Ask any budding film historian what was happening in Hollywood in the late 1960s, and they’ll recount the stories of Dr. Doolittle, The Graduate, and Bonnie & Clyde, all films from 1967 that signalled the direction the industry was going. But Hollywood wasn’t so simple.

1968 was a pretty great year for the movies. You had sci-fi’s first foray into high art with 2001: A Space Odyssey. Meanwhile, horror transformed from a gothic genre helmed by Vincent Price into something more sinister, raw and low-budget with Night of the Living Dead. Europe’s finest, like Ingmar Bergman, were offering films like Hour of the Wolf, while some auteurs, like Roman Polanski, headed to America in search of fortune.

It was a great year for movies in general. Still, only one director can win the most coveted prize in film direction, the Academy Award for Best Director, and the winner wouldn’t be a new up-and-comer, a European auteur or a radical filmmaker.

Carol Reed: Right Place, Right Time?

Carol Reed wasn’t the world’s best-known director. In fact, his reputation has gone through its fair share of ups and downs. Once considered an auteur of British Film Noir, then considered a hack. Eventually, his reputation would settle into that of a respected craftsman, as said by critics like Geoff Andrew.

Since 1949’s The Third Man, Reed had struggled to achieve consistency in his career, making the occasional promising flick only to follow it with a bloated mess. He’d gone through considerable embarrassment recently with the calamitous 1962 remake of Mutiny on the Bounty and the box-office failure of The Agony and the Ecstasy, one of the last epic history films of the era. To put it bluntly, Reed was a spent force in Hollywood who had little capital left in the city. But somehow, he ended up winning the Best Director Award, doing so with Oliver!, the last British film to win Best Picture until 1981 and the last musical to win until 2002.

So how did Reed, who was relatively speaking an outsider, win against the odds?

The Other Contenders

Reed could only beat the films put against him, so let’s look at those first. There was Stanley Kubrick for 2001: A Space Odyssey, Gillo Pontecorvo for The Battle of Algiers, Anthony Harvey for The Lion in Winter and Franco Zefirelli for Romeo and Juliet. When considering these five picks, it’s hard to argue that Oliver! was the most deserving of the bunch; in fact, in terms of 2020’s critical consensus, it’s probably the most lacking. But it won. It did the impossible.

But why?

Stanley Kubrick: From Outsider to Oscar Winner?

Stanley Kubrick’s 2001 was a certified masterpiece and a critics’ hit, but the film itself lost money, something never favoured in Hollywood’s award circles. Besides that, Kubrick was a rank outsider. He lived in Britain, had left the industry, and was almost better known for his reclusive attitude than his movies. He hadn’t yet gone through the sort of reappraisal he would get when the Movie Brats et al. would review his films in the coming decades.

Besides that, 2001 was a sci-fi film. Sci-fi was a genre for B-movie trash, Roger Corman quickies. It wasn’t a serious genre—or so the conservative voters would have thought. The movie would set the stage for all sci-fi to come, but it wouldn’t be until decades later that the genre began to be considered award-viable; with that in mind, perhaps it was lucky to be nominated at all.

While retrospectively Kubrick is the clear-cut choice, he was out of step with the Academy body, especially one which had just last year awarded ‘new’ films.

Gillo Pontecorvo: A Nominated Marxist

Then there’s Gillo Pontecorvo, who, in terms of film quality, probably seems like the second favourite behind Kubrick. But in reality, he had more things stacked against him than you could believe. Firstly, he was an Italian, and non-Anglo foreigners had never experienced much success at the Academy Awards until the 21st century. Although, in the 60s, the Oscars did flirt with Italian films, so this didn’t make him an impossibility.

Then there’s the film itself; The Battle of Algiers was, and is, the most radical film ever nominated for an Academy Award. Its radicalism is part of its charm, but the Academy was made of stuffy voters who’d been a part of the ceremony since the beginning. They might have loosened up since the 50s McCarthism, but then they hadn’t let go that much. Besides that, the director was a Marxist, and it’s hard to imagine the Academy giving him such a major honour.

