If you’re a movie maniac, like me, then you’re probably a fan of awards season, when we watch the Oscars and Golden Globes to see what the Hollywood Foreign Press voted as the top films of the year. However, you might not have been a fan of some of the picks that were nominated and won. For some odd reason, the Academy awards have either snubbed or skipped over amazing films, instead choosing ones that don’t seem up to par. I remember during the 2012 Academy Awards how upsetting it was that they only seemed to be choosing the more recent films of that year, instead of ones I thought were amazing.

This isn’t that odd of an occurrence. There have been tons of movies or actors that have been snubbed at the Academy Awards year after year, and no one seems to know why. It took Leonardo DiCaprio twenty years of films to finally win an Oscar, when he should have been nominated or won for dozens of earlier ones (and he still handled it like a stone-cold fox!). This past year, for instance, I was pretty surprised to see “Mad Max: Fury Road” on the list for best picture. Not that I didn’t like that movie -- in fact I loved it -- but I couldn’t understand why it was nominated for best picture. These are some of the choices that the Hollywood Foreign Press made that I’m calling into question. It should be noted that these aren’t necessarily bad movies: I just think that there were better ones that year that didn’t get the right treatment.

“Gandhi" (Winner 1983)

“Gandhi” was a good movie based on the life of Gandhi (duh), and Sir Ben Kingsley was phenomenal as the title character. However, do you know what got passed over? “E.T.” Yeah, the amazing movie by Steven Spielberg that we all grew up with, about a boy who finds an alien and helps him get back home, got passed over by this biopic. I can understand why at the time, it seemed like “Gandhi” would’ve done better, and last longer, since unlike “E.T.” it wasn’t a kid's movie. But which of these two films is the one we recognize and treasure? No contest, seriously.

“The English Patient” (Winner 1997)

If you recall, I’m not a fan of romances, and this movie is known as one of the ultimate in romance, and is incredibly dull (when Elaine from “Seinfeld” screams in agony for the title character to die, you know you’re in for torture). This movie about a WWII nurse tending to a burn victim from a plane crash as flashbacks bring out his romantic love affair was criticized for being too long and dull, which is understandable when a majority of the almost three-hour movie takes place in the desert. Two movies that were nominated that year that I felt should have gotten better attention were “Jerry Maguire” and “Fargo.” “Jerry Maguire” starred Tom Cruise as a sports agent who questions his morals and puts them to the test with a loyal athlete played by Cuba Gooding Jr., and “Fargo” is a dark comedy about a crime gone wrong. Both of these movies were amazing and memorable, and when one of them inspires a television show, you know it should have received more credit.

“Shakespeare in Love” (Winner 1999)

This one I just don’t understand. The Oscars are known for being against comedies, but I guess since this was a period movie it passed the test. This was supposedly based on the true story of Shakespeare falling in love with his ideal woman who inspired to write one of his iconic plays. I’m not even sure if this was true since Shakespeare got most of his inspiration from other sources, but I ticked off when I discovered what this movie beat: “Saving Private Ryan.” This WWII movie about a squadron searching for Matt Damon’s Private Ryan in order to get him home is considered one of the best WWII movies in existence, and really shows the hardships of war. I don’t know about you, but I don’t think Spielberg was too happy about this one either.

Martin Scorsese “Taxi Driver” (Snubbed)

You’d think that one of our most prominent directors in film, who brought us amazing movies like “Goodfellas” and “Raging Bull” would have a few Oscars instead of getting snubbed over and over again. Yet even for his most famous film, “Taxi Driver” about an unstable war veteran who works as a taxi driver, he got passed over. In fact, Scorsese didn’t win an Oscar for his incredible directing until “The Departed”, which was good, but didn’t measure up to his earlier works.

“Birdman” (Winner 2015)

I loved “Birdman” and Michael Keaton’s performance, so don’t take this the wrong way, but there was a whole list of amazing movies that year that I believe deserved the win. “Selma,” the story of Martin Luther King Jr. and his crusade for equal rights, “The Imitation Game,” the amazing untold story of how we cracked Germany’s cipher during WWII, and “Whiplash,” about a student drummer who faces immeasurable pressure from his teacher/conductor who pushes him past his limits. I think that these movies had a higher and more powerful message to tell, and yet they were passed over for “Birdman.” I loved this film and I own it, but I don’t think it can measure up to these other three.