Everyone is in a tizzy over these Oscar nominations (No Dreamgirls! AGHHH!). While I have my own take on today’s nominations (which you can read here), I thought it was high time we took a look at five of the biggest Best Picture snubs in the last twenty years. These are five of the best movies to never get an Oscar nomination for Best Picture.

Magnolia

1999 was a wonderful year for movies, and I could have made a list based on that year alone (it was especially hard not including Fight Club). Paul Thomas Anderson showed great promise when he made Hard Eight, delivered with Boogie Nights (another movie that was hard to pass up) but then blew the roof off when he made this masterwork. Love it or hate it, there’s no other way to describe it: it’s a masterwork. It’s jam-packed with great performances, amazing camera work and moments of originality within every scene.

Nixon

The best film of 1995, Nixon sounded like a sure thing in the Oscar season. But then the reviews came in and they were decidedly mixed. Time magazine called Anthony Hopkins’ performance “a failure.” The movie tanked at the box office and the Academy avoided it like the clap. Too bad. Nixon is just as good a film as Oliver Stone has ever made. Stone’s decision to go Shakespearean and meanwhile pay serious homage to Citizen Kane pays off in a big way. Hopkins may not look or always sound like Richard Nixon, but he taps into his soul.

The Passion of the Christ

The best and biggest fillm of 2004 got the expected shaft from the Academy. Jim Caviezel and Maia Morgenstern are phenomenal, and Gibson proved — despite whatever serious flaws of character he may have — he is one of the best living filmmakers around. I didn’t talk for a long time after seeing this one and I’m not a religious person in the least.

Road To Perdition

This makes the list because it’s one of the nicest shot movies I’ve ever seen (the scene by the beach at the end, the shootout in the rain … ). Conrad Hall, you are missed. Sam Mendes made this, American Beauty, Jarhead, and he’s married to Kate Winslet. That’s fair.

Last of the Mohicans

One of my favorite films by one of my favorite directors. I was a freshman in high school when I saw this. That was 1992. I still listen to the Beastie Boys. I still watch The Simpsons (on DVD), and I still love this movie. I really don’t understand how this flick — which was a fairly big hit — was so ignored by the Academy. What is truly amazing is the extent to which it was ignored. It’s got one of the greatest scores of all time. No nomination. Daniel Day Lewis and Madeline Stowe are one of the greatest on-screen romantic couples ever. No nominations. Wes Studi was one of the best villains of the year. No nomination. Michael Mann helped bring the epic back to the big screen, and before Gibson tackled William Wallace’s story, it had some of the best battle sequences ever put on film. No nomination. Screenplay? Costumes? Cinematography? Nada. Zip. But it did get a nomination (which it won) for Best Sound. Thank God for small miracles.

That’s it for me. I’m Oscared out for the next 48 hours. See you in 49.

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Dre writes five times a week for Film.com, covering movies and DVD with his Floridian flare. E-mail him!