The Oscars - going strong for 94 years now. An institution of cinema, like it or not. They don't always grab your favorites, they're steered away from honoring pure quality by cynical campaigning and other mob-think trends, and there's still a bunch of no-brainer categories that should exist in each annual ceremony but don't (voice acting, stunt-work, breakthrough performance, cast, soundtrack, best key grip), but it's grandfathered in as the pre-eminent historical record of what everyone agreed was the finest works of each year. The voting body is massive and spans all crafts in the industry, so it's closer to a consensus among them than any of these other critics groups or what have you that have sprung up since…
The Oscars - going strong for 94 years now. An institution of cinema, like it or not. They don't always grab your favorites, they're steered away from honoring pure quality by cynical campaigning and other mob-think trends, and there's still a bunch of no-brainer categories that should exist in each annual ceremony but don't (voice acting, stunt-work, breakthrough performance, cast, soundtrack, best key grip), but it's grandfathered in as the pre-eminent historical record of what everyone agreed was the finest works of each year. The voting body is massive and spans all crafts in the industry, so it's closer to a consensus among them than any of these other critics groups or what have you that have sprung up since to compete for attention. If nothing else, it's a time capsule of what everyone was crazy about during any given spring season on the timeline of movies.
Here's how I'd rank all the Best Picture winners, most of which I like in one form or another, regardless of whether they each deserved the top prize. Caveats:
1. Many of these I haven't seen in ages, and only once, so who knows if I'd still put "In the Heat of the Night" so low or "American Beauty" so high.
2. I am aware of the reputations most of these have, and always try to balance my personal feelings with a measure of objective truth, but just because it's popular to hate on "A Beautiful Mind" or "Birdman" or anything by Woody Allen doesn't mean I'm going to join along. I genuinely enjoyed all of those movies at the time.
3. "Cuckoo's Nest" is lower than it would be on a typical hierarchy because I saw it right after reading the book in high school, and that's never fair for a movie. The book was truly excellent, and the movie just didn't measure up at all. Sorry. I wish I could see it through a less corrupted lens.
Ones I Ranked Higher Than I Imagine Most Other People Would
- Kramer vs. Kramer (A)
- Birdman (A)
- The Shape of Water (A)
- Shakespeare in Love (A-)
- American Beauty (B+)
- Crash (B+)
- Grand Hotel (B+)
- A Beautiful Mind (B+)
Ones I Ranked Lower Than I Imagine Most Other People Would
- Parasite (A-)
- 12 Years a Slave (B+)
- Spotlight (B)
- The Hurt Locker (B)
- The Silence of the Lambs (B)
- Moonlight (B-)
- One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest (C+)
- The English Patient (C+)
- In the Heat of the Night (C)
Best Picture Winners I Saw in Theaters at the Time: 23 total
- Dances with Wolves
- Titanic
- Shakespeare in Love
- American Beauty
- Gladiator
- A Beautiful Mind
- Chicago
- The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King
- Million Dollar Baby
- Crash
- The Departed
- No Country for Old Men
- Slumdog Millionaire
- The Artist
- The King's Speech
- 12 Years a Slave
- Argo
- Birdman
- Spotlight
- Moonlight
- The Shape of Water
- Green Book
- Parasite
- Everything Everywhere All at Once
THE OFFICIAL LIST SO FAR
1. The Best Years of Our Lives (A+)
2. No Country for Old Men (A+)
3. All About Eve (A+)
4. The Godfather (A)
5. Casablanca (A)
6. Titanic (A)
7. Everything Everywhere All at Once (A)
8. Kramer vs. Kramer (A)
9. The Deer Hunter (A)
10. West Side Story (A)
11. The Apartment (A)
12. The Departed (A)
13. Schindler's List (A)
14. Amadeus (A)
15. Nomadland (A)
16. Lawrence of Arabia (A)
17. Birdman or (The Unexpected Virtue of Ignorance) (A)
18. The Shape of Water (A)
19. The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King (A-)
20. The Godfather Part II (A-)
21. Unforgiven (A-)
22. Parasite (A-)
23. Shakespeare in Love (A-)
24. Terms of Endearment (A-)
25. On the Waterfrotn (A-)
26. It Happened One Night (B+)
27. Crash (B+)
28. You Can't Take it With You (B+)
29. Gone with the Wind (B+)
30. Hamlet (B+)
31. A Man for All Seasons (B+)
32. American Beauty (B+)
33. Going My Way (B+)
34. Grand Hotel (B+)
35. Midnight Cowboy (B+)
36. Dances with Wolves (B+)
37. Rocky (B+)
38. The Bridge on the River Kwai (B+)
39. Gandhi (B+)
40. Braveheart (B+)
41. All Quiet on the Western Front (B+)
42. The Sting (B+)
43. Ben-Hur (B+)
44. An American in Paris (B+)
45. Platoon (B+)
46. A Beautiful Mind (B+)
47. Wings (B+)
48. Annie Hall (B+)
49. Forrest Gump (B+)
50. Patton (B+)
51. 12 Years a Slave (B)
52. The French Connection (B)
53. The Sound of Music (B)
54. Ordinary People (B)
54. Spotlight (B)
55. Rebecca (B)
56. Oliver! (B)
57. The Silence of the Lambs (B)
58. Slumdog Millionaire (B)
59. The Hurt Locker (B)
60. Green Book (B)
61. Around the World in Eighty Days (B)
62. How Green Was My Valley (B)
63. Million Dollar Baby (B)
64. Gentlemen's Agreement (B)
65. Gladiator (B)
66. Marty (B)
67. From Here to Eternity (B)
68. The Lost Weekend (B)
69. The Greatest Show on Earth (B)
70. The Artist (B-)
71. The King's Speech (B-)
72. Rain Man (B-)
73. CODA (B-)
74. Argo (B-)
75. Chariots of Fire (B-)
76. Mutiny on the Bounty (B-)
77. All the King's Men (B-)
78. Moonlight (B-)
79. My Fair Lady (B-)
80. Gigi (B-)
81. One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest (C+)
82. The English Patient (C+)
83. Cavalcade (C+)
84. Out of Africa (C+)
85. The Last Emperor (C+)
86. Mrs. Miniver (C+)
87. Chicago (C+)
88. The Life of Emile Zola (C+)
89. The Great Ziegfeld (C+)
90. Driving Miss Daisy (C+)
91. In the Heat of the Night (C)
92. Cimarron (C-)
93. The Broadway Melody (C-)
94. Tom Jones (D+)
