Top 10 Movies with One Oscar Nomination

I've spent several days talking about Single Nominee Oscar movies. I've made my opinion plenty known for what I think was and wasn't under or mis-nominated. Now it's time for my overall thoughts on the movies.

Out of the 2012 single Oscar Nominees, I've seen 323 or about 1/6 of the movies. That's more than I expected and makes for the largest top 10 list I've done yet. There are a lot of great movies to choose from.

This whole time, I've been looking for some overarching principle for single nominee movies. The short answer is that with a sample size this large there isn't one rule. Movies get a single nomination for a lot of reasons. Their genre may be ghettoized. The category may have been thin that year. A bunch of the movies expected they'd get more nominations and fell from favor at the wrong time in the voting process. The closest overall theme I found is that these are almost all movies with one thing that was too great to ignore. They are films that are either too populist, too experimental, or too small to be on the Oscar radar but put together a targeted campaign good enough to make sure this one thing couldn't be ignored. That means this list has a great deal more variety than the multiple Oscar nominee list. All types of movies are represented: silly comedies, big action movies, intimate character studies, micro-budget productions. I'm pretty sure all the movies in my top 10 will make it into my Top 100 of All Time list, whenever I get around to updating it. That's the first top 10 I can say that about.

1st Cut- The Easy One

Just because a movie got an Oscar nomination, doesn't mean it's good. This first set of 57 movies are from bad movies or at least ones that I emphatically didn't not consider for the top 10.

Captain Fantastic (Lead Actor - 2016)
Nocturnal Animals (Supporting Actor - 2016)
Roman J. Israel Esq. (Lead Actor - 2017)
The Bridges of Madison County (Lead Actress - 1995)
Something's Gotta Give (Lead Actress - 2003)
Married to the Mob (Supporting Actor - 1988)
The Judge (Supporting Actor - 2014)
Blue Velvet (Director - 1986)
Nell (Lead Actress - 1994)
A Man Called Peter (Cinematography - Color - 1955)
Excalibur (Cinematography - 1981)
Tequila Sunrise (Cinematography - 1988)
The New World (Cinematography - 2005)
102 Dalmatians (Costume Design - 2000)
Across the Universe (Costume Design - 2007)
Mask (Makeup - 1985)
Dad (Makeup - 1989)
The Nutty Professor (Makeup - 1996)
Austin Powers: The Spy Who Shagged Me (Makeup - 1999)
The Cell (Makeup - 2000)
The Time Machine (Makeup - 2002)
Click (Makeup - 2006)
Norbit (Makeup - 2007)
Jackass Presents: Bad Grandpa (Makeup - 2013)
Innerspace (Visual Effects - 1987)
The Mask (Visual Effects - 1994)
Starship Troopers (Visual Effects - 1997)
Hollow Man (Visual Effects - 2000)
Crocodile Dundee (Original Screenplay - 1986)
Sex, Lies, and Videotape (Original Screenplay - 1989)
Grand Canyon (Original Screenplay - 1991)
Bulworth (Original Screenplay - 1998)
The Royal Tenenbaums (Original Screenplay - 2001)
The Squid and the Whale (Original Screenplay - 2005)
Borat: Cultural Learnings of America for Make Benefit Glorious Nation of Kazakhstan (Adapted Screenplay - 2006)
The Lobster (Original Screenplay - 2016)
Rocky III (Song - 1982)
The Karate Kid Part II (Song - 1986)
Junior (Song - 1994)
Up Close & Personal (Song - 1996)
Babe: Pig in the City (Song - 1998)
Fifty Shades of Grey (Song - 2015)
Trolls (Song - 2016)
The Ghost and the Darkness (Sound Editing - 1996)
Face/Off (Sound Editing - 1997)
Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen (Sound Mixing - 2009)
Patch Adams (Score - Comedy - 1998)
Dogtooth (Foreign Film - 2010)
Jimmy Neutron: Boy Genius (Animated Feature - 2001)
Spirit: Stallion of the Cimarron (Animated Feature - 2002)
Wallace & Gromit: The Curse of the Were-Rabbit (Animated Feature - 2005)
Shark Tale (Animated Feature - 2004)
Happy Feet (Animated Feature - 2006)
Surf's Up (Animated Feature - 2007)
Coraline (Animated Feature - 2009)
Rango (Animated Feature - 2011)
The Croods (Animated Feature - 2013)

