Film Friday: 10 Best Picture nominees that should have won from 'The Grapes of Wrath' to 'Raging Bull'

4. Five Easy Pieces - 1970, directed by Bob Rafelson (lost to Patton)

The only “New Hollywood” film that won Best Picture was William Freidkin's crime thriller The French Connection. But as great as that movie is, it misses the themes that ruled the “New Hollywood” movement, like a different kind of hero or a new twist on America. Five Easy Pieces is closer to the best of what “New Hollywood” had to offer and should have topped Patton.

1970 was actually a pretty strong year. Patton is a great war movie, but both Five Easy Pieces and Robert Altman's MASH were better representations of that era of filmmaking.