Mad Max: Fury Road, 2015
The Academy doesn’t traditionally care about action blockbusters, but director George Miller’s most recent installment in his post-apocalyptic Mad Max series was so stunningly written, shot, and crafted voters had no choice but to recognize it as a Best Picture contender. It lost to Spotlight, about a journalist’s attempt to expose a sex abuse cover-up by the Catholic church, which was more up the Academy’s proverbial alley.
