Is this oversight wholly the fault of the Academy? Who else, unless we all agree it's somehow natural or fitting for great comedies to be treated like the second-class citizens of cinema.

While comedies are certainly well represented on this list (reminder to Hollywood: they do lend themselves to brevity), you'll also find dramas, westerns, war films, horror and suspense. A smorgasbord!

Great artists of all types and stripes confront the same challenge: once they've created something truly brilliant, how do they ever equal it, much less surpass it?

Where his films once excited a certain keenness, I often read reviews of a new Woody Allen film these days that convey the attitude of, "Oh, give it a rest already."