oscars steer clear of controversy the oscars nominations list has left out some of the most controversial films of the past year in favour of safer less contentious cinema if best film nominees were drawn on the basis of column inches two of the frontrunners would have had to be michael moore s bushbaiting documentary fahrenheit 911 and mel gibson s the passion of the christ both films polarised opinion but had critics talking and the public turning up to see them fahrenheit 911 breaking us box office records for a documentary and the passion of the christ making more than us370m 196m in the us alone but this year s academy awards have shied away from the big name controversies with the passion of the christ a film accused of being antisemitic receiving nominations only in the minor categories of cinematography makeup and musical score fahrenheit 911 has also been overlooked despite winning the palme d or at the cannes international film festival in 2004 moore s caustic documentary may have been affected by its distributors decision to enter it in the best picture category rather than best documentary says tim dams the news editor of trade magazine screen international but he also believes the strong political viewpoint of moore s film does not sit well with the academy if you look at past oscar winners and nominees the very conservative oscar voters tend to go for very conservative epicstyle pictures fahrenheit 911 didn t really fit in to that category they tend to go for films like titanic gladiator and the lord of the rings films with scale that often aren t too contentious he said while he said the oscar voting panel were not snubbing moore s film he thought it was unlikely a documentary could ever seriously compete in a best film category i think it s more a misjudgement by the people putting it out rather than a deliberate snub he said the problem with mel gibson s film he believed was that the voting panel may have been cautious in nominating a film with dialogue in aramaic an ancient middle eastern language hollywood doesn t tend to like foreignlanguage films noone s ever tried doing a film in a dead language he said but aside from these two films some potentially contentious pictures have won nominations the german film the downfall a biopic tracing the final days of nazi leader adolf hitler in his berlin bunker has been recognised in the best foreign film category the film has caused some controversy in showing hitler as a fallible but human man rather than a semimythical historical monster but mr dams said it s not an inflammatory film it has done very well in germany and it s a film that portrays hitler as a human rather than some kind of devil or monster another contentious film mr dams said has gained a nomination in the best documentary section through the force