And the Winner Still Is Season 3: The 1961 Oscars

You can listen to The Way Too Early Oscar Podcast on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, Anchor, Pocket Casts, RadioPublic,  and Google Podcasts.

Don’t forget to check out our other podcast: The Way Too Early Oscar Podcast a year-long Oscar podcast hosted by Marisa Carpico (Film Editor at ThePopBreak.com) and Matt Taylor that covers all the latest Oscar contenders and film festivals plus Oscar-related news and trends.

Matt Taylor and our film editor Marisa Carpico are finally back for a third season of their Oscar retrospective podcast, And the Winner Still Is….

They break down the Best Picture nominees and discuss the major categories like Director and the Actresses. As well as a few of their own personal snubs and under-appreciated films from each year.

This episode, they discuss the 1961 Oscars, including Best Picture winner, West Side Story. Elsewhere in the episode, they talk about the way Judgment at Nuremberg weaponizes its actors’ star power, Natalie Wood’s other film about doomed teen love, Splendor in the Grass, and navigate the problematic minefield that is Breakfast at Tiffany’s.

The other nominees for Picture that year were Fanny, Judgment at Nuremberg, The Guns of the Navarone and The Hustler.

For the other major categories, the nominees for the 1961 Oscars were:

Best Director:

Robert Wise, Jerome Robbins – West Side Story
Federico Fellini – The Sweet Life
J. Lee Thompson – The Guns of the Navarone
Robert Rossen – The Hustler
Stanley Kramer – Judgment at Nuremberg

Best Actor:

Maximilian Schell – Judgment at Nuremberg
Charles Boyer – Fanny
Paul Newman – The Hustler
Spencer Tracy – Judgment at Nuremberg
Stuart Whitman – The Mark

Best Supporting Actor:

George Chakiris – West Side Story
George C. Scott – The Hustler
Jackie Gleason – The Hustler
Montgomery Clift – Judgment at Nuremberg
Peter Falk – Pocketful of Miracles

Best Actress:

Sophia Loren – Two Women
Audrey Hepburn – Breakfast at Tiffany’s
Geraldine Page – Summer and Smoke
Natalie Wood – Splendor in the Grass
Piper Laurie – The Hustler

Best Supporting Actress:

Rita Moreno – West Side Story
Fay Bainter – The Children’s Hour
Judy Garland – Judgment at Nuremberg
Lotte Lenya – The Roman Spring of Mrs. Stone
Una Merkel – Summer and Smoke

Listen to the previous episode here.