1964 Alternate Oscars

I started to write something about the casting of Audrey Hepburn in My Fair Lady (instead of the play's Broadway star, Julie Andrews), the subsequent hiring of Marni Nixon to dub Hepburn's singing, and the resulting crisis of authenticity in Hollywood that eventually led to Clint Eastwood and Lee Marvin "singing" in Paint Your Wagon, but it all got too convoluted for a short introduction to the 1964 alternate Oscars. I mean, when you tie the Beatles, Vietnam and the civil rights movement to the demise of the Hollywood musical, you've really wandered into the weeds.

Instead, let me just say 1964 was a great year for movies, and any one of about twelve films from that year would have been a better choice for best picture than anything that came out in 1965. But that's the luck of the draw.

My choices are noted with a ★. A tie is indicated with a ✪. Historical Oscar winners are noted with a ✔. Best foreign-language picture winners are noted with an ƒ. A historical winner who won in a different category is noted with a ✱.