Ranking the Best Picture Winners: 10-1

Friday, March 1, 2013

Ranking the Best Picture Winners: 10-1

10. Schindler’s List (1993)
What Should Have Won: They picked right for once!
What Was Snubbed: Altman got a nomination for director, but his film Short Cuts should have been nominated as well. And Scorsese’s The Age of Innocence deserved more attention as well.
Review: Spielberg’s Schindler’s List is that one of a kind that everyone seemed to agree should win the best picture Oscar. There is hardly a prize it didn’t win, and it’s not difficult to see why. Magnificently well made, well acted, well written, emotionally gut wrenching and important filmmaking doesn’t get any better than this. It truly was the only choice they could have made the year.

9. The Departed (2006)

What Should Have Won: The Departed was clearly the best of the lot, so they did themselves proud.
What Was Snubbed: Todd Field’s Little Children and Alfonso Cuaron’s Children of Men were masterworks that deserved more love. And while I know it’s pie in the sky thinking, I do love David Lynch’s Inland Empire.
Review: The Departed is an intricately plotted, violent crime movie set in Boston that moves at lightning quick pace. It is also a morally complex examination of wounded machismo, making it fit in effortlessly in the Scorsese oeuvre. Like they would do the following year, the Academy gave its top prize to a movie that normally they wouldn’t look at twice, and did themselves proud. One of the best choices they ever made.

8. Annie Hall (1977)

What Should Have Won: Star Wars would have been a more popular choice, but I’ll stick with the Academy on this one.
What Was Snubbed: Robert Altman’s Three Women was amazing, and Steven Spielberg’s Close Encounters of the Third Kind should have been nominated as well.
Review: The Academy so rarely goes for comedy, and when it does, it usually picks wrong. Not this time. Woody Allen’s Annie Hall is a film that seemed to define a generation of relationships. Allen has never been better as an actor, and in Diane Keaton he found the only woman who could have done Annie justice. The rare comedy that never gets old no matter how many times you watch it. You can say Star Wars deserved the award more, but I’ll stick with Annie.

7. On the Waterfront (1954)

What Should Have Won: They picked the right movie.
What Was Snubbed: At the risk of sounding like a broken record, Alfred Hitchcock’s masterpiece Rear Window was released this year, and should have got a nomination.
Review: On the Waterfront contains one the best screen performances in history from Marlon Brando playing Terry Malloy, the former boxer turned dock worker who feels the need to stand up to the corruption that surrounds him. The film is that rare movie that stays with you, haunting your dreams for weeks after seeing it. The entire cast is great, and it is probably director Elia Kazan’s greatest achievement – whatever his motivation for making it was.

6. No Country for Old Men (2007)

What Should Have Won: There Will Be Blood was my favorite film of the year, although No Country was second, so I shouldn’t complain.
What Was Snubbed: Todd Haynes’ brilliant I’m Not There, David Fincher’s Zodiac and Andrew Domink’s The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford – if they had nominated these three along with Blood and No Country, it would have been the strongest nominee slate ever.
Review: The Coens are geniuses, and No Country for Old Men is one of their masterpieces. A dark crime drama, with moral undertones, No Country for Old Men is one of the darkest, most violent films to ever win the Oscar – and I couldn’t be happier. This is the type of film that normally, the Academy may give a nomination to, but they never hand it the win, but this year they did themselves proud by selecting this film. My guess is that this will go down as one of the Academy’s best choices.

5. Unforgiven (1992)

What Should Have Won: Unforgiven was clearly the best film this year.
What Was Snubbed: Spike Lee’s Malcolm X deserved a whole lot more respect than it got from the Academy.
Review: Perhaps my favorite Western of all time – I film can watch repeatedly and never grow tired of, and Clint Eastwood’s greatest accomplishment as both an actor and a director. This is the film that finally, and totally, demystified the Western, looked seriously at the consequences of violence. Quite simply, one of my favorite films ever.

