re: Who should have won an oscar but didn't for their role?

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Also Ellen Burstyn was amazing in Requiem for a Dream.

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Damn

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But I wonder why she was nominated for Best Actress instead of Supporting.

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She was the "main" actress in that movie. Jennifer Connelly, while great, was a secondary character, imo.

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I thought Russell Crowe in A Beautiful Mind was easily the best performance that year that Denzel won.

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This is where politics kills the Oscars. A lot of people thought Russell Crowe should have beaten Kevin Spacey in 1999 for his performance in The Insider. So, in 2000, the Oscars gave Russell Crowe the award despite Tom Hanks having the superior performance in Cast Away.

And when Crowe truly delivered in A Beautiful Mind, one of the best performances of the last decade, the Academy gave the Oscar to an inferior performing Denzel Washington.