Alfred Hitchock
Master of suspense, creator of Psycho and North By Northwest, fearless explorer of his own weird psyche...
Hitch was a cinematic giant in every sense of the word. Not that it made any difference to Oscar: Nominated for Best Director six times, Hitch was defeated every time. In 1968 the Academy gave him a lifetime achievement award, presumably out of sheer embarassment. See also: Stanley Kubrick.
Marisa Tomei
1993: a strong line-up for the Best Supporting Actress category includes Miranda Richardson, Vanessa Redgrave and runaway favourite Judy Davis for her performance in Husbands And Wives. So it's a bit of a shock when the Oscar goes to... Marisa Tomei for her sterling work in My Cousin Vinny.
Tomei's victory gives birth to a conspiracy theory suggesting that an ageing Jack Palance simply read the wrong name on the card – something that the Academy has always fervently denied.Peter O'Toole
Best Actor nominations: seven. Wins: zero. Received the customary "sorry we ignored your entire career" Oscar in 2003, and is facing another Best Actor disappointment this year. See also: Richard Burton.
Citizen Kane
Acclaimed by critics around the world as the greatest film ever made, Citizen Kane permanently expanded the vocabulary of cinema, and ensured immortality for its director and star, Orson Welles. Unfortunately, the film also infuriated the newspaper magnate William Randolph Hearst, which might account for its shabby performance at the 1942 Academy Awards. Despite being nominated in nine categories (including Best Picture) Kane was booed all night by the craven glitterati, and went home with one measly Oscar for best original screenplay. Best Picture went to John Ford's forgettable melodrama How Green Was My Valley.Goodfellas
Despite his Oscar win (at last!) for The Departed, history suggests that Oscar hates Martin Scorsese. He's been nominated for Best Director six times and it took till this year(!) for him to get the golden nod. The nadir of this grim wait was in 1991, when his brilliant work on Goodfellas was passed over in favour of... Kevin Costner for Dances With Wolves. Let's look at that one again. Martin Scorsese. Kevin Costner. Can you spot the better director?See also: Robert Altman, Ridley Scott.
King Kong (original version)
Not nominated. For anything. At all. Not even special effects.
See also: Kind Hearts and Coronets, Modern Times, The Life and Death of Colonel Blimp and Reservoir Dogs.
Written by Paul Arendt
Get the full results from The 79th Academy Awards on BBC News.