4. One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest (1975)

What Should Have Won: All five choices are great, so any of them could have one, but I’ll stick with the Academy and say they made the right call. No, they should have given it to Jaws. No, they made the right call. Okay, I admit it, I find it impossible to choose.
What Was Snubbed: Surprisingly, no one. This is the only year in Oscar history where the five nominated films, were also my five favorite films of the year.
Review: One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest is one of my favorite films of all time. It is the film that gives us the definitive Jack Nicholson performance in the rebel, RP McMurphy, who shakes up a mental institution. Nurse Ratched remains one of the calmest, yet scariest, screen villains of all time, and the eccentric supporting cast is all wonderful. The film is at turns funny and tragic, and director Milos Forman somehow captures just the right tone. This is one of the best novel to screen adaptations of all time, and quite simply a great movie.

3. Casablanca (1943)

What Should Have Won: How could anyone argue with Casablanca?
What Was Snubbed: Shadow of a Doubt is one of Hitchcock’s greatest films, but the Academy ignored it.
Review: For once, the Academy picked the audience pleasing film over the more “important” films, and got it exactly right. Is there a more beloved film ever made than this one? A more imitated? Is there a better romance in cinema history? I don’t think so. Every element in this film works perfectly – the pitch perfect performances, the most quotable dialogue of any movie ever, the excellent visuals, everything. No matter how many times I see it, it just keeps getting better.

2. The Godfather (1972)

What Should Have Won: The Godfather. Duh!
What Was Snubbed: The Heartbreak Kid is a minor comedy classic.
Review: Francis Ford Coppola’s first gangster epic is one of the most popular films ever made, and it’s easy to see why. The performance by Marlon Brando is perhaps the most iconic in cinema history – and Al Pacino, Robert Duvall, James Caan, John Cazale et al do brilliant things as well in the movie. This is a brilliant, violent, family epic that is also one of the great gangster films ever made. How anyone could argue with this choice is beyond me.

1. The Godfather Part II (1974)

What Should Have Won: The Godfather Part II, not even close, and that’s saying something considering how good Chinatown is.
What Was Snubbed: Ingmar Bergman’s Scenes from a Marriage is a masterpiece – but it may not have been eligible. A Woman Under the Influence was however.
Review: Francis Ford Coppola’s second Godfather film is probably a greater achievement than the first. The scope is grander, the acting more powerful, and the tragic downfall of Michael Corleone packs an emotional wallop. It is a perfectly constructed film that does the exact opposite of the first film, and remains the only perfect sequel in cinema history. A truly towering achievement, and the best film to ever win the Best Picture Oscars.

Ranking the Best Picture Winners: 20-11

Ranking the Best Picture Winners: 20-11

So we come to the end of the week - and the final two posts ranking the Best Picture Oscar winners. All 20 of the films highlighted today are masterpieces. Even if something else - either nominated or not - was better (at least in my mind), I'm not going to complain about any of these winning. At some point in 2013, I hope to post a similar list for Best Actor winners - and I will especially if I can track down George Arliss' Oscar winning performance in Disraeli (1929), the only Actor winner I have not seen (aside from The Way of All Flesh, which Emil Jannings won for, alongside his performance in The Last Command in the first year of the Oscars - the only year you could win for more than one performance - and that will never happen since The Way of All Flesh is sadly one of the many lost silent films). Anyway, I hope you enjoyed this countdown, even if you completely disagree with my rankings.

 

20. Platoon (1986)

What Should Have Won: Platoon was the right choice out of the nominees.
What Was Snubbed: Blue Velvet was clearly the best, most talked about film of the year.
Review: Oliver Stone’s grunt’s eye view of the Vietnam War was somehow the Vietnam movie that should have been made first. Not as epic as The Deer Hunter, or as mesmerizing as Apocalypse Now, Platoon beats them both in terms of realism, and what it was actually like to be the ground. Stone plays this one much straighter then his later efforts, but that’s the right choice here. A truly great film.

19. The Deer Hunter (1978)

What Should Have Won: The Deer Hunter, which many have forgotten about, is still my favorite of the nominees.
What Was Snubbed: Terence Malick’s Days of Heaven is one of the most beautiful films ever made.
Review: The Deer Hunter was one of the first Hollywood films to directly address the war in Vietnam, and while its view of the war is probably mostly fantasy, the emotions the movie stirs are raw and real. Robert DeNiro is excellent in the lead role as a man who went through hell in Vietnam, and tries to rescue his friends who have been through even worse. It is an emotionally gripping film, that doesn’t feel nearly as long as it’s three hour running time, and a great choice for the Oscar that year.