Pontecorvo could win; his film was in vogue and well respected, but he had an uphill climb directing in a foreign language and convincing voters to favour him.

Anthony Harvey: Katharine Hepburn-Supported Newcomer

Then there’s Anthony Harvey, the youngest and most inexperienced director nominated. His movie, The Lion in Winter, felt like an old Hollywood flick, had great stars (Katharine Hepburn and Peter O’Toole), and is the most quintessential Hollywood film of the bunch. It’s a bit of an unsung masterpiece nowadays, but it’s pretty brilliant.

But Harvey himself was unproven. This was only his second film, and his first film, Dutchman, while pretty good, wasn’t widely available, so to most voters, he was a totally fresh name. The Academy has a long history of preferring not to give awards to newer names, and Harvey would have felt this up against him. Yet, they had awarded Mike Nichols for his second film just the year before, so newer directors were appreciated, and The Lion in Winter was a relatively safe film which older voters could rally around.

Franco Zeffirelli: Laurence Olivier’s Heir?

The final director was another Italian, Franco Zeffirelli. Romeo and Juliet was a huge box office hit and very popular with teenagers. The Academy had a history of rewarding well-done Shakespeare, so this wasn’t an outsider. It even had Laurence Olivier’s seal of approval. The film could have been the favourite.

But it was the last Shakespeare film to be nominated for Best Director or Best Picture, so you could suggest that the Academy had fallen out of interest with the bard. Besides that, while the film is in English, Zeffirelli, being Italian, would still have counted against him.

Other Candidates

There are always directors who unfairly miss out on being nominated, so let’s consider them and imagine if they could have stood a fair shot. While they’ve stood the test of time, films like Franklin J. Schaffner‘s The Planet of the Apes, George A. Romero‘s Night of the Living Dead, or Sergio Leone‘s Once Upon a Time in the West never really stood a chance here—they were genre works, and the Academy at the time rarely bothered with those. 

So, let’s try to figure out who could have entered the race.

Firstly, Lindsay Anderson stood a fair chance; he’d been nominated for the BAFTA for Best Director with If… and the film was new and fresh, but it was a tad on the nose and a bit too radical for the voters. Yet, Pontecorvo had got in. It also went against the preconceptions of British cinema at the time, which likely wouldn’t have endeared it to voters. If Anderson were to get in, he’d get in place of Pontecorvo; it’s hard to see him replacing the others.

Peter Yates could have been an outside shot. Bullitt did incredibly well at the box office, and it made Steve McQueen a megastar. It would also get a nomination for Best Director at the 1969 BAFTAs. But it was quite a genre film. I think the only movie it could have replaced really was 2001, which, despite being sci-fi, was a much clearer masterpiece. Yates could have supplanted Zeffireli’s nomination, but you also have to remember Yates was a relative nobody at this point; he didn’t have credentials to back him up.

Directors Guild of America Nominees

So, who else? Well, the Directors Guild of America nominated Paul Almond for Isabel, Jiri Menzel for Closely Watched Trains, Paul Newman for Rachel Rachel, Roman Polanski for Rosemary’s Baby, Gene Saks for The Odd Couple, and William Wyler for Funny Girl. Any of these could have gotten a nod.

But Almond’s film was very small and made very little impact at the time, or now, its biggest dent in the film industry was the short and sweet career of Genevieve Bujold. Menzel could have been in with a shot; Closely Watched Trains is a masterpiece, and it was perhaps the best-known representative of the Czech New Wave. If it’d reached America when it got released (1966), then you could have imagined it getting a nod and maybe even winning. But the Prague Spring had taken place in 1968, which would have soured voters on Czechoslovakia. Awarding a film from the New Wave could have been an acknowledgement of the Wave’s dissolution, but it’s unlikely the voters would have been unified enough to do that.

