The 80th annual Academy Awards are on Sunday and on everyone’s minds. But instead of predicting this years winners, I wanted to write about some of the losers in Oscar’s history. OK, maybe losers is a little too strong. These 5 Best Picture nominees didn’t win the Academy Award. But by highlighting important social issues, raising awareness, and inspiring action, they won our hearts and minds. So get ready to be inspired!

1. Mr. Smith Goes To Washington (1939) starring Jimmy Stewart and directed by Frank Capra is both a scathing critique of Washington DC corruption and a heartfelt and hopeful story of an individual’s ability to make change in the face of adversity. The film was criticized by the media, politicians, congressmen, (surprise surprise!) who called it Communist and Anti-American. Another measure of the film’s power and reach is that it was banned in Fascist Italy and Spain and Nazi Germany.

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So ! You can be a Mr./Mrs./Ms. Smith and you don’t even have to go to Washington. All you have to do is e-mail Washington! Tell Congress to stick to its principles and not cave in to special interests and corruption.

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2. The Grapes of Wrath (1940) directed by John Ford, based on John Steinbeck’s classic novel, and staring an unforgettable Henry Fonda is the story an Oklahoma family who, during the Great Depression, lose their family farm to the dust bowl and debt travel to California in search of opportunity, and become migrant workers suffering mistreatment and injustice.. Perhaps no words can inspire taking action more than the ones delivered by Henry Fonda’s Tom Joad:

I’ll be all around in the dark - I’ll be everywhere. Wherever you can look - wherever there’s a fight, so hungry people can eat, I’ll be there. Wherever there’s a cop beatin’ up a guy, I’ll be there. I’ll be in the way guys yell when they’re mad. I’ll be in the way kids laugh when they’re hungry and they know supper’s ready, and when the people are eatin’ the stuff they raise and livin’ in the houses they build - I’ll be there, too.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8wke1RBvcNQ

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The film certainly inspired Cesar Chavez and the United Farm Workers (whose motto Sí se puede you may have heard of) to launch their “Wrath of Grapes” campaign, which demanded fair wages and protection from pesticides for farm workers. So to protect farm workers, the environment, and yourself! Tell the EPA to ban endosulfan, a dangerous pesticide which the European Union has already banned, and which has been linked to several deaths.

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3. The Great Dictator (1940) was the first talkie of Charlie Chaplin, the film’s director and star, who plays both a Jewish barber and the Hitler-like character Adenoid Hynkelri, the megalomaniac Dictator of the made up town of Tomania. The movie tells the story the rise of the antisemitic dictator and the love between the barber and Hannah (Paulette Goddard), who live in the Jewish ghetto. Chaplin’s movie is both tragic and comic, both a satirical and urgent in its warning against the rise of Nazism and fascism. What makes this film so bold is that it was made before the U.S. had entered into World War II, and highlighted the monstrosities and dangers of regimes and ideologies, particularly antisemitism, at a time when antisemitism was a taboo subject. Interestingly, Chaplin later said that had he known the extent of the Nazi atrocities, he would have been unable to create such a satirical film. In spite, or perhaps, because of the film’s comic elements it was a smashing success, Chaplin’s highest grossing film. The power of the film is evident in the responses it elicited: it was applauded by Jewish audiences, and denounced by isolationists who opposed fighting Hitler. Great Britain, which had adopted an appeasement policy towards Nazi Germany vowed to ban the film, which was then in production. By the time the film was released, however, Britain was engaged in the War and used the film to encourage their troops and their soldiers in the fight against fascism. The Great Dictator’s anti-fascist and anti-Nazi message is clear, as expressed by the hero, who is mistaken for the dictator in this scene:

Greed has poisoned men’s souls, has barricaded the world with hate, has goose-stepped us into misery and bloodshed. We have developed speed, but we have shut ourselves in. Machinery that gives abundance has left us in want. Our knowledge has made us cynical; our cleverness, hard and unkind. We think too much and feel too little.

