Best Director Danny Boyle’s Slumdog Millionaire won Best Picture of 2008 as Oscar ended its 65-year tradition of five nominees in the category. It won over David Fincher’s The Curious Case of Benjamin Button, Ron Howard’s Frost/Nixon, Gus Van Sant’s Milk, and Stephen Daldry’s The Reader. Not nominated were such films as John Patrick Shanley’s Doubt, Christopher Nolan’s The Dark Knight, and Darren Aronofsky’s The Wrestler.

For the first time since 1944, 2009’s Oscar’s Best Picture slate extended beyond five films. Despite ten nominees, the race was considered to be between just two films, Kathryn Bigelow’s The Hurt Locker which won Best Picture and director over her former husband James Cameron’s Avatar. The extended list of nominees included Quentin Tarantino’s Inglorious Basterdsand Jason Reitman’s Up in the Air but not Michael Haneke’s The White Ribbon or Jim Sheridan’s Brothers.

Oscar’s 2010 Best Picture and Director Oscars went to Tom Hooper’s The King’s Speech in a close race with David Fincher’s The Social Network. Included among the ten nominees were David O. Russell’s The Fighter and Lisa Cholodenko’s The Kids Are All Right but not Mark Romanek’s Never Let Me Go or Matt Reeves’ Let Me In.

For 2011, Oscar gave its Best picture and Director awards to Michel Hazanavicius’ The Artist over Martin Scorsese’s Hugo. Included among the nine nominees were Steven Spielberg’s War Horse and Stephen Daldry’s Extremely Loud & Incredibly Clear but not Asghar Farhadi’s A Separation or Xavier Beauvois’ Of Gods and Men.

Oscar’s 2012 Best Picture went to non-nominated director Ben Affleck’s Argo over Best Director Ang Lee’s Life of Pi. Included among the nine nominees were Steven Spielberg’s Lincoln and Tom Hooper’s Les Misérables but not Paul Thomas Anderson’s The Master or J.A. Bayona’s The Impossible.

For 2013, Oscar chose Steve McQueen’s 12 Years a Slave for Best Picture but gave the Best Director prize to Alfonso Cuaron for Gravity. Included among the nine nominees were Spike Jonze’s Her and Martin Scorsese’s The Wolf of Wall Street but not Joel and Ethan Coen’s Inside Llewyn Davis or John Lee Hancock’s Saving Mr. Banks.

Oscar’s 2014 Best Picture and Best Director prizes went to Alejandro G. Inarritu’s Birdman over Richard Linklater’s Boyhood in a close race. Included among the eight nominees were Wes Anderson’s The Grand Budapest Hotel and Clint Eastwood’s American Sniper but not Dan Gilroy’s’s Nightcrawler or Bong Joon-Ho’s Snowpiercer.

Oscar’s 2015 Best Picture went to Tom McCarthy’s Spotlight but Best Director went to Alejandro G. Inarritu for the second year in a row for The Revenant. Included among the eight nominees were John Crowley’s Brooklyn and Lenny Abrahamson’s Room but not Todd Haynes’ Carol or Alex Garland’s Ex Machina.

Oscar’s 2016 Best Picture went to Barry Jenins’ Moonlight but Best Director went to Damien Chazelle for La La Land. Included among the nine nominees were Kenneth Lonergan’s Manchester by the Sea and David Mackenzie’s Hell or High Water but not Martin Scorsese’s Silence or Mel Gibson’s Hacksaw Ridge.

Oscar’s 2017 awards for Best Picture and Director went to to Guillermo de Toro’s The Shape of Water over Martin McDonagh’s Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri. Included among the nine nominees were Luca Guadagnino’s Call Me by Your Name and Greta Gerwig’s Lady Bird but not Paul McGuigan’s Film Stars Don’t Die in Liverpool or Taylor Sheridan’s Wind River.

FILMS THE ACADEMY SHOULD HAVE NOMINATED BUT DIDN’T

A SEPARATION, directed by Asghar Farhadi (2011)

The Academy gave its 2011 Best picture award to the French-made silent comedy, The Artist about the end of Hollywood’s silent film era. It should have gone to A Separation which won the award for Best Foreign Language film and was nominated for Best Original Screenplay which it lost to Woody Allen’s Midnight in Paris. The film, the first contemporary Iranian film to achieve international success, is about a couple at odds about whether to leave the country for the sake of their daughter or stay to care for the husband’s dying father. Farhadi’s The Salesman later won the 2016 Foreign Film Oscar.

INSIDE LLEWYN DAVIS, directed by Joel and Ethan Coen (2013)

One of the Coen Brothers most accessible films, this beguiling comedy set in early 1960s Greenwich Village features a strong performance from Oscar Isaac as struggling singer with strong support from Carey Mulligan, Adam Driver, F. Murray Abraham and John Goodman among others. Although considered a major Oscar contender, it shockingly was nominated for just two awards – Best Cinematography and Best Sound Mixing – both of which it lost to Gravity. It had been nominated for three Golden Globes – Best Picture and Best Actor, Comedy or Musical and Best Song, “Please Mr. Kennedy”, losing all three.

CAROL, directed by Todd Haynes (2015)

Nominated for six Oscars including Best Actress (Cate Blanchett), Best Supporting Actress (Rooney Mara), Best Screenplay (Phyllis Nagy), and Best Cinematography (Edward Lachman), this marked the second time following 2002’ sFar from Heaven that a New York Film Critics award winner for Best Picture and Best Director for a Haynes film failed to be nominated by the Academy for either. His sole Oscar nomination was for his screenplay for Far from Heaven. Based on Patricia Highsmith’s novel, The Price of Salt, this stylish lesbian romance set in the early 1950s is a potent example of fine contemporary filmmaking.

SILENCE, directed by Martin Scorsese (2016)

Scorsese had been planning on making a film of Shusako Endo’s novel about Portuguese Jesuit priests in 17th Century Japan since the 1980s. Producer Irwin Winkler, who also produced the director’s New York, New York, Raging Bull, GoodFellas, The Wolf of Wall Street, and later The Irishman, considered this the best film that Scorsese had ever made. Andrew Garfield (a Best Actor nominee for the same year’s Hacksaw Ridge), Adam Driver, Liam Neeson, Ciaran Hinds, and Issei Ogata had the principal roles. It received an Oscar nomination was for Best Cinematography.

FILM STARS DON’T DIE IN LIVERPOOL, directed by Paul McGuigan (2017)

Based on a true story co-written by Peter Turner who lived it, this is the story of Oscar winning actress Gloria Grahame who spent her last days in Liverpool before flying home to die in New York in October 1981. Annette Bening, who based her performance on Grahame’s performance in 1953’s The Big Heat, played the ailing star opposite Jamie Bell as Peter, with Julie Walters as his mother, Vanessa Redgrave as Grahame’s mother, and Tom Brittney (TV’s Grantchester) as Grahame’s son with Nicholas Ray. Oscar ignored it, but BAFTA nominated it for Leading Actor, Actress, and Adapted Screenplay.