Best Picture, 1938

Awards presented February 23, 1939

The nominees were ... 

• The Adventures of Robin Hood 
• Alexander's Ragtime Band 
• Boys Town 
• The Citadel 
• Four Daughters 
• Grand Illusion 
• Jezebel 
• Pygmalion 
• Test Pilot 
• You Can't Take It With You

... when they should have been ...

• The Adventures of Robin Hood 
• The Adventures of Tom Sawyer 
• Bringing Up Baby  
• The Dawn Patrol 
• Grand Illusion 
• Holiday 
• Jezebel 
• Pygmalion 
• Test Pilot 
• You Can't Take It With You

And the Oscar went to ...
You Can't Take It With You. Director Frank Capra and screenwriter Robert Riskin take the satiric edge off of George S. Kaufman and Moss Hart's Pulitzer Prize-winning comedy and substitute their own brand of sentimentality. There's still some fun left, and the performances of James Stewart and Jean Arthur are endearing. But it's a tepid and uninspired choice as best picture, and the fact that Capra had served as president of the Academy since 1935, helping build its membership and end its attempt to break the Hollywood unions, suggests that a bit of log-rolling may have gone on behind the scenes.

... when it should have gone to ...

Grand Illusion

Perennially included on lists of the greatest films of all time, Grand Illusion at least has the distinction of being the first foreign-language film to be nominated for a best picture Oscar. But that was the only nomination it received from the Academy, which should at least have included Jean Renoir among the directors, and Christian Matras and Claude Renoir as cinematographers, if not actors Erich von Stroheim, Pierre Fresnay, Jean Gabin, or Marcel Dalio. The film was almost lost during World War II, especially after Hitler banned it.