2nd Cut - Obviously No in Consideration

That got me down to 266 movies. That's still a lot of movies with no hope of getting to the top 10. Most of this movies I kind of like. I'm sure a few of them I haven't seen in so long that I'm not fairly considering them. Regardless, I didn't have much trouble wiping out these 166 movies to get me down to an even 100.

The Last Temptation of Christ (Director - 1988)
Mulholland Dr. (Director - 2001)
Wall Street (Lead Actor - 1987)
The Accused (Lead Actress - 1988)
The Client (Lead Actress - 1994)
Mr. Holland's Opus (Lead Actor - 1995)
Casino (Lead Actress - 1995)
The Hurricane (Lead Actor - 1999)
Unfaithful (Lead Actress - 2002)
Monster (Lead Actress - 2003)
Julie & Julia (Lead Actress - 2009)
Still Alice (Lead Actress - 2014)
Joy (Lead Actress - 2015)
Throw Momma from the Train (Supporting Actress - 1987)
Steel Magnolias (Supporting Actress - 1989)
City Slickers (Supporting Actor - 1991)
What's Eating Gilbert Grape (Supporting Actor - 1993)
Primal Fear (Supporting Actor - 1996)
Thirteen (Supporting Actress - 2003)
Charlie Wilson's War (Supporting Actor - 2007)
Gone Baby Gone (Supporting Actress - 2007)
Vicky Cristina Barcelona (Supporting Actress - 2008)
The Lovely Bones (Supporting Actor - 2009)
The Town (Supporting Actor - 2010)
Beginners (Supporting Actor - 2011)
All the Money in the World (Supporting Actor - 2017)
Beaches (Art Direction - 1988)
William Shakespeare's Romeo & Juliet (Art Direction - 1996)
The Good Shepherd (Art Direction - 2006)
Fly Away Home (Cinematography - 1996)
The Black Dahlia (Cinematography - 2006)
Silence (Cinematography - 2016)
Harlem Nights (Costume Design - 1989)
The Addams Family (Costume Design - 1991)
Charlie and the Chocolate Factory (Costume Design - 2005)
Mirror Mirror (Costume Design - 2012)
Maleficent (Costume Design - 2014)
Allied (Costume Design - 2016)
An American Werewolf in London (Makeup - 1981)
Harry and the Hendersons (Makeup - 1987)
Beetlejuice (Makeup - 1988)
Edward Scissorhands (Makeup - 1990)
Bicentennial Man (Makeup - 1999)
Life (Makeup - 1999)
Hellboy II: The Golden Army (Makeup - 2008)
Suicide Squad (Makeup - 2016)
Star Trek Beyond (Makeup - 2016)
Predator (Visual Effects - 1987)
Alien³ (Visual Effects - 1992)
The Lost World: Jurassic Park (Visual Effects - 1997)
Mighty Joe Young (Visual Effects - 1998)
Stuart Little (Visual Effects - 1999)
Poseidon (Visual Effects - 2006)
Superman Returns (Visual Effects - 2006)
Iron Man 2 (Visual Effects - 2010)
Real Steel (Visual Effects - 2011)
Prometheus (Visual Effects - 2012)
Iron Man 3 (Visual Effects - 2013)
Star Trek Into Darkness (Visual Effects - 2013)
X-Men: Days of Future Past (Visual Effects - 2014)
Doctor Strange (Visual Effects - 2016)
Guardians of the Galaxy: Vol. 2 (Visual Effects - 2017)
Kong: Skill Island (Visual Effects - 2017)
The Public Enemy (Original Story - 1930/31)
The Red Balloon (Original Screenplay - 1956)
The 400 Blows (Original Screenplay - 1959)
Full Metal Jacket (Adapted Screenplay - 1987)
Bull Durham (Original Screenplay - 1988)
Green Card (Original Screenplay - 1990)
Dave (Original Screenplay - 1993)
Heavenly Creatures (Original Screenplay - 1994)
Trainspotting (Adapted Screenplay - 1996)
Ghost World (Adapted Screenplay - 2001)
My Big Fat Greek Wedding (Original Screenplay - 2002)
American Splendor (Adapted Screenplay - 2003)
