A friend was shocked to learn, about ten years ago, that I
hadn’t seen all of the Academy’s Best Picture winners. Like the IMDb 250, it’s a benchmark of
quantitative substance to many but means absolutely nothing to me. I’m not here to gripe about snubs or give
tiresome arguments about who should have really won. I’m the sort of rare pretentious populist who
not only thinks the Academy was correct in selecting Annie Hall over Star Wars,
but also thinks Rocky is better than Taxi Driver.
No, my beef with the Academy isn’t that a group of insiders
rarely pick the best movie of any given year (by my count, this has happened
once ever; odds so poor it must indicate we’re simply not judging the same
merits), it is that the barometer by which they judge is rarely film for the
sake of film. This is not the same as
films about film (which they love), or films which emulate an air of prestige
(something they love even more).
Only this year have I seen every Best Picture winner and,
trust me, the last few films I begrudgingly got to like a tattered honey-do
list I’d correctly judged sight unseen.
These aren’t all great films.
Hell, I’d only call about two-thirds of them decent, but that’s not
really a fair point. The first Academy
Awards, held in 1929, might indicate why this is.
That year, two different “Best Picture” awards were handed
out, though neither was called such. The
first award went to box-office hit Wings
which won the award intended to honor “the most outstanding motion picture
considering all elements that contribute to a picture’s greatness.” The second award, given to F.W. Murnau’s Sunrise: A Story of Two Humans, honored
“the most artistic, unique and/or original motion picture without reference to
cost or magnitude.” This states, in no
uncertain terms, that artistry, uniqueness of vision, and originality apart
from box-office success or in-house production are not really considered “elements that contribute to a picture’s
greatness.”
Both of these films find their way onto my rankings, and we
will see where my metric and the Academy’s might not jibe. The more I see these films (as the fact I
continue to follow the awards every year might indicate) the more I understand
how the intention to honor films which make statements about the human condition
get confused with films that make statements about the industry’s
condition. Film has, from its inception,
been relegated to the kiddie table at the banquet of the Seven Arts despite
incorporating all seven into its recipe.
The Academy would do well to honor its medium’s fluidity rather than continuing
to fall into the trap of dressing up in big sister’s clothes, failing to
recognize it reached maturity long ago.
On rare, inspired evenings, it’s done this at least a dozen
times. Bear with this doggedly
unabridged list which is more cultural pastiche than cinematic milestone. These titles are by no means essential
viewing. Many would not be remembered
were it not for the catch-22 of the Academy both handing out these awards and,
worse, by the template the Academy has created which suggests these are the
type of films deserving of them. A toast
to when the snake doesn’t eat its own tail!
88. A Beautiful Mind
(2001)
Opie goes for gold in this graceless remake of The Life of Emile Zola in which our hero,
rather than risking imprisonment in the name of justice, endangers his family
in the prison of self-denial and mental illness. He wins the Nobel, the film wins Best
Picture. Sorry Emile, there is no
justice.
87. Crash (2005)
A left-handed, self-congratulatory social message picture in
which its Black characters are still carjackers and its Persian characters, the
victims of post-9/11 racial profiling and hate crimes, become terrorists who
shoot children at point blank range. No
dice.
86. Driving Miss Daisy
(1989)
In consecutive years of America’s pre-Rodney King,
post-Reagan dog-whistle politics, Bobby McFerrin’s “Don’t Worry, Be Happy” wins
Song and Record of the Year at the Grammys and Driving Miss Daisy wins the Best Picture Oscar. COINCIDENCE?
85. Dances with Wolves
(1990)
The last bastion of the Academy’s identity crisis throughout
the ‘80s which understood enough to know our mythologies were being rewritten
to incorporate historically misrepresented voices but still only knew how to
tell this story as a White fantasy. See
also: Out of Africa.
 |
| Surprised Danny Boyle didn't order a tornado of Holi powder |
84. Slumdog
Millionaire (2008)
Fast food “poverty porn” which elects for cultural
appropriation as the world’s second-most populous nation wins the lottery and
pulls of a “Don’t Worry, Be Happy” dance number. Some days America puffs its chest and says
the days of White culture accessorizing brown people as props without criticism
are numbered. Other days Slumdog Millionaire wins Best Picture.
