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Every Oscar Best Picture Winner, Ranked
Where does Oppenheimer's epic ambition fall... other than Japan?
RankdownYou know how you go to a food blog for a recipe, and instead of getting straight to the instructions you get subjected to the writer's life story, and you wish they'd just shut up and tell you how much sugar to put in your pie filling?
That’s about to happen.
Before starting this blog, I thought about content people would like to see and that I would like to write: something to get myself off and running and show what I was all about. As I sat in my scratched-up love seat, it clicked:
I should watch, review, and rank EVERY film to ever win the Academy Award for Best Picture… and that I did.
From the silent “drama” of Wings to the sprawling scope of Oppenheimer, the Academy has come a long way because 95 years is a long time, not because they’ve come a long way in the spiritual sense. Regardess, those films weren't gonna watch themselves, and I walked away from the experience having drawn one, undeniable conclusion: the Academy hates black people.
Just kidding (kinda), but suffice to say: this ranking was long and hard, and not in the good way one usually means when using those words together. If one thing became clear while reviewing decades of film history? The Academy sucks.
It's incredible how often they make selections that age like milk the millisecond the ceremony ends (that statement will seem ironic to you by the end of this list) or how, for an organization that prides itself on being the end-all be-all of cinema, they cave to conventional wisdom dictated by a public for whom they have such obvious disdain.
Despite that disconnect, the Academy are people too, so the Best Picture winners say a lot about us.
Our ludicrous notions of life are clear in the, shall we say, “troubling” movies of the 1930s. World War II and the subsequent social questions got explored throughout the '40s and '50s. Counterculture saturates the anti-institution flicks of the '70s. Reagan conservatism permeates the overlong 1980s period pieces. Sentimentality gave way to subversive quirk by the end of the 90s, and the world had quite a hard time figuring itself in the 2000s. Today, the winners must be passable, although there have been stinkers in the past decade.
At the same time, this list is obviously not objective. Although, in fairness, I did something few seem to do: watch the movies. I’ve seen Best Picture rankings where films got ranked without getting watched! Someone admitted to doing this WITHOUT WATCHING A MOVIE!
I’ve seen rankings where the author tried to incite controversy instead of sharing their honest opinion and ones where the explanations boil down to “this is what everyone else thinks, so I think it too.” I’ve also seen Best Picture rankings where the list is basically, “No one thinks this, so I’ll be the first.”
We cheapen movies for the greater glory of ourselves, just like the Academy. All one needs to do is sit down, watch the film, and feel. No one should decide what they think before watching, though most do. No one should hate a movie because it won over another, though many do. No one should like a film to fit in or hate it because no one else does, though many do. No one should write the same review as everyone else, though, again, most do.
Just sit down and watch. That’s what I did. I always want to like a movie, but if it doesn’t happen, it doesn’t. Much like love, you can’t force it.
With that, let it be said loud and clear: most Best Picture winners aren’t good because most movies aren’t good. Most movies fall between mediocre and horrible because movies are made by people, and most people fall on that same scale. Thus, watching every winner, though occasionally satisfying, was quite a chore: I saw only 17 great films, a handful of really good ones, a sprinkling of solid ones, and a lot of awful ones.
Still, it was an undertaking worth every second of my time, even if it aged me 60 years and I now sit here typing this looking like Nicolas Cage at the end of Leaving Las Vegas.
Many will think I’m a contrarian. That’s cool. I can only do so much to show I don’t take myself seriously (did I mention the time I spent 30 minutes looking for a shirt I was already wearing, or that time it took my 7th grade English teacher ten minutes to get me to understand how to pronounce "Arkansas?")
If nothing else, “good” or “bad,” “right” or “wrong," this will be, for possibly the first time, a subjectively objective Oscar Best Picture ranking. As a contestant known by their first name and last initial on The Bachelor would say, "I don't know what you want me to say, like, all I can do is like, share my truth."
96. Gigi, 1958
Defenders of Gigi’s “Thank Heaven For Little Girls” believe it an innocent lament on bygone youth and not a preemptive sexualization of toddlers.
Gigi disagrees.
It rejoices in stripping a woman of her dignity long before her clothes, humiliating them into suicide if they reject you, and fully realizing your affections because they hit puberty. It may be colorful, and every flowery adjective in the dictionary would describe it aptly. Alas, there is no escape: not only from the tediousness of Gigi, but the abhorrence of its subject matter.