In the Loop (Adapted Screenplay - 2009)
The Ides of March (Adapted Screenplay - 2011)
Moonrise Kingdom (Original Screenplay - 2012)
Straight Outta Compton (Original Screenplay - 2015)
20th Century Women (Original Screenplay - 2016)
Molly's Game (Adapted Picture - 2017)
The Jungle Book (Original Song - 1967)
Chitty Chitty Bang Bang (Original Song - 1968)
The Rescuers (Song - 1977)
Grease (Song - 1978)
An American Tail (Song - 1986)
Dirty Dancing (Song - 1987)
Mannequin (Song - 1987)
Beverly Hills Cop II (Song - 1987)
Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves (Song - 1991)
Beethoven's 2nd (Song - 1993)
The Paper (Song - 1994)
One Fine Day (Song - 1996)
That Thing You Do! (Song - 1996)
Tarzan (Song - 1999)
The Emperor's New Groove (Song - 2000)
Vanilla Sky (Song - 2001)
8 Mile (Song - 2002)
Rio (Song - 2011)
Ted (Song - 2012)
Beyond the Lights (Song - 2014)
Spectre (Song - 2015)
The Hunting Ground (Song - 2015)
The Greatest Showman (Song - 2017)
Goldfinger (Sound Effects - 1964)
Rambo: First Blood Part II (Sound Editing - 1985)
Lethal Weapon 2 (Sound Editing - 1989)
Days Of Thunder (Sound - 1990)
Flatliners (Sound Editing - 1990)
The Last of the Mohicans (Sound - 1992)
Waterworld (Sound - 1995)
The Rock (Sound - 1996)
Daylight (Sound Editing - 1996)
Eraser (Sound Editing - 1996)
Contact (Sound - 1997)
The Fifth Element (Sound Editing - 1997)
The Mummy (Sound - 1999)
Space Cowboys (Sound Editing - 2000)
Tron: Legacy (Sound Editing - 2010)
Unstoppable (Sound Editing - 2010)
Salt (Sound Mixing - 2010)
The Hobbit: The Battle of the Five Armies (Sound Editing - 2014)
Sully (Sound Editing - 2016)
Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs (Score - 1937)
Victory Through Air Power (Score - 1943)
Alice in Wonderland (Score - 1951)
Sleeping Beauty (Score - 1959)
The Sword in the Stone (Score - 1963)
Jesus Christ Superstar (Score - 1973)
Trading Places (Score - 1983)
Sleepers (Score - Drama - 1996)
The First Wives Club (Score - Comedy - 1996)
The Hunchback of Notre Dame (Score - Comedy - 1996)
The Preacher's Wife (Score - Comedy - 1996)
My Best Friend's Wedding (Score - Comedy - 1997)
A Bug's Life (Score - Comedy - 1998)
The Red Violin (Original Score - 1999)
The Village (Original Score - 2004)
Defiance (Original Score - 2008)
The Adventures of Tintin (Original Score - 2011)
Saving Mr. Banks (Original Score - 2013)
Downfall (Foreign Film - 2004)
The Lives of Others (Foreign Film - 2006)
The Salesman (Foreign Film - 2016)
Bowling for Columbine (Documentary - 2002)
March of the Penguins (Documentary - 2005)
Enron: The Smartest Guys in the Room (Documentary - 2005)
Amy (Documentary - 2015)
Cartel Land (Documentary - 2015)
I Am Not Your Negro (Documentary - 2016)
13th (Documentary - 2016)
Icarus (Documentary - 2017)
Spirited Away (Animated Feature - 2002)
Ice Age (Animated Feature - 2002)
Lilo & Stitch (Animated Feature - 2002)
Treasure Planet (Animated Feature - 2002)
Brother Bear (Animated Feature - 2003)
Howl's Moving Castle (Animated Feature - 2005)
Monster House (Animated Feature - 2006)
Bolt (Animated Feature - 2008)
Kung Fu Panda (Animated Feature - 2008)
Kung Fu Panda 2 (Animated Feature - 2011)
Puss in Boots (Animated Feature - 2011)
Brave (Animated Feature - 2012)
Big Hero 6 (Animated Feature - 2014)
Anomalisa (Animated Feature - 2015)