83. Forrest Gump
(1994)
The Jungian nightmare cycle contained within one of the most
complex cultural decades of America’s young history is glossed over at a
third-grade level. Stupid is, indeed.
82. Million Dollar
Baby (2004)
The only true character in this piece is its hot button
issue. Everyone else is window dressing.
81. Chariots of Fire
(1981)
The Best Picture winners of the early ‘80s oscillated
between funereal kitchen-sink melodramas and maudlin pablum. The result might have been zero sum, but it
doesn’t make me want to pick sides. This
film, belonging in the latter category, manages to be both skeletal and
self-absorbed. My main takeaway is
hearing its theme played on lite-rock radio in my mom’s minivan alongside
Ambrosia and Christopher Cross. While
this certainly isn’t cool, it’s not a knock in and of itself, it just serves as
a reminder that dopaminergic and dopey have the same source.
80. The Greatest Show
on Earth (1952)
Hollywood had an identity problem in the 1950s. With the new threat of in-home rival
television, Hollywood doubled down on strange gimmicks rather than innovating
its medium. This is the same era that
gave us CinemaScope and 3D glasses. The
movies got physically bigger, but were narratively stodgy and rooted in
escapism. The theory is America’s
collective mindset was so jarred after the atrocities of World War II,
Hollywood tried banking on conservative, pre-sold ideas.
Few movies pretend to be as big, as gaudy, and as escapist
as a film which literally titles itself “The Greatest Show on Earth.” It isn’t, of course, but its selection by the
Academy says a lot about an industry which always seems miles behind when it
faces crisis.
79. Cavalcade
(1933)
Generations before the coined phrase “first world problems,”
Cavalcade is, at the very least,
consistent in keeping its abundant exploitation of real world tragedy in the
background.
78. Out of Africa
(1985)
“Where is, according to the film’s own underrepresentation,
the place where Africans must live?”
77. The English
Patient (1996)
I promise I did not set this up on purpose, but this film
perfectly marries my beef with the previous two films on the list.
76. Chicago (2002)
This is one of those films that isn’t bad, per se, but will
forever be canonized because of its Academy selection while it would have
otherwise been forgotten. As
well-intentioned, fumbling teenagers brushing up on film history download this
into their brain (or however film will be consumed) in another hundred years,
this one will seem a real anomaly.
Outside of blaming ill-placed classicism, I’m not sure how to account
for it.
75. Titanic (1997)
If Chicago is the
Academy’s balk at ill-placed classicism, Titanic
is its homerun. It combines the
sensationalist— even barbaric— amusements of early cinema with the stodgy,
pre-sold conservative larger-than-life cinema of the 1950s. More than anything, it was an attraction, and, what’s more, became the
highest grossing film of all time. What
is not for the Academy to love?
74. Around the World
in Eighty Days (1956)
Another ‘50s “epic” that promises the cinema of attractions
and delivers flat, safe, and tone-deaf direction instead.
73. Terms of
Endearment (1983)
I used to make a big deal about Kramer vs. Kramer being the #1 movie in America on the day I was
born and how I hated it as if a born contrarian. But that’s not really fair. I don’t hate Kramer vs. Kramer, but, after seeing it usher in an era of
prestigious human condition flicks that the academy loved (it was followed by Ordinary People and Terms of Endearment all in a four year span), I do find it strange
that the post-war melodramas were never offered Academy accreditation until Roe
v. Wade.
72. Rain Man
(1988)
This is the kind of pap served up to launch a well-respected
director into Oscar immortality by virtue of a pandering cartoon
character. Worse, there is something
genuinely interesting untapped here that streams “could have been.” Worse yet, despite my fandom, it’s a bottom
three Tom Cruise performance.
71. Gladiator
(2000)
A least-common denominator Ben-Hur from a director who, like James Cameron and Peter Jackson,
is lauded for creating the wrong kind of film world. All CG, no heart.
 |
| Strangely, one of the film's more subtle moments |
70. The Sound of Music
(1965)
Would this be a lesser movie if the entire last act and Nazi
subplot were removed completely? Would
anyone love it less if it were a mere 130 minutes? I’m always astounded that, for such a
one-woman show, the rest of the screen is sure stuffed with unlikable, droll
characters.
