Pedro Almodovar
Directing Nominations: “Talk To Her” (2002)
Oscar History: Almodovar won a Screnplay Oscar for “Talk To Her.” “All About My Mother” also won the Foreign-Language Oscar in 1999, while Penelope Cruz was Best Actress-nominated for “Volver.”
What He Should Have Won For: Close at the top, but we’d just edge “All About My Mother” over “Talk To Her,” “Volver” and “The Skin I Live In,” as it was the film that transformed Almodovar from international cinema’s camp-loving bad boy to a respected and serious auteur. It’s a sparky melodrama about a nurse whose son is killed in a car accident, whose path then crosses with the boy’s father, a transvestite, a transsexual prostitute, a pregnant, HIV-positive nun, and a famous actress. Almodovar is one of the great directors of women working, and this Sirkian tale is his great love letter as such, with everyone from Cecilia Roth to Penelope Cruz delivering knockout performances, and the film remains his best meld of his broad, garish tendencies, his cinephilia, and the possibility of breaking your heart. The warmth and vision of the film is still staggering today, and while it was a worthy winner of the Foreign Language Oscar (one of the best ever in the category), it would have been great to see Almodovar recognized for this too.
Next Chance To Win: Almodovar hasn’t yet announced his follow-up to misfire “I’m So Excited,”but hopefully it’ll be a return to form.
Ridley Scott
Directing Nominations: “Thelma & Louise” (1991), “Gladiator” (2000) and “Black Hawk Down” (2001).
Other Oscar History: “Gladiator” also won Best Picture, was nominated for twelve in total, and won four others, including Best Actor for Russell Crowe. “Thelma & Louise” got six in total, including two Best Actress nods and a Screenplay win for Callie Khouri, while “Black Hawk Down” was nominated for four and won two. Beyond that, “Alien” and “Blade Runner” both got two nods (the former won for Best Visual Effects), as did “American Gangster,” and there’s a handful of nominations for some of his other films too.
What He Should Have Won For: “A Good Year.” Kidding! “Blade Runner” is probably Scott’s best movie, but in a way, the direction on “Alien” is better: two years after “Star Wars,” Scott created a very different vision of space, a dingy, blue-collar world that’s proved just as influential, and not just in its depiction of its immediately iconic bad guy. The film’s essentially a haunted-house stalk-and-die picture in many ways, but Scott elevates it, not just in the sheer level of tension, but in the amount of character he infuses the film with, making it so much more than a pure genre film.
Next Chance To Win: “Exodus: Gods And Kings” hits in December and could theoretically be in the running, but unless its much better than it looks, next year’s “The Martian” might be a safer bet.
David Lynch
Directing Nominations: “The Elephant Man” (1980), “Blue Velvet” (1986) and “Mulholland Drive” (2001).
Other Oscar History: “The Elephant Man” was nominated for eight Oscars in total, including Best Picture and Best Actor for John Hurt. Richard Farnsworth picked up a nomination for “The Straight Story,” and Diane Ladd for “Wild At Heart,” while Lynch is the only person to get Best Director nominations for two films that didn’t pick up any other nods Scorsese’s “The Last Temptation Of Christ” and Robert Altman‘s “Short Cuts” also managed the feat.
What He Should Have Won For: Several contenders, and the most traditionally Academy-friendly is likely “The Elephant Man,” a superb film that’s often underrated in Lynch’s canon due to a lack of backward-talking dwarves or what have you. But the only real answer here is “Mulholland Drive,” which as Academy unfriendly as it might seem at least got a nomination (and certainly would have been a more deserving winner than Ron Howard and “A Beautiful Mind“). Despite its origins as a TV pilot, ‘Drive’ stands as the crowning achievement of Lynch’s career, his most beguiling, terrifying, romantic and desperately sad picture. Blessed with an all-timer of a performance from Naomi Watts (that she wasn’t nominated that year is extraordinary), it’s a more coherent film than “Lost Highway” or “Inland Empire” (the latter of which just feels like a re-run of this, but twice as long and half as interesting), and yet richer and stranger and more baffling. And if you’re going to give Lynch an Oscar, giving it to him for his Hollywood nightmare feels like the most appropriate way to do so.
Next Chance To Win: Lynch hasn’t made a film in nearly eight years, and doesn’t appear to have any immediate plans to return to filmmaking. We live in hope, though.
Michael Mann
Directing Nominations: “The Insider” (1999)
Other Oscar History: Mann received three nods for “The Insider” in total, sharing a screenplay nomination with Eric Roth, and the producing credit on the Best Picture line-up with Pieter Jan Brugge (the film got seven in total). Follow-up “Ali” got acting nods for Will Smith and Jon Voight, while “Collateral” picked up one for Jamie Foxx along with an Editing nomination.
What He Should Have Won For: Though it remains ludicrous that “Last Of The Mohicans” got only one nomination and “Heat” got none at all, the Academy were right to laud “The Insider,” because it’s Mann’s best film by some distance. Mann & Roth’s script is one of the smartest and most savage looks at the media and corporate America ever brought to screen, and the film itself is a thriller that grips around your throat without the gunfights or battles common to much of the director’s other movies. Al Pacino gives perhaps his best latter-day performance, but he’s virtually blown off the screen by Russell Crowe, playing a character older than Pacino was at the time, and almost unrecognizable in his schlubbiness. It’s a great, great performance in a great, great film that, despite the seven Oscar nods, still feels like it’s due more recognition.
Next Chance To Win: After half-a-decade away, Mann’s back with hacker thriller “Blackhat.” Right now, the film isn’t scheduled to open until January, so unless it gets the rumored qualifying run, it doesn’t seem like Mann will be competing until the 2016 ceremony. But then, judging from the first trailer, it’s probably not competing whenever it opens.