And yet the during the same scene, the hero expresses the optimism, hope, and inspiration that is at the heart of the film:

I should like to help everyone if possible; Jew, Gentile, black man, white. We all want to help one another. Human beings are like that. We want to live by each other’s happiness, not by each other’s misery. We don’t want to hate and despise one another. In this world there is room for everyone, and the good earth is rich and can provide for everyone…. To those who can hear me, I say, do not despair. The misery that is now upon us is but the passing of greed, the bitterness of men who fear the way of human progress. The hate of men will pass, and dictators die, and the power they took from the people will return to the people. Let us fight to free the world! To do away with national barriers! To do away with greed, with hate and intolerance! Let us fight for a world of reason, a world where science and progress will lead to all men’s happiness. Hannah, can you hear me? Wherever you are, look up Hannah! The clouds are lifting! The sun is breaking through! We are coming out of the darkness into the light! We are coming into a new world; a kindlier world, where men will rise above their hate, their greed, and brutality. Look up, Hannah! The soul of man has been given wings and at last he is beginning to fly. He is flying into the rainbow! Into the light of hope, into the future! The glorious future, that belongs to you, to me and to all of us. Look up, Hannah. Look up!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dZ3Ad7812MI

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So for peace and against War here.

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4. Dr. Strangelove or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb (1964) directed by Stanley Kubrick and starring the ingenious Peter Sellers is, in many way, similar to (but not derivative of) The Great Dictator, in that they both use satire and comedy to engage audiences to confront serious and frightening contemporary challenges, in this case, the Cold War, red-bating and the nuclear arms race. And as Chaplin portrays both the heroic Jewish barber, and the villainous dictator, Sellers plays President Merkin Muffley, his scientific advisor (Dr. Strangelove) and Group Captain Lionel Mandrake, a British exchange officer. Kubrick underlines the absurdity of civilized war planning etiquette through President Muffley who, at one point exclaims, “Gentlemen, you can’t fight in here! This is the War Room!”

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So and sign the International Campaign to Abolish Nuclear weapons (ICAN) pledge.

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5. Coming Home (1978) directed by Hal Ashby, written by the blacklisted Waldo Salt, and starring Jane Fonda and Jon Voight and Bruce Dern is the story of Sally Hyde, who volunteers at a veterans hospital while her Marine Captain husband (Dern) is serving in Vietnam. One of the patients she meets is Luke Martin, a paralyzed vet who fought in the same war as her husband but has a very different perspective on it. As Sally’s relationship with Luke becomes more intense, she sees more and more the other side of war. Sadly, the issues the film highlights– being asked to kill for your country, the difficulty of re-entering society after war, the neglect of veterans and underfunding of veterans services– are just as timely today as they were thirty years ago. The words of Luke Martin sound eerily relevant to the world today.

You know, you want to be a part of it, patriotic, go out and get your licks in for the U.S. of A. And when you get over there, it’s a totally different situation. I mean, you grow up real quick. Because all you’re seeing is, um, a lot of death. And I know some of you guys are going to look at the uniformed man and you’re going to remember all the films and you’re going to think about the glory of other wars and think about some vague patriotic feeling and go off and fight this turkey too. And I’m telling you it ain’t like it’s in the movies… I was captain of the football team. And I wanted to be a war hero, man, I wanted to go out and kill for my country. And now, I’m here to tell you that I have killed for my country or whatever. And I don’t feel good about it. Because there’s not enough reason, man, to feel a person die in your hands or to see your best buddy get blown away. I’m here to tell you, it’s a lousy thing, man. I don’t see any reason for it. And there’s a lot of shit that I did over there that I find f_ _ _ _ _ _ hard to live with. And I don’t want to see people like you, man, coming back and having to face the rest of your lives with that kind of s_ _ _ . It’s as simple as that. I don’t feel sorry for myself. I’m a lot f_ _ _ _ _ _ _ smarter now than when I went. And I’m just telling you that there’s a choice to be made here.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1pi-fIgBG_Y

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So and tell congress not to take away the benefits of wounded vets.