18. All Quiet on the Western Front (1930)

What Should Have Won: For the first time in their history, the Academy got this one right.
What Was Snubbed: Josef von Sternberg’s The Blue Angel was an early sound classic – in either language.
Review: Lewis Milestone’s All Quiet on the Western Front remains one of the best, most powerful war movies ever made. Daring, for an American film, it looked at the lives of German soldiers in the trenches of WWI, and discovered that war was pointless and wasteful. Despite the fact that it was been copied so many times since, the original still holds a raw power. And Lew Ayres was great in the lead role.

17. The Bridge on the River Kwai (1957)

What Should Have Won: Out of the nominees, David Lean’s war movie was the best.
What Was Snubbed: Stanley Kubrick made an even better war movie that year in Paths of Glory and Sweet Smell of Success is also a masterwork. Better than both was Elia Kazan’s A Face in the Crowd.
Review: The Bridge on the River Kwai is a thrilling spectacle of a movie, with multiple plotlines that weave together effortlessly until the thrilling climax. Alec Guiness is wonderful as the stuffed shirt British officer, but William Holden is just as good as the more free wheeling American. But the real star of the movie is director David Lean. No one has ever done epics as well as he did, and The Bridge on the River Kwai is one of the best.

16. The Best Years of Our Lives (1946)

What Should Have Won: Out of the nominees, they picked the best one.
What Was Snubbed: Alfred Hitchcock’s Notorious is one of his very best, and John Ford’s My Darling Clementine is also a masterwork as well as Howard Hawks’ The Big Sleep.
Review: This was a timely film at the time – about three returning veterans from WWII struggling to fit back in with the rest of society, and it still remains perhaps the best movie ever about returning from war. It is long for a drama – nearly three hours – but the time passes quickly, because the characters are so well developed, and so clearly presented that we become involved in their plight. It’s the rare message movie whose message never gets old.

15. All About Eve (1950)

What Should Have Won: It’s hard to argue when the Academy gives the Oscar to a genuine masterpiece, but Sunset Boulevard is even better.
What Was Snubbed: Perhaps even better than either of them though is The Third Man, which managed a director nomination, but nothing for picture.
Review: All About Eve is probably the best of all the backstage dramas. Bette Davis as the aging star, Anne Baxter as the young up and comer who stabs her in the back, George Sanders as the slimy agent, not to mention Thelma Ritter and Celeste Holm. Every line is a treasure. Director Joseph L. Mankiewicz’s best film, and a wonderful film, so I cannot complain, even if it beat Sunset Blvd., the best movie about Hollywood ever made.

14. The Apartment (1960)

What Should Have Won: The Apartment was an uncommonly daring choice – not just a comedy, a black comedy!
What Was Snubbed: No nomination for Hitchcock’s Psycho or Powell’s Peeping Tom – two classics.
Review: By choosing the Apartment, the Academy was going against four straight years where they picked big, flashy color movies, by instead picking a low key black and white comedy. This is a very daring film for 1960, dealing with more current sexual morays then most films of the day. But it is also a surprisingly funny comedy, with a spoonful of sugar that made all the bitterness go down easily. Jack Lemmon and Shirley Maclaine are perfectly matched in one of Billy Wilder’s best films.

13. Amadeus (1984)

What Should Have Won: Amadeus was the best of the bunch, and the best of the year.
What Was Snubbed: Sergio Leone’s Once Upon a Time in America, Wim Wender’s Paris, Texas and Robert Altman’s Secret Honor were never going to get in, no matter how good, but they should have had the guts to nominate Rob Reiner’s This is Spinal Tap.
Review: Perhaps the best winner of the 1980s, Amadeus is one of those movies that never fails to draw me into its web. F. Murray Abraham delivers one of the best performances of the decade as Saleri, a bitter composer who cannot stand the fact that Mozart (Tom Hulce, also wonderful), an immature drunk is so much better than he is. While it is probably more fiction than fact, it makes for a magnificent movie. One of the few costume dramas I truly, deeply love.

