1st Academy Awards: choose your alternate nominees
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Archived from the IMDb Discussion Forums — Classic Film
sheetsadam1 — 3 months ago(December 29, 2025 02:55 AM)
I thought this could be fun, and if it gets enough interest, I'll post one each week. The idea is: what if the nominees for Best Picture each year weren't nominated? Which films should have taken their place in that scenario? Pick your alternate selections for Best Picture and, if you wish, mention anybody who you feel was overlooked in any other category. No need to confine yourself to the types of films which typically get nominated or to English-language cinema.
The 1929 ceremony covered films released between August 1, 1927 and July 31, 1928. For the only time, there were two Best Picture categories. The nominees were as follows:
Outstanding Picture
Wings- William A. Wellman
The Racket - Lewis Milestone
7th Heaven - Frank Borzage
Best Unique and Artistic Picture
Sunrise - F. W. Murnau
Chang - Ernest B. Schoedsack & Merian C. Cooper
The Crowd - King Vidor
My alternate selections (I'm not that knowledgeable about this year, so hopefully others have some more picks I should check out):
Outstanding Picture
The Jazz Singer - Alan Crosland
Steamboat Bill, Jr. - Buster Keaton & Charles Reisner
The Circus - Charlie Chaplin
Best Unique and Artistic Picture
(note: Fritz Lang's
Metropolis
debuted prior to August 1, 1927)
The Passion of Joan of Arc - Carl Theodor Dreyer
Berlin: Symphony of a Metropolis - Walter Ruttmann
October: Ten Days that Shook the World - Sergei Eisenstein
"Praise be to Allah." - President Donald J. Trump, Easter Sunday 04/05/2026
- William A. Wellman
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sheetsadam1 — 3 months ago(December 29, 2025 03:17 AM)
Yeah, most of what I know of American silent cinema of the era consists of the great comedians like Keaton, Chaplin and Harold Lloyd. Plus Tod Browning, whose
The Unknown
just missed the date cutoff.
I've seen all of the alternatives I mentioned, but only
Sunrise
of any of the nominees.
I mentioned
The Jazz Singer
simply because these two winners would be the last silent films to win until 2011. To say it was extremely influential is a big understatement, artistic merits aside.
I suspect that as we get into the 1930s many of my oversights will fall into three categories: comedies, crime films, and horror. Three genres often overlooked by the Academy to this day.
"Praise be to Allah." - President Donald J. Trump, Easter Sunday 04/05/2026 -
sheetsadam1 — 3 months ago(December 29, 2025 03:28 AM)
Yeah, they seemed quite taken with certain forms of comedy for a while… but less so with teams like the Marx Brothers or Laurel & Hardy.
Westerns definitely have been overlooked.
High Noon
certainly should have won. And I'll probably mention Ford, Leone and Peckinpah multiple times if I continue these through the '50s and '60s.
"Praise be to Allah." - President Donald J. Trump, Easter Sunday 04/05/2026 -
sheetsadam1 — 3 months ago(December 29, 2025 03:41 AM)
Animation is another historically-overlooked category, although an animated film has been nominated for Best Picture three times since 1991 and they finally got their own award in 2002. Animation will almost certainly be relevant to my alternate picks for 1940, 1955 and possibly other years
"Praise be to Allah." - President Donald J. Trump, Easter Sunday 04/05/2026 -
PygmyLion — 3 months ago(December 29, 2025 06:53 PM)
I haven't really gotten into silent movies much.
The only one of these I've seen is
Wings
.
I will probably be more able to contribute once you get up to the 3rd academy award.
One of the troublesome things about the first 5 Academy awards is that they ran from August 1 to July 31, so one cannot just look at the year but has to look up the month of the release date. The 6h Academy award ran for a year and half - and evened things up on the year. -
sheetsadam1 — 3 months ago(December 29, 2025 07:18 PM)
Yeah, I noticed that the years are a bit inconvenient on these early ceremony.
Looking ahead a bit, for the 2nd awards the Academy seemed to have already fully embraced "talkies," while in my experience, they still hadn't quite surpassed silent film as an art form yet. They nominated a lot of musicals that year. A great way to show off the new technology, perhaps, but quite dated nearly 100 years later.
I'm also not really convinced that Hollywood itself was the clear global leader in making great films until around 1931. So many of my favorite films of the '20s and very early '30s are German, and Hollywood would benefit exponentially for decades from the influx of German filmmakers who made their way here.
"Praise be to Allah." - President Donald J. Trump, Easter Sunday 04/05/2026 -
sheetsadam1 — 3 months ago(December 30, 2025 08:29 PM)
I've went ahead and combined the next few years into one post to save everyone the annoyance of having to check if their favorites qualify each week.
https://www.filmboards.com/t/Classic-Film/2nd-6th-Academy-Awards%3A-choose-your-alternate-nominees-3604177/
"Praise be to Allah." - President Donald J. Trump, Easter Sunday 04/05/2026 -
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HollyJollyHanukka — 3 months ago(January 01, 2026 05:38 PM)
These would have been my picks as well. Although it was technologically a breakthrough for the time, I never liked The Jazz Singer.
If you can’t say something nice, say something clever but devastating. -
ZolotoyRetriever — 3 months ago(December 30, 2025 02:56 AM)
Honestly can't recall seeing very many films released between August 1, 1927 and July 31, 1928, so I'm in no position to dispute the Academy's chosen winners. I have, however, seen both winners (
Wings
as well as
Sunrise
), and thought they were very good.
I've also seen two of your alternates:
Steamboat Bill, Jr.
and
Berlin: Symphony of a Metropolis
. They, too, were good, but I lean more toward the Academy's choices. *This, of course, is based on having seen all of these films a relatively long time ago. Can't guarantee it, but I might judge them differently today if I watched all four of them in close proximity, and took notes. -
sheetsadam1 — 3 months ago(December 30, 2025 03:24 AM)
Oh yeah, I'd definitely pick
Sunrise
over any of the alternates I suggested. Now, if
Metropolis
had made the cut, I'd perhaps think differently. But, to clarify, the intent is not so much an attempt to make a better list than the Academy, but rather, to name films which would have been acceptable alternatives to some of their picks. Hopefully as these continue over time people will weigh in with a bunch of little-seen gems or films from genres the Oscars tend to overlook.
But I think we're all probably a lot more familiar with later years in cinema.
"Praise be to Allah." - President Donald J. Trump, Easter Sunday 04/05/2026 -
unex — 3 months ago(January 01, 2026 01:31 PM)
I'm not really certain if the The Man Who Laughs and The Last Command are in the correct categories.
Outstanding Picture
The Circus
Steamboat Bill, Jr.
The Man Who Laughs
Best Unique and Artistic Picture
The Passion of Joan of Arc
October (Ten Days that Shook the World)
The Last Command