received the most love.
The Turning Point (1977) - 11 Nominations
Herbert Ross' The Turning Point was quite the hit with Oscar voters in 1978 - at least, when it came to nominations. The ballet drama put the relationship of Shirley MacLaine's DeeDee Rodgers and Anne Bancroft's Emma Jacklin front-and-center, dissecting DeeDee's decision to leave the stage years ago to have a family (while Emma stuck with the profession) as her daughter Emilia (Leslie Browne) comes to join a ballet company of her own.
Nominated for Best Picture, Best Director (for Ross), Best Actress (for Bancroft and MacLaine), Best Supporting Actor (for Mikhail Baryshnikov), Best Supporting Actress (for Browne), Best Original Screenplay, Best Cinematography, Best Film Editing, Best Production Design, and Best Sound, The Turning Point simply couldn't hold a candle to Annie Hall and Star Wars, losing all eleven awards.
The Color Purple (1985) - 11 Nominations
The Color Purple is one of the most quintessential works of Black fiction across any medium - literature, film, or stage - and Steven Spielberg's 1985 adaptation certainly did it justice as far as the Academy was concerned. Telling the story of a young Black girl named Celie Harris (Whoopi Goldberg), the film shows the problems Black women faced during the 20th century, (such as domestic violence, sexual assault, poverty, prejudice, and more) while simultaneously showcasing the strength of the Black spirit.
With nominations in Best Picture, Best Actress (for Goldberg), Best Supporting Actress (for Margaret Avery and Oprah Winfrey), Best Adapted Screenplay, Best Cinematography, Best Costume Design, Best Makeup, Best Production Design, Best Original Score, and Best Original Song (for "Miss Celie's Blues"), the Academy clearly appreciated the film, but it was no match for Sydney Pollack's Out of Africa, which swept the awards circuit that year.