12. The Silence of the Lambs (1991)

What Should Have Won: Oliver Stone’s JFK was the year’s best film easily, no matter how much I love The Silence of the Lambs.
What Was Snubbed: How they could not nominate John Singleton’s Boyz in the Hood is beyond me.
Review: Every year, we still get at least 10 imitators of this film, and none have ever come close to this one (okay, David Fincher’s Seven does). Hannibal Lector is still one of the best villains in cinema history, no matter how much they try to ruin him in sequels and prequels. And Clarice Starling is still the best female heroine in this type of movie. The direction is great, the acting great, the writing great. All in all a pretty much perfect movie.

11. Lawrence of Arabia (1962)

What Should Have Won: Lawrence is fairly undeniable.
What Was Snubbed: The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance, The Manchurian Candidate, Ride the High Country, Lolita and a few others in a very strong year.
Review: David Lean’s Lawrence of Arabia could be the best of all the big studio “epics”. What makes it so fascinating, is that it isn’t a love story or a war movie, there is little action, and a lot of talk, and it goes on for nearly four hours, and yet the movie never drags. It is an entrancing film from beginning to end, all hinging on Peter O’Toole’s remarkable performance. No one would even dream of making a film like this today, and that’s why it remains so vital and alive, and pretty much unequalled.

Ranking the Best Picture Winners: 30-21

Thursday, February 28, 2013

Ranking the Best Picture Winners: 30-21

30. The French Connection (1971)
What Should Have Won: Kubrick’s A Clockwork Orange has lasted longer than any of the others, although The Last Picture Show is also great.
What Was Snubbed: Robert Altman’s McCabe and Mrs. Miller is one of his best films.
Review: William Friedkin’s The French Connection probably doesn’t seem as exciting now as it must have in 1971. It is one of those films that is hurt by all the cop shows on TV, many of whom have a character like Gene Hackman’s morally ambiguous Popeye Doyle at the center (like say Andy Sipowitz). Yet this is still a masterfully made cop film, with a great Hackman performance, and one of the best car chases ever caught on film, so I’m certainly not going to complain too much.

29. Rebecca (1940)

What Should Have Won: The Grapes of Wrath – and you know the Academy knew it that year as well as I know it now.
What Was Snubbed: How they missed the brilliance of Hawks’ His Girl Friday, Lubitsch’s The Shop Around the Corner and Disney’s Pinocchio, I’ll never figure out.
Review: Rebecca is the only Alfred Hitchcock film ever to win the best picture prize, and while I think it’s a great film, it doesn’t come close to matching at least 12 of his other masterpieces. But, this is still a gorgeous film, filled with wonderful staging and shots, as only Hitch could do it. While I find Olivier stilted at times in this film, it is almost oddly appropriate for his character, and I quite like Joan Fontaine as the “second wife”. But Judith Anderson as the “psychotic lesbian” Mrs. Danvers steals the movie away from both of them. So while this isn’t the best Hitchcock did in his career, it’s still a worthy Oscar winner – even if everyone knows that The Grapes of Wrath was the better film that year, but for some reason the Hollywood crowd didn’t want to give the Oscar to a film where wealthy California landowners were the bad guys. Gee, I wonder why?

28. The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King   (2003)

What Should Have Won: Personally, I enjoyed Mystic River and Lost in Translation much more than this one, but it’s hard to argue with their choice.
What Was Snubbed: City of God got nominated for Director, Screenplay, Cinematography and Editing – so a Best Picture nomination would have made sense.
Review: This was probably the most boring Oscar year ever, as we all knew the entire year that The Lord of the Rings was going to win this award, after having its two prequels nominated and raking in a ton of cash. And although I liked two of the other nominees better, it’s hard to argue with Peter Jackson’s massive achievement being worthy of an Oscar win, although as an individual film, this may actually be my least favorite of the three.