95. Cimarron, 1931
Cimarron is the second-worst Best Picture winner partly because of the most racist line ever uttered on film, when a white man says of his black houseboy’s obedience, “There’s loyalty that money can’t buy.”
We should contextualize historical works while still condemning their thematics. Unfortunately for Cimarron, it has no artistic value to offset its condemnable thematics. It’s dull and choppy, a relic of the past in every way that doesn’t work and no way that does. It could be charming in its innocence, but it isn’t. It could feel like a book put to screen, but it doesn’t. It could go bonkers with excess, but it restrains. We could be loyal to the Golden Age and throw Cimarron a bone, but you know what they say about loyalty…
94. Driving Miss Daisy, 1989
Where to start? With the central figure, whose character arc begins with bitter, racist hag and ends with senile, racist hag? What about the syrupy cinematography or the awful theme music? What about making 90 minutes feel like a lifetime or the biggest drama being the mystery of a missing can of salmon, which, come on, Ms. Daisy, canned salmon?
Ultimately, Driving Miss Daisy is the peak of '80s Reagan conservatism polluting the Oscars. Unfortunately, no decency trickled down into this misguided mess of a movie.
93. Chariots of Fire, 1981
You gotta love Ian Charleson. I mean, what a dreamboat. You gotta love... the Olympics?
Chariots of Fire has an "inspirational" story that isn’t inspirational; it has the focus, which gets split. It has ambition, though it's limited. Everything feels like a Disney Channel Original Movie but without the charm or self-awareness. We get drops of things but never flooded or even a steady rainfall. It just drags, never involving us in its story or themes. In fairness, the themes are loving God and hating Jews. Not very interesting stuff, unless you’re The Ten Commandments or American History X.
92. Going My Way, 1944
Bing Crosby's Father O’Malley has always rung false in his nobility, like he got created by Christian propagandists to convert heretics. It doesn’t help that everything the movie hints at goes unexplored, like the dichotomy between old and young, the value in human investment, and the music that made the film a hit. It’s as ponderous a watch as the Bible is to read. Swing on a star any time, just not by watching Going My Way.
91. Platoon, 1986
Platoon isn’t just bad because of the horrific acting or self-righteousness. It’s awful because it could not have been any worse. It has no life, thematic weight, visual merit, nothing. It believes saying something constitutes meaning something, and by saying something is terrible, it is worthwhile. Its "drama" is so ludicrous and heavy-handed that it's funny. You would think you can’t make a self-indulgent anti-war flick a comedy, though it’s no surprise Oliver Stone pulls it off.
90. Rocky, 1976
It isn’t hard to understand Rocky’s legacy. It is the story of a simple man with simple dreams who nearly achieves the impossible. It is also a tedious, B-movie mess with a detestable protagonist and a ludicrous narrative. If its popularity wasn’t so ingrained in pop culture, it’d feel ironic: there's hardly any boxing, and everything else feels ripped from a book on how not to write, direct, or act.
89. Crash, 2005
Brokeback Mountain? It's a good flick, but nothing the world should bemoan not waltzing away with the big prize. If we're evaluating by comparison, then by all means, bemoan away. Crash's idea of race relations amounts to “Stereotypes… are BAD,” and its ambition in tackling even that is turning Ryan Phillippe into a villain. Yes, even hot white people can be racist, which, according to Crash, is the saddest thing of all.
88. The Life of Emile Zola, 1937
The Life of Emile Zola is the equivalent of making an OJ Simpson movie about Chris Darden. Zola was a prominent literary figure, and anyone with a penchant for enraging the establishment has cinematic value, but he's just like any naysayer with a cause. Why make a film about the Dreyfus Affair and tell it through the eyes of anyone but Alfred Dreyfus? Why make it so erratic and uninteresting? Why force us to watch a celluloid flipbook zipping through a man's life without the quality to make us care about his story?
87. Oliver!, 1968
Oliver! would be a better movie if Oliver himself was more present, but it wouldn’t save this overlong, overstuffed musical. Save two catchy numbers nearly bookending the movie, Oliver! is a garden variety musical devoid of substance or ambition. Are there grimy English streets? Yes. Do they get used to maximum effect? No. Such is the nature of Oliver!, a movie of many traits but very few qualities.
