Best Pictures That Never Were: Day 14

Year: 1980
Movie: Raging Bull
Best Picture Winner: Ordinary People

Robert De Niro once again teams up with director Martin Scorses for the performance of his career. The unflinching realism that film has is something that stays with you and will shock you. Yes the film is violent but there a sense of poetry within the film that holds it all together.
The movie is loosely based on the career of Jake La Motta (De Niro), a boxer whose psychological and sexual complexities erupt into violence in and out of the ring.
Joe Pesci is brilliant as the brother who become prey for Jake’s paranoia and jealousy and Cathy Moriarty is also excellent ad the fifteen-year-old who becomes Jake’s prized trophy.
There is no reason that Raging Bull should have lost Best Picture. Ordinary People has a great story and the movie has its moments, but Raging Bull is just by far the superior film.
Raging Bull is filmmaking at its best and if you haven’t seen it then you truly are missing out.