27. Patton  (1970)

What Should Have Won: I can’t argue too much, but I do prefer Five Easy Pieces.
What Was Snubbed: Woodstock is that rare documentary that really should have been in play. A couple of great foreign films – Claude Chabrol’s Le Boucher and Luis Bunuel’s Tristiana should have made the cut.
Review: Some saw Patton as a blatant attempt to make the military look good at the height of the Vietnam war. And while that may well have been true, you cannot argue that this isn’t a great film – or that George C. Scott’s towering performance in the lead role isn’t brilliant. Yes, it follows a fairly standard biopic pattern, but there is a reason that it works a lot of time – because its effective. An immensely entertaining war film – which is probably why its detractors hate it.

26. Midnight Cowboy (1969)

What Should Have Won: Midnight Cowboy was the best of the nominees.
What Was Snubbed: Sam Peckinpah’s The Wild Bunch is one of the best westerns ever. They nominated poor They Shoot Horses, Don’t They for everything but Best Picture. How mean!
Review: I probably have Midnight Cowboy ranked a little too high – it has certainly aged since 1969. But the reason I have ranked this high is simple – first, it is still a great film, with two wonderful performances by Jon Voight and Dustin Hoffman as unlikely best friends, down on their luck in New York City, and second, because the film was rated X, and hugely daring in its depiction of sexuality in 1969, so the fact that the Academy gave it the Best Picture Oscar is a minor miracle (think if they had given Shame the Oscar last year).

 25. The Lost Weekend (1945)

What Should Have Won: Out of the nominees, this one was probably the best, although Spellbound and Mildred Pierce come very close.
What Was Snubbed: Marcel Carne’s Children of Paradise is the towering cinematic achievement of this year, but it was from France so they ignored it.
Review: A lot of people have won Oscars for playing drunks, but few films have captured the life of a drunk with as much honesty as Billy Wilder’s The Lost Weekend. Yes, Leaving Las Vegas has surpassed it as the best movie about alcoholism, but this is a surprisingly honest film about the subject given the time period. And Ray Milland is great in the lead role.

24. It Happened One Night (1934)

What Should Have Won: It’s hard to argue with It Happened One Night, so I won’t, except to say I think The Thin Man was an even better comedy that year.
What Was Snubbed: The Scarlett Empress was one of von Sternberg and Marlene Dietrich’s best collaborations.
Review: It took the Academy a while to give its top prize to a true comedy, but when they did, they picked one hell of comedy. Clark Gable and Claudette Colbert were both excellent in one of the first screwball comedies, a funny, witty, romantic road movie. Yes, it’s been copied to death, but this is one of those rare films that just keeps getting better every time you see it. The first film to take the awards for Picture, Director, Actor, Actress and Screenplay, and it’s tough to argue with any of those choices.

23. The Hurt Locker (2009)

What Should Have Won: To me, Quentin Tarantino’s Inglorious Basterds remains his best film, and should have taken this prize.
What Was Snubbed: Two great foreign films – A Prophet and The White Ribbon, along with a kids movie – Where the Wild Things Are.
Review: Kathryn Bigelow’s little war film that could somehow managed to go from having no distributer when I saw it at TIFF (in 2008) to winning the Best Picture Oscar in 2009 – besting the biggest film of all time in Avatar in the process. And it is a great war movie – brilliantly constructed, intense, violent and containing great performances, especially by Jeremy Renner in the lead role. The Academy has awarded many war films over the years, and The Hurt Locker stands alongside the best of them.

22. Million Dollar Baby (2004)

What Should Have Won: Sideways was a winning comedy, and would have made a great choice.
What Was Snubbed: Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind was easily the most daring film of the year, and should have been in play.
Review: Million Dollar Baby is a sneaky little movie that really does pack an emotional wallop. It starts out as a high caliber film about a female boxer, her crusty old trainer and his crustier assistant, but then pulls the rug out from under you in the final reel, with an emotionally devastating turn of events. This film holds up well to repeated viewings, and the performances are top notch. A fine choice, even if it would not have been mine.