86. The Lost Weekend, 1945
Hollywood loves a good issues movie, and few movies have as many issues as The Lost Weekend, inexplicably one of three movies to win the Best Picture Oscar and the Palme d'Or at Cannes. Everything gets dialed to 11, from the constant hallucinations to the dramatic fumbling and stumbling. Best Actor winner Ray Milland is solid, but only insofar as the booze he downs every second of the movie doesn’t liquefy his insides. Don’t drink, kids. You might wind up in a terrible movie about how much your life sucks.
85. Cavalcade, 1933
Cavalcade, in which a wealthy family grapples with literally every major event from 1899-1933, is 1930s Hollywood in a nutshell. It’s overstuffed, trying to cram a lifetime into a couple of hours. It’s uninteresting, showing us only simple people swept up in unfortunate circumstances. It’s overwrought and dull, never exploring any topic or subplot it introduces. There is use to watching such movies: reminding us that modern films are superior.
84. The Greatest Show on Earth, 1952
Let it be known that The Greatest Show on Earth is not the worst Best Picture winner. Let it also be known: that is the only good thing one can say about it. With all the “thrilling” narration of tent-pitching, The Greatest Show on Earth is more a commercial for Barnum & Bailey’s than an actual movie, and a bad one at that.
83. The Artist, 2011
What is dead may never die, or at least that’s how The Artist would have it. Silent films died for a reason, like shag carpets and cocaine-laced sodas. Its attempts at cutesy charm may trick us into seeing value the first time around, but upon reflection, The Artist does more to justify talkie’s extermination of silent movies than to show why revisiting them is worthwhile.
82. Braveheart, 1995
Forgo complaining about its inaccuracy, from the donning of kilts to the English custom of "prima nocta," where noblemen could bed new brides on their wedding night. We do not need such contextual gripes to loathe Braveheart, one of film’s all-time contradictions. No matter how well it frames the Scottish hills and bellows about freedom, Mel Gibson’s vanity project has no heart at all. If you want to watch a group of frat boys battle the establishment, watch Animal House.
81. The Great Ziegfeld, 1936
As The Great Ziegfeld drags us kicking and screaming over its three-hour runtime, it is unclear what exactly makes Florenz Ziegfeld, the Broadway impresario responsible for poaching the Folies Bergère, “great.” He has no ideas, personality, or character, and the events in his life occur only for the sake of it. It is the most pointless biopic ever made, the story of an irrelevant man built on stolen ideas and failed relationships whose tale is as dull to watch as it is in concept. Save for a catchy tune and a stellar musical number, The Great Ziegfeld never even approaches “great.”
80. Mutiny on the Bounty, 1935
Movies are not beholden to history, but sometimes history is more interesting than Hollywood’s perversion of it, and painting Bligh as plainly evil and his crew similarly noble robs us of a compelling movie. An old-school History Channel documentary, sans Clark Gable’s quick-fire deliveries and smugness, would suffice.
79. All the King’s Men, 1949
Robert Penn Warren’s novel gets mistreated in a movie filled with the rushed storytelling and overwrought acting that often characterized old movies. There is no escaping the modern reflection of Willie Stark with all that’s happened in the last eight years, but where real life was both gripping and disheartening, All the King’s Men feels like someone looking at a plane and saying, “Ya know, that could crash.”
78. All Quiet on the Western Front, 1930
All Quiet on the Western Front, cinema's first award-winning anti-war film, revels in its contempt for conflict. In 1930, that novelty held value, but a movie this lazily stitched together and lacking in genuine thought, while suffering from all the same technical deficiencies of the Golden Age, is not worth our time.
77. Around the World in 80 Days, 1956
It should be great. It should be a spectacle, a visual feast, a thematic blackhole rendered watchable by being shameless eye candy. Alas, it rejoices in being that thematic blackhole that accidentally sucked the spectacle right into it. Gotta love Victor Young’s music, though.
76. Slumdog Millionaire, 2008
Slumdog Millionaire seemed revelatory in 2008, but in retrospect, it's choppy and unfocused, intent on its themes and ideals while refusing to develop them. Jamal’s life, in which each major event gives the answers en route to the top prize, is so carefully scripted it's uninteresting. The stakes are never high, which is inexcusable for a movie about winning so much money.
