The Academy Award for Best Picture is among the most important and coveted honors in the entertainment industry. Given by the Academy of Motion Pictures Arts and Sciences, the Best Picture Oscar anoints a specific movie as the best of its respective year. Previous winners include timeless classics like , , and .

The 1990s were a particularly strong decade for Best Picture, with many iconic movies like and winning the prize. However, not every nominee is a timeless classic: For every , which is deeply influential and still remembered today, there's a , which many will not even recognize by name alone. This list will highlight those Best Picture nominees of the '90s that have been forgotten, whether because of their stronger competition or their safe and, in some cases, mediocrity.

's 1990 biopic stars the late as Dr. Malcolm Sayer, who discovers the benefits of the drug L-DOPA in 1969. He administers it to catatonic patients, including Leonard Lowe (), who must deal with a new world and attempt to rebuild his life with Sayer's help.

Although Awakenings comes dangerously close to becoming a melodrama, Williams and an Oscar-nominated De Niro prevent it from descending into cheap sentimentality. The film is well-known, or at least well enough; however, , which he lost against 's cunning portrayal of Claus von Bülow in . Awakenings' Best Picture nomination is further eclipsed by the sheer strength of its competitors, which included , , and .

1991 was a peculiar year. Everyone remembers the Best Picture winner, the seminal and game-changing . However, , with many outright forgetting them. Such is the case for 's gangster biopic , starring Oscar winner and Oscar nominee .

At the 1992 ceremony, Bugsy was actually the most nominated movie, with 10, including Best Actor for Beatty and dual Supporting Actor nominations for and . Bugsy is a very solid gangster biopic, and Beatty is as dashing as ever. However, the film's legacy might actually be reduced to being the starting point for Beatty and Bening's decades-long relationship.

1991 also produced 's political thriller . Starring Oscar winner , the film follows DA Jim Garrison (Costner), whose investigation into the murder of John F. Kennedy leads him to believe there is a conspiracy behind it and that Lee Harvey Oswald () is just a scapegoat.

JFK was actually quite controversial at the time, as it presented conspiracy theories that many considered exploitative. However, it was a box office success and accrued eight Oscar nominations, including Best Picture. Alas, JFK is nowadays best remembered as a paranoid thriller of the '90s and one of Stone's last great movies. However, .

The last forgotten of the Best Picture nominees of 1991 has to be , directed by . Based on the eponymous 1986 novel, the film stars as a troubled man who develops a close and eventually romantic bond with the psychiatrist treating him.

Nowadays, The Prince of Tides is best remembered as . Indeed, it received seven Oscar nominations, including Best Picture, but Streisand was left out of both the Best Director and Best Actress categories. The controversy was such that even host commented on it during his opening monologue by asking if the film had "directed itself." For all its accomplishments, The Prince of Tides will always be .

1994 had arguably the best line-up for Best Picture: Pulp Fiction, , , and have all become all-time classics in their respective genres and modern icons of cinema. But what about the fifth and final nominee? Well, that would be 's magnificent, based on the Twenty-One quiz show scandals of the 1950s.

Make no mistake, Quiz Show is a brilliant movie more than deserving of its Best Picture nomination and, in any other year, the win. Excellent performances from and an Oscar-worthy only enhance its strengths. However, it has simply , which remain beloved and immensely popular today. Despite all it does right, Quiz Show is simply no competition for the likes of Pulp Fiction.

The 1996 Best Picture line-up included four icons of the '90s: , , , and the eventual winner, . The fifth nominee was the Italian film , in which a humble postman () forms a deep connection with the Chilean poet Pablo Neruda.

Aside from the fact that the Chilean icon is played by a French actor, Il Postino is a great movie, a lovely exploration of friendship and love. The thoughtful story is further enhanced by a powerful performance from Troisi, who received a posthumous Oscar nomination for his work. However, , and Il Postino was no exception. It was widely lauded at the time, but thirty years later, few remember it, especially compared to its fellow nominees.

Biopics are catnip for the Academy. Indeed, it loves few things more than to reward movies about meaningful figures, usually highlighting at least one or two every year. In 1996, the big biopic was ' , which starred as David Helfgott, a pianist who spent years in institutions after suffering a mental breakdown.

Rush received the Academy Award for Best Actor, a win that most people remember, even if they don't exactly know what movie he won for. However, Shine's actual Best Picture nomination might take more than a few by surprise. In fact, Shine was huge at the 1997 ceremony, receiving seven nominations, but Rush was its only victory. Still, the fact that it received across-the-board recognition speaks to its popularity with contemporary critics; not too bad for .

Comedies are so rarely honored at the Oscars that when one is actually acknowledged with a Best Picture nomination, it's a cause for celebration. Such was the case in 1997 when 's delightful British comedy received a Best Picture nod.

Sadly, The Full Monty was against four of the strongest Best Picture contenders of the '90s: , , , and, of course, Titanic. The Full Monty is far more popular in the UK, where it actually won the BAFTA Award for Best Film. However, in the West, , all of which have aged well and remain highly popular with both critics and audiences. At least The Full Monty can flaunt its status as a Best Picture nominee.

The first Oscars of the millennium honored several great movies, most notably and the eventual winner for Best Picture, . However, two of the five nominees have fallen out of popularity; the first is 's , based on John Irving's eponymous 1985 novel. It follows a young orphan who becomes a skilled physician in World War II, Maine.

Today, The Cider House Rules is best remembered as the film that gave Sir another Oscar over fellow nominees (and arguably worthier winners) and the late . However, the film was actually a huge performer that year, also winning the Oscar for Best Adapted Screenplay and receiving five additional nominations. , but voters went gaga for it in 2000.

The second of the five nominees in 2000 that has been somewhat forgotten is the -directed and Al Pacino and Russell Crowe-starring biopic The Insider. It chronicles the controversial 60 Minutes segment about whistleblower Jeffrey Wingard (Crowe), with Pacino playing veteran CBS producer Lowell Bergman.

When discussing Mann's oeuvre from the '90s, his seminal action thriller Heat and the 1992 epic drama The Last of the Mohicans usually take precedence. However, The Insider is among his strongest efforts, a tense and tight drama that offers a detailed and riveting picture of one of the biggest scandals of the '90s. In the years since, Mann's other movies have pretty much dwarfed The Insider, but that doesn't make the movie any less poignant.

NEXT: All 96 Best Picture Oscar Winners, Ranked