21. Gone with the Wind (1939)

What Should Have Won: I’ll take Mr. Smith Goes to Washington over Gone with the Wind, but really, it’s hard to complain about this choice.
What Was Snubbed: Jean Renoir’s The Rules of the Game is clearly the best film made in 1939, but it’s one of those films no one realized was a masterpiece for years. I will say that I think John Ford’s not nominated Young Mr. Lincoln is a better film than the nominated Stagecoach.
Review: Has there ever been a film that more women have loved then this one? I don’t think so. So, well I could complain that it’s clear that two different directors made the film (and that Cukor’s part was better), or the MASSIVE running time, or some of the other flaws in the film (including the happiest damn slaves in any movie I’ve ever seen), I won’t, because this is studio filmmaking at its best. And Vivien Leigh’s performance as Scarlett O’Hara is one of the best in screen history, and that is what I choose to remember about this grandiose, brilliant film.

Ranking the Best Picture Winners: 40-31

Ranking the Best Picture Winners: 40-31

We're in on the second last day of counting down the Best Picture Oscar winners. Today, we'll go from 40-21 over two posts. And we're getting into the really good films now. Still in many cases, the Academy SHOULD have given the Oscar to something else (i.e. number 40 is regularly cited as one of the biggest injustices of all time, but that's because of what it beat, and what the director-star would go onto do, and not really the movie itself). Anyway all these films are very good - and everything starting at around 33 or 32 are legitimately great movies. The masterpieces will be tomorrow.

40. Dances with Wolves (1990)
What Should Have Won: GoodFellas was the best film of the decade and should have easily won.
What Was Snubbed: David Lynch did great stuff with Wild at Heart, and the Coens made the wonderful Miller’s Crossing, and while we’re at it, I’ll thrown in Burton’s Edward Scissorhands and Beatty’s Dick Tracy.
Review: This is one of those films that has gotten a bad rap over the years because of Kevin Costner’s subsequent career choices, and the fact it beat out such a clearly superior film in GoodFellas, it’s not even funny. But Dances with Wolves remains a powerful romantic epic – the type of film that Hollywood doesn’t make anymore. Costner is not flashy as a director, but he knows how to make a film, and does so wonderfully this time out. Yes, it is too long and little too long winded in spots, but it is still quite an excellent film.

39. Grand Hotel (1932)

What Should Have Won: While I don’t necessarily think Grand Hotel is a masterwork, it does represent studio filmmaking at its peak, so of the nominees, I think they probably chose correctly.
What Was Snubbed: Trouble in Paradise was Ernst Lubitsch’s finest film. True, they did nominate his The Smiling Lieutenant, but it wasn’t as good.
Review: Grand Hotel is one of those movies we used to get in the studio days – when a large ensemble cast of nothing but stars gathered in one movie. The film is entertaining and fun, and contains wonderful work by John and Lionel Barrymore, Wallace Beery, Greta Garbo and especially Joan Crawford. A lot of movies have copied the Grand Hotel formula, which diminishes its impact somewhat, but this is still a wonderful film.

38. The Artist (2011)

What Should Have Won: Terrence Malick’s The Tree of Life was the best film of the year.
What Was Snubbed: Nicolas Winding Refn’s Drive was a critical favorite, but it found almost no love at all from the Academy. Neither did Steve McQueen’s Shame.
Review: The Artist was the little French, silent film that everyone loved until they realized that everyone else loved it as well – and then it became populist crap in the eyes of some. While I wouldn’t say it was my favorite film of the year – or even that close – damn it if the film is not extremely entertaining from start to finish, and a technical marvel. After only a year, it seems to be creeping up on some people’s list of the “worst winners of all time” and that is horribly unfair.

37. In the Heat of the Night (1967)

What Should Have Won: Bonnie and Clyde, which revolutionized cinema.
What Was Snubbed: In Cold Blood was Bonnie & Clyde equal, yet completely opposite.
Review: Although the movie probably seems quaint by today’s standards, it has to be noted that In the Heat of the Night was shocking in 1967 – especially when Sideny Poitier hauls off and slaps that white man who had the audacity to slap Mr. Tibbs. Theaters in the South refused to show the movie at all at first. What remains today is a decent police procedural, but an even better acting showcase for Poitier and Oscar winner Rod Steiger – that is what people remember, and should remember, about this film. It holds up today, but it isn’t nearly as shocking.