75. How Green Was My Valley, 1941
No, not because it beat Citizen Kane or The Maltese Falcon, but because this drama about a Welsh family toiling away in a small mining town is terrible. We could discuss the revolving door of conflicts or the rushed tragedy at the end. We could discuss how pointless the rising action feels when the film takes its barren themes seriously. We could discuss how hokey it is with its archaic approach to drama or how it pounds every point home with a sledgehammer. But it's best to discuss how, despite Huw’s nostalgia, the valley never seems that green.
74. Chicago, 2002
Chicago has everything going for it: a star-studded cast, an electrifying city, and a shameless story of immoral excess. Yet, it’s flat. It isn’t colorful or shameless, and it doesn’t lean into that immoral excess. It treats itself as a serious movie with songs, not as a rollicking ode to degradation and opulence.
73. The Hurt Locker, 2009
Hollywood loves few things more than speaking for people it does not represent and cannot understand. Look at The Hurt Locker, praised for its realism by people who never served and mostly condemned by those who did. Beneath cheap gimmicks is Top Gun in Iraq, but with a less handsome Maverick and a less compelling ideological duel with his Iceman. Save the 130 minutes for denim-clad beach volleyball and blue-lit love scenes. You’ll have an extra 20 to discuss how it wound up better than The Hurt Locker.
72. The Shape of Water, 2017
Guillermo del Toro was essentially given an honorary Oscar for his least ambitious movie, cynical in stocking its thematic shelves with store brand aims at social commentary and syrupy in its technical approach. Everything is sweet and tidy, but without the heart or charm to remind us why sweet and tidy can be worthwhile.
71. On the Waterfront, 1954
It's a fickle thing, the line between praise and ethics. Many separate life and art, but since Elia Kazan exploits his film’s message to justify selling out his friends to the House Un-American Activities Committee, On the Waterfront is not worth excusing to praise its few merits.
70. Mrs. Miniver, 1942
Shameless propaganda was all the rage in 1942, no matter what side you were on. Mrs. Miniver did much to rouse American sympathies for our friends across the pond while reminding everyone of English resilience. We applaud her movie for all it did and condemn it for being a slow, preachy sap fest with the substance of a hippie belting Joan Baez under a cloud of pot smoke.
69. The Broadway Melody, 1929
A near century-old movie could not be expected to honor its female characters, but The Broadway Melody gets as close as could be expected. The sisters with dreams of stardom have ambition but get relegated to side characters for an unethical romance that focuses on some guy's "greatness." Hats off for the title song and putting music to film, but put them back on whenever the rest of the movie is playing.
68. West Side Story, 1961
West Side Story is colorful and vibrant, appearing like someone painted it onto the screen and made the little people come to life. It also lacks a single decent song, and the narrative amounts to, “Boo racism, yay love.” Simplicity can be great, but West Side Story wants us to take it seriously despite doing little over a 150-minute runtime.
67. Tom Jones, 1963
Albert Finney struck gold with this traveling Casanova, shameless in his sexual exploits and always up for adventure. Sadly, he lacks autonomy. His moral contradictions and hedonism are designs of a story that doesn’t reflect the spastic nature of the visual style. A little more leaning into the man and committing to its gimmicks, and this would have been a genuine romp.
66. Nomadland, 2020
Nomadland is the Luka Dončić of movies: gorgeous to behold but always admitting fault to seem credible before doing whatever it wants. If Fern’s journeys, and those of her cohorts, weren’t resolved by a misguided idea of forging your own path, Nomadland would mean something. As it is, it’s just a cookie-cutter anti-capitalism movie with the thematic heft of a children’s book about being yourself.
65. Forrest Gump, 1994
Forrest Gump is the movie you play in the living room during Thanksgiving as people file to and from the dinner table dramatics. It settles the nerves and calms the mind, but only because there’s so much commercial cynicism to distract from its emptiness. Forrest is a man of, by, and for the people, which is the most scathing indictment of America ever put to film.
64. Million Dollar Baby, 2004
Clint Eastwood’s dreary boxing drama about a down-on-her-luck fighter journeying from triumph to tragedy is the schmaltz we can expect the Academy to award. Everything is in typical Eastwood style, from scenes getting shrouded in darkness to how plainly Morgan Freeman lays everything out. Neither of Eastwood's Best Picture offerings are spectacular, but with how dull it is in its first two acts and how empty it becomes in its preachy finale, this is the lesser of the two.
