Who should have won: Stanley Kubrick (2001: A Space Odyssey)

Who won: Carol Reed (Oliver!)

So ahead of its time it felt like a hoverboard at a roller derby, Kubrick’s sci-fi spectacular left audiences and critics stunned. It was bold, profound and haunting. Logically, then, the Best Director nod went to Carol Reed for Oliver! instead. Presumably Academy members been too busy ‘ooh-ing’ and ‘aah-ing’ at the cheeky scamp’s efforts to score himself another bowl of gruel to notice just how revolutionary Kubrick’s treatment of Arthur C. Clarke’s novel was – though not so distracted they forgot to award it a gong for Best Visual Effects.

In fairness, picking between Carol Reed and Kubrick was an unenviable job. The former was one of the greatest of the old guard who should have won for The Third Man or The Fallen Idol 20 years previously; the latter was a true original who’d mastered every genre he set his mind to. But Kubrick never won an Oscar and the show’s credibility has suffered for it.