So what about Paul Newman? With his Hollywood good looks, positive attitude and activism in the Civil Rights movement, he was very popular. He’d even won the Golden Globe for Best Director this year! Rachel Rachel is an interesting film, and like all of Newman’s directed movies, it deserves a thorough rewatch. Still, Newman had the misfortune of being an actor-director at a time when they weren’t in vogue. The only two who had achieved considerable success in the past twenty years (Orson Welles and Laurence Olivier) weren’t awards favourites. It wouldn’t be until Newman’s movie partner Robert Redford that actor-directors would regain favour. Rachel, Rachel was nominated for awards; if it were going to be nominated, it would have been.

Rosemary’s Baby is an undeniable masterpiece. With it, Polanski proved his power over storytelling dread and suspense. The movie’s success established him as a Hollywood mainstay and as arguably the most successful European auteur in Hollywood. But it was still a horror film, and horror films don’t win Academy Awards—then or now. As for Gene Saks, he never stood a chance. Yes, The Odd Couple was a hit, but it was a light comedy. These films never land at the Oscars.

William Wyler, on the other hand, is perhaps the most glaring omission. He’d been a Hollywood mainstay since the 1930s, he’d been nominated a record number of times and had won the award three times; his most recent win was in 1959, so it wasn’t like he was old hat. While all the other Old Hollywood classic directors had gone quietly into the night, Wyler was still there swinging. Funny Girl got eight nominations, but none of them were for Best Director. This is odd, as you’d imagine Wyler to be the sort of character that conservative voters would rally around. Yet he was known for being a perfectionist, and perhaps that had grated enough voters that they simply chose not to vote for him.

Other Possibilities

Anyone else? Well, Ingmar Bergman could have gotten a nod for Hour of the Wolf or Shame, Norman Jewison could have gotten one for The Thomas Crown Affair, and maybe Richard Lester for Petulia. Those strike me as the only major films with any chance of winning, as other major movies of the year (Faces, Targets, The Swimmer, Stolen Kisses, etc) are all quite clearly never going to be Academy favourites.

So, of these, did any stand a real chance?

Well, Bergman was a well-respected director by this point, and by 1968, he had already directed several masterpieces such as The Seventh Seal and Persona. In 1968, he released two films – Hour of the Wolf and Shame. While both films showcased Bergman’s unique style and themes, they were perhaps too avant-garde and introspective for the Academy’s tastes at the time. Additionally, being a foreign director (despite his reputation) might have worked against him. Bergman’s best chance at a Best Director nomination would have been for a more accessible film like Shame, but even then, it would have been a long shot.

Perhaps a better shout would be Norman Jewison, a Canadian director who had already made a name for himself with films like The Cincinnati Kid and In the Heat of the Night, the latter winning the Best Picture Oscar. In 1968, he directed The Thomas Crown Affair, a stylish heist film starring Steve McQueen and Faye Dunaway. While the film was a commercial success and is now considered a classic, it might have been seen as too “light” or genre-focused for the Academy to consider Jewison for a Best Director nomination. However, given his previous success and the film’s popularity, he might have had an outside chance of replacing one of the other nominees.

This was a swing year in Hollywood, somewhere in between new and old Hollywood, so perhaps they’d nominate someone who represented that medium. Richard Lester, best known for his Beatles film, could be a good pick for that. In 1968, he directed Petulia, a more serious and experimental film compared to his earlier work. While Petulia was well-received by critics and is now considered a landmark of 1960s cinema, it might have been too unconventional for the Academy at the time. Additionally, Lester’s association with the Beatles and his reputation for more comedic films might have worked against him being taken seriously as a Best Director contender.

Who Could (& Should) Have Been Nominated?

