6. Ordinary People 
Everybody considered Martin Scorsese's Raging Bull the best film of the 80's, that is everybody except the Academy. Instead, they decided to award the Best Picture prize to Robert Redford's directorial debut, Ordinary People, a family drama that has not aged particularly well. Hindsight is a wonderful thing and if the Academy knew Raging Bull would go on to become the American classic it has, then Scorsese would have won his first Oscar in 1980 and not been forced to wait another 26 years. Ordinary People is best known as "the film that stole the Oscar from Raging Bull" which is a tad unfair as the film has merit, it's just not Raging Bull. Nobody likes it when their favourite film is passed over for the big award, but Raging Bull ten years later was seen by many as the best film of the 80's by many critics including Roger Ebert. Sight and Sound also named it the joint sixth best movie of all time in 2002. Now that's controversy.