63. Grand Hotel, 1932
Inside the Grand Hotel is a cheeky comedy of interconnecting nonsense that causes conflicting motivations to clash. We have a suicidal dancer and the thief who falls for her and a stenographer who switches allegiances from her mogul boss to a dying man. It has oddball potential, but tries to be a drama. The result is a movie that’s all surface and no substance, much like a luxury hotel.
62. My Fair Lady, 1964
My Fair Lady contains the best musical number in history (“Ascot Gavotte") but Gigi's spiritual follow-up suffers in the same way because it is the same film: women have no autonomy or dignity and the "hero" only realizes he “loves” a woman once she meets the archaic social qualifications he requires. Sprinkle some overlong, monotonous numbers into an inexplicable 3-hour runtime, and you have a real pain to endure.
61. A Beautiful Mind, 2001
Ron Howard’s victory march was assured with this contrived biopic falsely depicting the life of mathematician John Nash as he struggles with schizophrenia. From the treacly cinematography to the overwrought music to the reduction of the man's brilliance, A Beautiful Mind fails to satisfy its title’s claims.
60. Gandhi, 1982
Essentially a moving history book, Richard Attenborough’s passion project kneels at the altar of India’s liberator instead of addressing his complicated legacy. Its sycophancy could be excusable if it injected feeling into its sprawling scope and overlong runtime, but it doesn’t. It’s just hopping from event to event, Gandhi always the noble hero while the British Raj twirls its greased mustache. Ben Kingsley is fantastic; the movie is not.
59. 12 Years a Slave, 2013
12 Years a Slave presents a rare view of slavery, though it would be more rewarding by contextualizing the savagery instead of simply beating an empty Chiwetel Ejiofor or a theatrical Lupita Nyong’o. Between the tedious tracking shots, refusal to tell a story with intent, and a self-serving cameo, 12 Years a Slave is not a movie worth revisiting.
58. The Departed, 2006
Martin Scorsese finally claimed Oscar gold for a career devoted to style over substance with a film that has none of the former and little of the latter. The Departed is catnip for anyone who loves crime movies on principle, and its scattershot narrative will appeal to more preening audiences, but as a film with value other than getting Scorsese an Oscar, it falls flat.
57. An American in Paris, 1951
Many things that grant An American in Paris its legacy are not the things that make it worthwhile. Gene Kelly is not charming, Leslie Caron is a clay-crafted space cadet, and the songs blend, culminating in a 17-minute ballet no one wanted. But An American in Paris, though full of crap, believes that crap enough to have occasionally charming conviction.
56. Birdman or (The Unexpected Virtue of Ignorance), 2014
It has its moments, particularly whenever Edward Norton and Emma Stone share the screen, and it hits a home run when Michael Keaton makes an underwear-clad dash through Times Square, but when Birdman mistakes a two-hour tracking shot and scattershot percussion as art or insists on abstraction because it knows that it has nothing to say, it fails.
55. Out of Africa, 1985
Meryl Streep and Robert Redford soaring over Kenya, engulfed by pink birds and waterfalls, is still a marvel. The central romance, that of a delusional white savior and the lothario too childish to commit, is not. Still, some indescribable quality keeps you invested, though only enough to look at said beautiful landscapes and admire the acting.
54. Green Book, 2018
Green Book is Driving Miss Daisy in reverse. It has all the same lame imaginings of racism and cultural competence, but with much better everything. We cannot abide by a white man educating a black man about his “culture” with fried chicken, but Green Book, though vapid and lacking in self-awareness, does have a certain something (mostly Mahershala Ali, in his second Oscar-winning performance) that at least makes it tolerable.
53. It Happened One Night, 1934
It is the big cheese of all romantic comedies, but It Happened One Night is rarely romantic or comedic. It has its moments, and not just the iconic ones where the duo debates doughnut dunking or schools each other on hitchhiking. Sadly, it all gets lost on a story of two people you don’t like falling in love for no reason. It began a whole genre but did so in as many good ways as bad.