36. Marty (1955)

What Should Have Won: Out of the nominees, I’ll stick with Marty thank you.
What Was Snubbed: Night of the Hunter is a true masterwork, and Bad Day at Black Rock, Kiss Me Deadly and East of Eden are not far behind.
Review: Marty may not be the world’s best film, and too some the story of chubby Ernest Borgnine meeting a plain girl and falling for her, no matter what his friends think, is probably a little cheesy. Too me though, it struck a cord, so while I will admit it’s no masterpiece, it’s a film that I can rewatch every now and then and feel good.

35. All the King’s Men (1949)

What Should Have Won: The probably picked the best of the nominees
What Was Snubbed: She Wore a Yellow Ribbon is Ford/Wayne at their best, and White Heat is one of the great gangster dramas.
Review: All the King’s Men is a sprawling movie that looks at a corrupt politician – warts and all. Broderick Crawford delivers a powerful performance in the lead role, and he is supported by a great cast. An intelligent movie, and a worthy best picture winner. The movie has probably aged a little bit – we’re not as easily outraged about corrupt politicians now as people were in 1949, but this is certainly preferable to the remake made just a few years ago.

34. American Beauty (1999)

What Should Have Won: The Insider was intelligent, finely wrought drama from Michael Mann and easily the best of the nominees.
What Was Snubbed: Magnolia was the year’s best, but Fight Club, Election and Eyes Wide Shut (yes, I  said it, deal with it) all deserved nominations. It’s sad that in a year with so many great films, they choose the nominees they did.
Review: American Beauty doesn’t seem as fresh and new to me as it did when I saw first saw when I was 18. And yet, I still cannot help but love it. Yes, the flaws are much more obvious than before, but the performance by Kevin Spacey, Annette Bening, Chris Cooper and Thora Birch are all excellent, and the cinematography by Conrad L. Hall was amazing. The film is overly glib, and perhaps a little sexist, but the movie still gets under my skin every time I see it. A fine choice, but one I’m not sure is going to age well.

33. Ordinary People (1980)

What Should Have Won: Raging Bull is a masterpiece.
What Was Snubbed: They nominated Star Wars, but not it’s superior sequel The Empire Strikes Back. And Stanley Kubrick’s The Shining should have gotten in too.
Review: Ordinary People catches a lot of flak for being the film that beat Raging Bull, and it has had so many imitators over the years, it’s hard to tell just how powerful it would have been in 1980. But this remains one of the best films about a family in crisis to come out of Hollywood. The performances, by a dramatic Mary Tyler Moore, the sullen Timothy Hutton, the sympathetic Judd Hirsch, and most underrated of all, Donald Sutherland as the father holding back his resentment, are all top notch. No, the film is no Raging Bull. But it’s hard to hold that against the film, since so few are. It’s not the films fault the Academy are morons.

32. The Last Emperor (1987)

What Should Have Won: The Last Emperor was the best of the nominees, and the year, but it was a rather weak year.
What Was Snubbed: I quite like Tim Hunter’s River’s Edge, about murder and teenagers, or David Mamet’s con-man movie House of Games.
Review: The Last Emperor is a powerful, gorgeous film, about China’s last emperor, who spent most of his life in jail, and pretty much had no joy in it. It’s one of those “important” film that there really isn’t much need to watch it over and over again, and yet it’s tough to argue against it, because they year it came out was so weak. It is certainly much better than most of the films of its ilk.

31. West Side Story (1961)

What Should Have Won: I like West Side Story as much as the next guy, but The Hustler was clearly superior.
What Was Snubbed: A lot of great foreign films (Viridiana, Through a Glass Darkly, Yojimbo) were in play this year and they all got ignored.
Review: To me, West Side Story is the best musical ever to win the Best Picture Oscar – and it still is not one of my absolute favorite movie musicals. The two leads are either bland, but the supporting cast (George Chakris and Rita Moreno earned their Oscars) are great, and the dance sequences are spectacular. Yes, they should have gone elsewhere this year, but West Side Story works amazingly well as a musical – so I don’t really have a problem with this one.