69. Shakespeare in
Love (1998)
In my ideal alternate universe, Kevin Williamson penned Shakespeare in Love. I never cared that it beat Saving Private Ryan. It doesn’t bother
me that it has the weight of a blown dandelion.
1998 was a big year for self-referentiality, but I can tell you I’ve
watched the entire series of “Dawson’s Creek” twice since I’ve thought to
revisit this.
68. Birdman or (The
Unexpected Virtue of Ignorance) (2014)
A film that attempts to vilify Hollywood’s franchise
inclination and eat its cake too, lecturing a one-dimensional critic in a film
the critical establishment’s herd mentality deemed critic-proof. If the critic’s job is to trace culture’s de
Broglie-Bohm theory, expressing what is objective in our souls about the arts,
it also must expose pretention and find poetic words for the ineffable. Birdman
or (as its awful title suggests) turns out to be quite effable. Eff Birdman.
67. A Man for All
Seasons (1966)
Apropos that this ranks back-to-back with Birdman: Pauline Kael wrote, “perhaps
people think A Man for All Seasons is
so great because unlike the usual movie which is aimed at 12-year-olds, it’s
aimed at 12-year-old intellectuals and idealists.” I don’t think this is what Werner Herzog
meant when he claimed film was the language of the illiterate but, given the
choice between the two, the older I get the more I’ll take the regular
12-year-old movie, thank you.
66. Cimarron
(1931)
Cimarron is in a
strange position of being hated where it would have otherwise been merely
forgotten. I imagine many who name it as
one of the least-deserving Best Picture winners haven’t seen a ton of 1931
films. Audiences weren’t sure if sound
pictures were anything more than a gimmick and artistry took a back seat as the
industry’s top directors experienced a rough learning curve in both cinematic
language and technology.
It is probably more than coincidence that the Academy Awards
were ushered in at the same time as the sound era: major studios tightened
their grip on the types of movies being produced as well as how and where they
would be shown. The Academy started
giving themselves awards as a way to legitimize their monopoly which ensured
their top product would be seen.
That Cimarron—dated
though it is—remains watchable in the 21st century is nearly an
endorsement.
65. The Last Emperor
(1987)
I mean, this thing is O.K.
Yes, it’s overlong. Yes, it is
another in the Academy’s ugly tendency to honor exotified travelogues. Yes, it is unquestioningly Oscar bait but it
does so without pandering. That it
doesn’t strike my purview as resonant probably speaks more about its genre than
its craft. See also: Gandhi.
64. Ordinary People
(1980)
Makes Terms of
Endearment look like a student film by comparison, but proof that
Hollywood’s harrowing, painfully translucent domestic dramas were European
knock-offs.
63. Braveheart (1995)
You know how in The
Sound of Music the nuns bitch and bitch about how Maria won’t stop singing,
but they do so almost exclusively in song?
That’s how I feel about Braveheart’s
message that the brain eludes the need for the battlefield. Lip service no one in their audiences bite.
62. 12 Years a Slave
(2013)
A film which shares more with Crash than anyone would like to admit: a message picture one could
call “preaching to the choir” if there were enough seats for every viewer in
the choir. It’s a film about slavery in
the sense that we all perfunctorily agree it was bad. Perfectly adequate but lacking
sustenance.
61. The Great Ziegfeld
(1936)
Perhaps my biggest surprise in constructing this list was
learning The Great Ziegfeld—a musical
produced near sound film’s infancy—is 179 minutes long. I know I love William Powell more than the
next guy, but that my fondness for this film has overlooked its
impossible-on-paper runtime is as ringing an endorsement as imaginable.
 |
| Bonus trivia: every Indian citizen is actually an extra in the film |
60. Gandhi (1982)
Stuffy, sure. And
that runtime is a lot to overlook. But
perhaps what bothers me most about Gandhi
is, for a biopic about a man who marked his life with unpretentiousness, it
sure paints each humble stroke with deliberate weight.
59. The Artist
(2011)
I love to see a 21st-Century romantic-comedy win
Best Picture. It’s just a shame that its
only means for doing so are to appeal to heavy-handed, self-reflexive gimmick.