52. Wings, 1928
Wings is what you would expect from a nearly century-old silent film. It’s overlong and tedious, failing to spark much sentiment or interest. Yet, it does manage to have visual merit in its aviation sequences. Stay for the sky, nap when they’re on the ground, and walk away wanting to read up on Charles Lindbergh.
51. The Godfather, 1972
The Godfather does what all mediocre movies do: relies on concepts. In fact, it is three hours of tedious, uninvolving concepts. Michael is no one before he gets turned into a ruthless mob boss and is so cartoonishly cold the turn feels thin. For every moment of genius, there’s an hour of nothingness staged to appear substantial. Everything that should mean something means nothing because the establishing gets forsaken for the act. There is a great movie buried in The Godfather: that doesn’t make The Godfather a great movie.
50. The Godfather Part II, 1974
Part II is a mild improvement over its predecessor, and it shows what the trilogy could've been had Francis Ford Coppola approached it with the same edge he used to craft The Conversation. Unfortunately, while the middle child is a technical feat, and its ambition is admirable, it too suffers from a lack of vision and pacing issues.
49. Ben-Hur, 1959
Ben-Hur wants to be a million different things, which explains how gingerly it moves through some genres and how hurriedly it rushes through others. We get little insight into anything or anyone and spend an unfortunate final HOUR dealing with two pointless characters suffering from leprosy. We care nothing for Judah once he exacts his revenge, including his romance with a walking, talking 2x4. Make this a pure (and shorter) revenge tale with a better leading man and we’d have something.
48. Midnight Cowboy, 1969
It’s an odd time-capsule fun fact that Midnight Cowboy is the only X-rated movie to win Best Picture. For all the countercultural liberation, the 1960s were pretty tame by today’s standards. It does take a bit of the movie’s luster that it’s not as daring as it seemed a half-century ago, and there isn’t a whole lot to say outside of the greatness of Jon Voight and Dustin Hoffman. If nothing else, the pair create a compelling friendship that hits hard at what that word means, almost because of their moral bankruptcy, not despite it.
47. Rain Man, 1988
It’s hard to see what made Rain Man a phenomenon in 1988. Sure, Dustin Hoffman was at the peak of his powers and Tom Cruise was a bonafide heartthrob just two years removed from one of the biggest movies ever made (that has a much better sequel), but the film is flat considering its stature. Still, Barry Levenson injects enough of his East Coast edge to make Rain Man a solid disorder drama.
46. The Sound of Music, 1965
The Sound of Music is a tale of two halves: everything before the intermission is fantastic. It’s a musical with purpose: every song flows within the narrative, and the story is concise, direct, and charming. Everything after the intermission is dark, dreary, and slow. A film that began as an uplifting musical set against the beautiful Austrian countryside becomes a sluggish pseudo-war drama, almost as if it forgot that simply because it is based on a play doesn’t mean it has to retain its entire narrative.
45. Terms of Endearment, 1983
We have James L. Brooks to thank for The Simpsons, and that’s enough to offset how unsatisfying Terms of Endearment is in retrospect. It gets repetitious as we stumble to that tearjerker ending, but what an ending, sold by the brilliance of Shirley MaClaine and Debra Winger. If you don’t shed a tear, something is wrong with you.
44. The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King, 2003
Unfortunately, the Academy decided to reserve the statuettes for the final (and weakest) installment. It drags, explores little, and serves merely as a CGI wrap-up for a great trilogy partially weighed down by a disappointing final act. Still, there’s no denying the spectacle, and the few emotional notes it needs to hit (the destruction of the Ring, the group’s heartbreak in suspecting Frodo’s death, the farewell at Rivendell), it hits like an expert marksman.
43. The King’s Speech, 2010
Director Tom Hooper would ultimately expose that framing everyone to the side is the extent of his artistic vision. Still, although less impressive in retrospect, The King’s Speech resonates as a moving ode to friendship and overcoming adversity, thanks to Colin Firth, Geoffrey Rush, and a fantastic screenplay.
42. You Can’t Take It With You, 1938
Frank Capra claimed his third Best Director Oscar with this sweet story of a woman with an eccentric family set to marry a wealthy heir. The family is charming enough, and considering it's over 80 years old, the story is funny. It handles liberal disdain with a frankness that hits, and while everyone is contrived, no one feels that way. Tack on a charming Jimmy Stewart and Jean Arthur, and you have a solid comedy on your hands.
