Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs, lost out in 1938

The Oscars were first held 90 years ago this May, and to date, no animated feature has won the Oscar for best picture. But as far back as the 1930s, the Academy was wrestling with how best to recognise “cartoons”. Having been nominated solely for a best music score award at the 10th Academy Awards in 1938, Disney’s groundbreaking gem made a return appearance at the next Oscar ceremony, where Shirley Temple presented Walt with an honorary award (one full-size statuette and seven miniatures) for “a significant screen innovation which has charmed millions and pioneered a great new entertainment field”.

A Matter of Life and Death, 1947

Facebook Twitter Pinterest Left to right: Marius Goring, David Niven, Roger Livesey, Kim Hunter and Robert Coote in A Matter of Life and Death. Photograph: Ronald Grant

Powell and Pressburger’s glittering wartime fantasia ranks among the greatest films ever made, a shimmering jewel in the crown of British cinema that deftly straddles the divide between this world and the next. Yet like David Niven’s doomed pilot, it got lost in the mist, Oscar-wise, dropping under the Academy’s radar and earning zero nominations. In the US, the film was released under the title Stairway to Heaven because the Americans apparently didn’t want to see anything with the word “death” in the title. Really.

Vertigo, 1959

Facebook Twitter Pinterest Kim Novak in Vertigo. Photograph: Allstar/Paramount Pictures

Eyebrows were raised in 2012 when Alfred Hitchcock’s sublimely weird chiller displaced Citizen Kane from the top spot of Sight & Sound magazine’s august poll of the greatest movies ever made. Yet neither picture was considered the pinnacle of achievement by the Academy, with Citizen Kane losing out to How Green Was My Valley in 1941’s best picture race, while in 1959 Vertigo earned nominations only for art direction and sound.

2001: A Space Odyssey, 1969

Facebook Twitter Pinterest Keir Dullea in 2001: A Space Odyssey. Photograph: Allstar/MGM

Stanley Kubrick’s interplanetary epic may have changed the face of modern cinema, but its Oscar triumphs were limited to a special visual effects award in 1969. Indeed, 2001 wasn’t even nominated in the best picture category, with the Academy apparently finding more merit in Romeo and Juliet; Rachel, Rachel; The Lion in Winter; Funny Girl and top prize winner Oliver!. Kubrick was nominated for best director, but despite being regarded as one of the most important film-makers of the 20th century, like Hitchcock and Welles, he never won that award.

The Exorcist, 1974

Facebook Twitter Pinterest Linda Blair and Max von Sydow in The Exorcist. Photograph: Sportsphoto/Allstar/Cinetext Collection

When Jonathan Demme’s The Silence of the Lambs won best picture in 1991, it was hailed as the first horror film to take the top prize (although some would argue that it’s actually a psychological thriller with added cannibalism). Yet the big daddy of horror earned only two Oscars, for sound and adapted screenplay, losing out in the best picture category to George Roy Hill’s The Sting. Director William Friedkin had triumphed two years earlier with The French Connection, ensuring his place in the history books. But The Exorcist remains a superior work, regularly voted the scariest film ever made.

ET the Extra-Terrestrial, 1983

Facebook Twitter Pinterest Drew Barrymore in ET. Photograph: Ronald Grant

The tale of a young boy whose parents have separated and who finds solace in the company of a lonely space alien, this sentimental sci-fi gem (which rivals the tear-jerking power of Silent Running) is arguably Spielberg’s most personal work. It was the highest grossing film at the time, outselling Star Wars, and stamping itself upon the hearts of all who watched in rapturous wonder. Nominated for nine Oscars, it was beaten to best picture by Gandhi, whose director, Richard Attenborough, later stated, very graciously, that ET should have won.

Trainspotting, 1997

Facebook Twitter Pinterest Left to right: Jonny Lee Miller, Ewan McGregor, Kevin McKidd and Ewen Bremner in Trainspotting. Photograph: Allstar/POLYGRAM FILMED ENTERTAINMENT/Sportsphoto Ltd./Allstar

Danny Boyle’s incendiary adaptation of Irvine Welsh’s novel is an era-defining work, a film that captured and shaped a moment of popular culture history. As such, it was exactly the kind of cutting-edge work the Academy tends to ignore. But screenwriter John Hodge earned a well-deserved nomination for turning Welsh’s scorching prose into quotable screen gold, negotiating a thin line between humour and horror. At the 69th Oscars, the best picture award went to Anthony Minghella’s The English Patient. Choose life, indeed!

We Need to Talk About Kevin, 2012

Facebook Twitter Pinterest Tilda Swinton in We Need to Talk About Kevin. Photograph: Nicole Rivelli photography/Publicity image from film company

Lionel Shriver’s electrifying novel of maternal guilt and “bad seed” violence was brilliantly brought to the screen by Lynne Ramsay, who made her name with the acclaimed Ratcatcher and the underrated Morvern Callar and who recently directed the jaw-dropping existential thriller You Were Never Really Here. Despite picking up Bafta and Golden Globe nominations, and boasting a career-best central performance by Tilda Swinton, We Need to Talk About Kevin was entirely overlooked by the Academy voters.

Leave No Trace, 2019

Facebook Twitter Pinterest Thomasin McKenzie in Leave No Trace. Photograph: SONY

My favourite film of 2018, Debra Granik’s note-perfect tale of a father and daughter living off-grid in the Pacific north-west serves as yet another reminder that awards often ignore the most remarkable movies. Depressing, too, that in a year in which film-makers such as Granik, Lynne Ramsay, Chloé Zhao, Marielle Heller and Josie Rourke were all eligible, the Academy has come up with yet another all-male list of best director contenders. No matter, Leave No Trace is pretty much perfect and its omission from the nominations is Oscar’s loss.