58. In the Heat of the
Night (1967)
This is a fine film with noble intentions that just looks
like it’s trying a little too hard.
57. Wings (1927)
The biggest issue I have with this film is it being the
benchmark people measure silent film against simply because it is an Oscar
winner. Silent was a rapidly advancing
poetic language the film industry pumped the brakes on for the sake of
industry. The era of the same industry
saw these awards created for similar pursuits.
Wings is a decent spectacle
film, but no one ever described it as poetic.
56. The King’s Speech
(2010)
A film of great actors sitting in great rooms interacting
with great dialogue. It’s Firth’s
showcase picture and a lobbed softball for director Hooper who treats the
material without condescension. The
period is openly nostalgic for the Miramax pictures of the ‘90s.
55. The Deer Hunter
(1978)
My beef with Schindler’s
List is that it creates sympathy for the wrong side while marginalizing
history’s true victims. The Deer Hunter is guilty of the same
thing but adds opportunism to its list of offenses. That Francis Ford Coppola met Cimino at his
hotel room in December 1978 to concede, “you beat me, baby” is enough to want
to put Apocalypse Now back under the
microscope.
54. Ben-Hur (1959)
What better way to cap a decade of stodgy, escapist,
conservative prestige films than with a three-and-a-half hour sword-and-sandals
flick that set the record for most-ever Oscar wins?
53. All the King’s Men
(1949)
It’s rarely a good idea to define something by lack, but,
all cards on the table here, I don’t remember this movie well at all. I know I saw it about eleven years ago during
an era in which I consumed an awful lot of TCM.
Its lack of impression on me leads me to believe it was morally obvious
in a self-serious, Frank Capra kinda way.
My IMDb vote tells me I liked it (I originally gave it a 7/10. This score still holds water considering its
rank in my overall bell-curve), but I should probably revisit this even if it
seems like a poor man’s Citizen Kane.
52. Oliver! (1968)
Despite my adverse reaction to non-Little Rascals children mugging for the camera, the fact that I
often find Dickens haughty and tedious, and that much of Oliver!’s direction feels like a Carol Reed puppet was behind the
camera, I like much of Oliver! In spite
of myself. It has an undeniable, clunky
charm and is the kind of movie I’m excited to share with my daughter in a few
years.
51. The Lost Weekend
(1945)
In the pantheon of Billy Wilder movies, this is bottom
half. It is like All the King’s Men in that it borders on melodrama in its obvious
morality play.
50. The Lord of the
Rings: The Return of the King (2003)
The Return of the King
winning Best Picture is the Oscar equivalent of Neil Portnow’s annual Grammy speech
about how the Internet is scary: a franchise-achievement award for a group of
films that pulled over $3 billion in box office (despite it being given to the weakest
installment) at a time when we still had to watch the “you wouldn’t steal a car”
PSA in front of major studio DVDs.
49. The Sting (1973)
The Sting feels
like the last hurrah of classic Hollywood before the new school took over by
the middle of the decade. Newman and
Redford have charisma, but it feels crusty, inconsequential and a pretender
when held up against the classics it’s often paired with.
48. Kramer vs. Kramer
(1979)
In light of the #OscarsSoWhite movement and what it means
for Hollywood’s representation of race, class and gender, it is telling that
this progressive domestic drama essentially demonizes the mother at the end of
second-wave feminism.
47. Tom Jones (1963)
This feels like a sanitized Pier Paolo Pasolini movie told
through face-value formal language of the French New Wave. Somehow, that’s not exactly an
endorsement. I love an irreverent comedy
winning Best Picture, I’m just not sure Tom
Jones is the one I’m ready to get behind.
46. Mutiny on the
Bounty (1935)
The struggle is real for a film connoisseur to not presume
older movies are classic, better movies by age alone.
That remakes aren’t verboten on principle. That formal and thematic innovation doesn’t
trump other quantifiable metrics in measuring a film’s value. It is with some pride that I discovered the
top seven movies on this list are each from different decades, but I still
finding myself making excuses treating The
Great Ziegfeld like a guilty pleasure.
Fortunately, Frank Lloyd’s Mutiny
on the Bounty requires no apologies: its action and drama are timeless.
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