3rd - I Like But Not Enough

With 100 left, I'm already forced to cut some movies I really like. There are a lot of 4-star Netflix movies here. I want to point out that the O.J.: Made in America documentary I cut because I really do consider it a series masquerading as a feature. Otherwise, it would've been a real threat to the top 10. As much as I love many of these movies, I'll admit that it was pretty easy to get the list down to 50.

O.J.: Made in America (Documentary - 2016)
Star Wars: Episode II – Attack of the Clones (Visual Effects - 2002)
Minority Report (Sound Editing - 2002)
Blue Valentine (Lead Actress - 2010)
Rabbit Hole (Lead Actress - 2010)
Lars and the Real Girl (Original Screenplay - 2007)
In Bruges (Original Screenplay - 2008)
The Impossible (Lead Actress - 2012)
Election (Adapted Screenplay - 1999)
Mulan (Score - Comedy - 1998)
I, Robot (Visual Effects - 2004)
Scrooged (Makeup - 1988)
Willy Wonka & the Chocolate Factory (Score - 1971)
Searching for Bobby Fischer (Cinematography - 1993)
Marvel's The Avengers (Visual Effects - 2012)
Wreck-It Ralph (Animated Feature - 2012)
Meet the Parents (Song - 2000)
Misery (Lead Actress - 1990)
A Single Man (Lead Actor - 2009)
Pretty Woman (Lead Actress - 1990)
Bridget Jones's Diary (Lead Actress - 2001)
Zootopia (Animated Feature - 2016)
Prisoners (Cinematography - 2013)
Star Trek: First Contact (Makeup - 1996)
Star Wars: Episode III – Revenge of the Sith (Makeup - 2005)
Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince (Cinematography - 2009)
The Muppets (Song - 2011)
The Jungle Book (Visual Effects - 2016)
Requiem for a Dream (Lead Actress - 2000)
The Pursuit of Happyness (Lead Actor - 2006)
The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance (Costume Design - Black and White - 1962)
Good Morning, Vietnam (Lead Actor - 1987)
Logan (Adapted Picture - 2017)
Addams Family Values (Art Direction - 1993)
Begin Again (Song - 2014)
The Bicycle Thief (Screenplay - 1949)
The War Room (Documentary - 1993)
Back to the Future Part II (Visual Effects - 1989)
Rachel Getting Married (Lead Actress - 2008)
In & Out (Supporting Actress - 1997)
Lethal Weapon (Sound - 1987)
Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire (Art Direction - 2005)
American History X (Lead Actor - 1998)
Cinderella (Costume Design - 2015)
The Nightmare Before Christmas (Visual Effects - 1993)
Batman (Art Direction - 1989)
About a Boy (Adapted Screenplay - 2002)
Beverly Hills Cop (Original Screenplay - 1984)
Hercules (Song - 1997)
Kinsey (Supporting Actress - 2004)

3rd Cut - The First Hard Cut

Now it's getting difficult. Part of the fun of my top 10 lists is finding the dark horse movies that people may not otherwise be aware of or have forgotten about. There's only so much room at the top though, so as much as I wanted to remind people that True Lies is a hell of a lot of fun or that Hoop Dreams is a pantheon-level documentary for a good reason, I just didn't have the space.