So, if I were to name the ideal five nominations for Best Director in 1968, considering the Academy’s biases, I’d presume:

• Carol Reed (Oliver!)
• Franco Zeffirelli (Romeo and Juliet)
• Anthony Harvey (The Lion in Winter)
• William Wyler (Funny Girl)
• Stanley Kubrick (2001: A Space Odyssey)

To me, these five make the most sense. Pontecorvo’s film was so radical that I’m surprised it got a mention in real life. That feels like an outlier. I nearly considered Paul Newman and Lindsay Anderson for it, but Anderson’s film still feels too radical. While Newman’s films got awards, he tended not to get any personal accolades for them.

But there’s one crucial factor we’re forgetting: Oliver! had 12 nominations, so despite its lack of standout qualities, it must have stood out to the voting body.

Why Did Carol Reed Win?

So why did Oliver! win? Well, quite simply because it was the film most likely to please everyone. It was a lighthearted musical which appealed to the whole family. It represented the old Hollywood values – big, brash, loud, light. A film which aimed to please everyone and didn’t challenge anyone. It was a throwback to when these sorts of films would win Best Picture – the big bloated musicals of yore.

Oliver! was a well-made film. It had great sets, costumes, and production values. Reed’s camera moved quickly and allowed the actors to sing and dance without much flashy editing or cinematography. He decided to shoot everything on sound stages, which allowed him a great deal of control.

But more than that, Reed was a respected industry veteran. He’d been working since the 1930s, had worked with Orson Welles and David Lean, and had managed to create a few unassailable classics, even if he’d stumbled in the mid-60s. Awarding him was almost a lifetime achievement award.

And when you put it that way, it starts to make more sense. In a year defined by new and exciting films, Oliver! was the most traditional, the one that reminded voters of what had come before. Its lack of groundbreakingness, its simplicity, was perhaps its greatest virtue.

Reed wasn’t making a statement on the world; he was just trying to make an entertaining movie for everyone. He’d achieved that, and Academy voters loved it. Oliver! might seem like an odd winner in such a packed year, but perhaps its conservatism and ability to appeal to all voters gave it the edge over more radical, stylish or new films.

So Reed prevailed because Oliver! was the right film at the right time – a nice reminder of what Hollywood used to be in a time when it was changing rapidly. If Wyler had got the nomination he could have filled this gap. But, Reed was an elder statesman finally getting his dues for staying the course and creating films in his own unique way. It might not have been a groundbreaking choice, but it was one which likely felt right to Academy voters.

Who Should Have Won?

Stanley Kubrick. This is one of the easiest descions you can make. Think about it – 2001: A Space Odyssey is not just one of the best films of 1968, it’s one of the greatest films ever made. It redefined what science fiction could be, pushing the genre from B-movie fare to high art. Kubrick’s meticulous direction, groundbreaking special effects, and philosophical storytelling set a new standard for filmmaking.

2001 represented the future of cinema. It was a film that challenged audiences, that didn’t spoon-feed them a straightforward narrative. It was a film that demanded to be analysed, discussed, and rewatched. In a year where Hollywood was starting to shift, where the old studio system was crumbling and a new generation of filmmakers was emerging, 2001 was the harbinger of things to come.

In contrast, Oliver!, while a well-made and enjoyable film, was a throwback. It represented the Hollywood of old, the musicals and epics that had dominated the previous decades. It was a safe choice, a crowd-pleaser that didn’t ruffle any feathers.

Looking back, it’s clear that the Academy made the wrong choice. While Oliver! has its charms, it hasn’t had the lasting impact or influence of 2001. Kubrick’s film continues to be studied, analysed, and celebrated over 50 years later, while Oliver! is remembered more as a curiosity, the last gasp of a dying era of Hollywood filmmaking.

Of course, hindsight is 20/20, and it’s easy to criticise the Academy’s choices decades later. But even in 1968, there were those who recognised the significance of 2001 and Kubrick’s achievement. The fact that it was nominated for Best Director and Best Original Screenplay (losing both to Oliver!) shows that at least some members of the Academy appreciated its brilliance.