41. Hamlet, 1948
Adapting Shakespeare is mostly an exercise in futility. He is too wordy to retain the dialogue but too thematically dense to honor his work. The best you can do is bank on admiration. Laurence Olivier’s labor of love refuses to settle for that best, accenting the narrative with smoky aesthetics and dark staging. Hamlet's earnestness makes it feel like more than it is, even if it occasionally soars as high as its parts suggest.
40. Patton, 1970
George C. Scott famously refused his Best Actor Oscar because he felt competition among actors was ludicrous, but we cannot blame the Academy for awarding him. Arguably, no actor has ever shouldered a movie to this extent, nearly forcing it to live or die on his account. When it suffers of its own fault, abandoning a fantastic performance to narrative ruin, cycling through the famed General’s successes and failures for three hours, it dies a brutal death. When it lives by Scott's genius, it lives a very compelling life.
39. Annie Hall, 1977
Woody Allen makes 90 minutes feel like an eternity, but that’s what happens when your movie works more as a short film than a feature-length production. Alvy's neuroses and how they unravel his relationship with the title character gets established, developed, and contextualized too quickly to justify the length. On the other hand, Annie Hall at its peak is a funny, creative romantic comedy that invents itself instead of settling for someone else’s spin.
38. Everything Everywhere All At Once, 2022
No film like the Daniels' multiversal rollercoaster ride has ever won Best Picture, and we should be grateful for that deviation. On the other hand, its desperation to be different sees it stuff too many storylines and concepts into its overlong runtime. Split the difference: it's not nearly want it thinks itself to be but achieves more than many Oscar darlings. If not for the drawn-out climax, the bagel nonsense, and a couple gags that run too long, this would be a bonafide classic.
37. Unforgiven, 1992
Clint Eastwood’s revisionist western is so heavy-handed you’ll spend the entire first half rolling your eyes. As a matter of fact, a great drinking game is to take a shot every time he mentions how his wife changed him or how he's not who he used to be. The spelled-out melodrama sinks an incredible movie, which it becomes when it turns into a dark revenge tale. Come for Gene Hackman, stay for Gene Hackman, and if you love movies, let Gene Hackman be the thing you remember most from this one.
36. The Best Years of Our Lives, 1946
The Best Years of Our Lives is a time capsule movies that feels slightly histrionic today. In fairness, few living souls can attest to how potent a drug post-war patriotism was in 1946, just one year after the WWII. Although it occasionally ventures into melodrama and doesn’t justify its 175-minute runtime, it’s a powerful acknowledgment of how poorly we treated veterans and a reminder that we have not fixed that problem nearly 80 years later.
35. From Here to Eternity, 1953
The times did not allow Fred Zinnemann to explore James Jones’ novel fully, but in getting forced to be more straightforward, it becomes a compelling, character-driven drama. Everyone plays their part and (aside from an Oscar-whoring - and winning - performance by Frank Sinatra) does so well. It surprises with authenticity in detailing trauma and the healing power of love; in other words, From Here Eternity has integrity. Well, aside from exploiting the Attack on Pearl Harbor to make you care about the outcome.
34. American Beauty, 1999
The societal indictment that shaped a generation of anti-suburban philosophy, American Beauty’s praise was justified in 1999. It was what our lives were and everything we had become without realizing. Sadly, its sharp turn into self-indulgence only to half-heartedly convince us it was always self-aware isn’t as fine-tuned as it thinks. Although it will never hit as hard, American Beauty still has something to say, and we should still listen.
33. Shakespeare in Love, 1998
Yes, it beat Saving Private Ryan, but the Academy sucks every year; life soldiers on. Shakespeare in Love loses itself and compensates with campy comedy that doesn't hit, but it offers one of the rarest joys to be found in a movie: doing exactly what it sets out to do, in this case by proving a play can show the true nature of love. Will is passionate, wild in his affections, and pure theater in his earnestness. Viola is ambitious, determined, and charming in her own way. The two create fireworks, and when it’s on, it’s quite a display.
32. Parasite, 2019
Parasite was never the cutting social dissection it thought it was or that we decided it was. It works much better when you take the family at face value, reveling in the dark comedy of their hijinks. From that perspective, it's a masterclass in craftsmanship that packs a ton of comedic bite.