Big Fish (Original Score - 2003)
How to Train Your Dragon 2 (Animated Feature - 2014)
Hoop Dreams (Film Editing - 1994)
Once (Song - 2007)
Glengarry Glen Ross (Supporting Actor - 1992)
Cinema Paradiso (Foreign Film - 1989)
Troy (Costume Design - 2004)
Tangled (Song - 2010)
Captain America: The Winter Soldier (Visual Effects - 2014)
Death Becomes Her (Visual Effects - 1992)
Rise of the Planet of the Apes (Visual Effects - 2011)
Batman Begins (Cinematography - 2005)
The Birdcage (Art Direction - 1996)
Drive (Sound Editing - 2011)
True Lies (Visual Effects - 1994)
The Karate Kid (Supporting Actor - 1984)
Fight Club (Sound Editing - 1999)
Mrs. Doubtfire (Makeup - 1993)
Seven (Film Editing - 1995)
South Park: Bigger, Longer & Uncut (Song - 1999)

4th Cut - Severe Consideration

It's down to 30 and it's coming down to what mood I was in on the day I decided on the list. Alas, I found 20 movies I liked more.

ParaNorman (Animated Feature - 2012)
Hail, Caesar! (Production Design - 2016)
Toy Story 2 (Song - 1999)
Maverick (Costume Design - 1994)
Paradise Lost 3: Purgatory (Documentary - 2011)
Loving (Lead Actress - 2016)
The American President (Score - Comedy - 1995)
The Look of Silence (Documentary - 2015)
When Harry Met Sally... (Original Screenplay - 1989)
War for the Planet of the Apes (Visual Effects - 2017)

Honorable Mention

The 10 before the 10. Unlike the top 10, I'm not putting them in a ranked order. Just know that these are collectively my picks 11-20.

The Bear (Film Editing - 1989)
I may be overreaching a bit by putting The Bear this high. It's staying because 1) I don't think enough people know about it and 2) I can't say enough about how much it deserved that Film Editing nomination. This is a simple movie about an orphaned bear who befriends a full grown male grizzly bear. This is a mostly silent live-action film that tells the story with actual bears. I can't imagine how difficult it was to get usable footage and put it all together. It's a movie I still think about a lot.

Before Midnight (Adapted Screenplay - 2013)
It's very hard picking which Before film is on the outside looking in. They are all (including Before Sunrise, which didn't get any Oscar nominations!) so tied to one another, that it's difficult to distinguish between them. I'm a little less of a fan of the abrasiveness of Midnight. Still, a movie about two people talking and walking for 90 minutes shouldn't be this great. 18 years and 2 films of history gives it so much depth though. Thankfully, I can rely on the screenwriting branch of the Academy to look where other branches won't.

Creed (Supporting Actor - 2015)
The real miracle is that this film got any nominations at all. It's an excellent film that, in a just world, would've received attention for Ryan Coogler, Michael B. Jordan, film editing, and sound as well. Simply put, the 7th film in the Rocky franchise has no business being this good.

Dawn of the Planet of the Apes (Visual Effects - 2014)
It's kind of shameful that Andy Serkis couldn't even get a special achievement Oscar for his incredible motion capture work in the Planet of the Apes revival movies. I suppose the visual effects (which it somehow managed to lose!) nomination is the closest thing. I'm still surprised by how good this movie was compared to my expectations.

The Disaster Artist (Adapted Picture - 2017)
James Franco (recent, not at all surprising, reports aside) is terrific in this role and made a highly enjoyable movie. This is the first of three 2017 films in my top 20. I'm not sure how the movie will rate long-term, but I'm still coming off a high from it right now.

The Florida Project (Supporting Actor - 2017)
This is the hardest one to keep out of my top 10. If it's getting only one Oscar nomination, Willem Dafoe is the correct choice. It deserved a lot more love than that though.

Gone Girl (Lead Actress - 2014)
This movie is probably too fun to have ever been a serious Oscar contender. Despite an excellent screenplay and David Fincher's superb direction, Rosamund Pike's nomination was all they could ask for from the Academy. While it isn't quite as thrilling with each rewatch, it gets even funnier each time.

The Lego Movie (Song - 2014)
Seriously, what was wrong with Oscar voters in 2014? Original Song but not Animated Feature? This piece of animated anarchy is a treat. Phil Lord and Chris Miller are masters at taking a bad idea, keeping all the things about it that make it a bad idea, and somehow turning it into something great.

Margin Call (Original Screenplay - 2011)
I love this screenplay. It takes something as dull as the mechanics of the market crash in 2008 and makes it legitimately thrilling. I also award bonus points for not taking the easy way out by turning all these Wall Street guys into lazy black-and-white villains and heroes. The film is filled with shades of grey.

Rashomon (Art Direction - Black and White - 1952)
Kurosawa is a master and this is one of his two or three most influential films. It also holds up well. I had to include it. I must say, I'm impressed that voters in 1952 were aware of this at all. Like a lot of these single nominees though, I am troubled by the thought that the nomination proves that Academy voters were are of it, so how did it not get other nominations?

Top 10

10. Before Sunset (Adapted Screenplay - 2004)
"Baby, you're gonna miss that plane."
I'm not sure there's a more cathartic moment in any movie. The 80 minutes before that are spent dancing around that one thought. I don't know if it was always Richard Linklater's intent to follow up Before Sunrise, but Before Sunset sure as hell plays out like that was the plan. It's the rare sequel that builds on and adds depth to the first film, making the whole endeavor even better.

9. Man on Wire (Documentary - 2008)
I think this might be the perfect documentary. Everything about it is executed at a high level. It plays like a caper better than most fiction. It's thematically resonant. It has indelible characters. I can't find a thing to fault about it, which is pretty remarkable, given how indifferent I was to the event it was based on going in.

8. Tropic Thunder (Supporting Actor - 2008)
This is probably the only film in my top 10 I'd have a hard time finding critical support for. It's over-the-top and silly. The screenplay is kind of all over the place. You know what though? It's hilarious. It's also incredible that Robert Downey Jr. pulled off an Oscar nomination for it. That's up there with Melissa McCarthy in Bridesmaids and Johnny Depp in Pirates of the Caribbean as one of the most delightfully unexpected Oscar nominations in recent memory.

7. The Act of Killing (Documentary - 2013)
Man on Wire may be a better documentary, but The Act of Killing hits a hell of a lot harder. It's hard to recommend this because it's pretty brutal. It's an enlightening and sobering film.

6. Stand by Me (Adapted Screenplay - 1986)
For some reason, it makes me really happy to know that this screenplay got an Oscar nomination. This is one of the great coming of age stories and has one of the better young casts you'll find.

5. The Big Sick (Original Screenplay - 2017)
Perhaps this is a little high since it's such a recent film. It is my favorite movie of 2017 though and combines a lot of my favorite things: RomComs, comedies about comedy, deeply personal screenplays, Ray Romano doing dramatic work, Holly Hunter being awesome, etc.

4. The Princess Bride (Song - 1987)
An all-time classic and an oddity that still doesn't feel like any other movie you'll see. The Original Song Oscar nomination is a little strange. This movie is so beyond classification that I didn't expect it would have a nomination at all. I'm not sure I want to interact with someone who doesn't appreciate this movie.

3. Nightcrawler (Original Screenplay - 2014)
Jake Gyllenhaal's performance and the way the film shoots Los Angeles at night grabbed a hold of me and didn't let go for two hours. I'm not sure that it says anything good about my worldview that I like this film so much, but I really do love it.

2. My Cousin Vinny (Supporting Actress - 1992)
OK, maybe this one doesn't have a ton of critical backing either. I don't care. Marissa Tomei is terrific. Joe Pesci is perfectly cast. The jokes hold up really damn well. Best of all is how smart it is about actual legal proceedings. It's not perfect, but it actually feels like someone researched for this.

1. Warrior (Supporting Actor - 2011)
I regret that I didn't start this blog in earnest until 2012, when I wrote my first Reaction. 2011 is one of my favorite movie years and there's so many films that I need to write up and praise that were released that year. Warrior is chief among them. I love the hell out of this movie. I don't care about MMA fighting. The movie telegraphs where it's going virtually from the first scene. None of this matters to me. It sucks me in and wins me over every time.