31. The Deer Hunter, 1978
The Deer Hunter capitalizes on its scenery better than Platoon, but not as well as Apocalypse Now. It addresses its thematics better than All Quiet on the Western Front, but not as well as The Killing Fields. In that middle ground, The Deer Hunter lays a foundation for an emotional right hook, giving us insight into the struggles of returning veterans and the value of friendship.
30. Dances with Wolves, 1990
Opinions on Dances with Wolves depend on two things. First, it beat Goodfellas, which only matters if a trophy dictates your opinion of a movie. Second, if you believe Kevin Costner plays a white savior. He does in the classical sense, but in truth, he is a collaborator. The relationship he develops with the Sioux is one we should look to when we think about how successful we’ve been in furthering social issues. It isn’t the best of the sprawling landscape epics, but it deserves more credit.
29. The Sting, 1973
The Sting knows itself. It doesn’t need to be the sharpest, wittiest, most action-packed, or complex. It just needs a simple motive (revenge), a pair of charming leads (Paul Newman and Robert Redford), and a classic caper. It somewhat squanders its potential, but between a '30s Chicago aesthetic and its iconic ragtime soundtrack, The Sting mostly lives up to its title.
28. In the Heat of the Night, 1967
Norman Jewison’s 1967 race drama feels sweaty, like it's trudging through the blistering Southern heat. Admittedly, the product on screen never quite matches the visual intensity, but In the Heat of the Night succeeds because of two fantastic performances, great pacing, and a sincerity to the defining partnership and what it wants to say about our disputes.
27. Rebecca, 1940
Rebecca always feels like it’s growing, understanding itself better with each scene and peaking in its final, fiery moments. It begins frenetically instead of the slow burn of gothic horror, but once it realizes itself, it becomes a compelling storm of mystery, equipped with a lunatic villain and a fun (though obvious) red herring. It isn’t Hitchcock's finest, but it gets the job done.
26. One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest, 1975
Miloš Forman doesn’t do as much thematically as Ken Kesey's novel, but in stripping back the dissections and examinations, he unveils a classic tale of good vs. evil. We have the rebellious anti-hero, the power-hungry villain, the strong, silent companion, and a collection of kooks that charm us into a moving finish. It's never what you'd expect based on its legacy and title, but sometimes the unexpected can prove the most delightful.
25. The Apartment, 1960
It's not promising when you have to make a character attempt suicide to make her sympathetic, but The Apartment finds a (somewhat) organic means of pairing its two lovebirds. We see a broken woman in Fran and a good-hearted climber in Bud, and their dips into loose morality make them frustrating but relatable protagonists. Toss in some dark humor and harsh reality about big business and infidelity, and you have a great, unorthodox romantic comedy.
24. Argo, 2012
Argo gets criticized for letting Hollywood take credit for the Canadian role in rescuing six Americans who escaped the Iranian embassy when it got overtaken in 1979, but we cannot cherry-pick. Many beloved movies have bastardized history, just like we congratulate ourselves on our taste in flicks and revise history to suit our needs. Argo is too smug for its own good, but it's a prime example of weaving multiple genres together to make a fantastic film.
23. Gentleman’s Agreement, 1947
It’s easy to dismiss Gentleman’s Agreement as a hammy message movie, a thinly-veiled aim at claiming Oscar gold by half-heartedly tackling anti-Semitism. Doing so is doing it, and ourselves, a disservice. Everything it criticizes us for doing is true. We cannot blame Gentleman’s Agreement for calling us on our crap. We should applaud it for recognizing our faults and directly dragging them to the surface.
22. Gladiator, 2000
Ridley Scott didn’t break new ground when bringing the story of a vengeful Roman general to the screen. Yet, instead of resting on that plainness and relying on spectacle, Gladiator creates an engaging story of a man to whom we can aspire. Rarely has a single character inspired us to look within and see him in ourselves, using that commonality to make us root for him as readily as we weep, and never has one had such a thrilling setting in which to do it.
21. CODA, 2021
In an era of exploitative “representation,” CODA sincerely tells stories of those often overlooked. Few films capture the warmth of a great family drama without totally relying on clichés; CODA makes us feel like we’ve seen it a thousand times before without sacrificing its individuality. It won’t satisfy cinephiles who want films to be exclusive to their supposed intellect, but it does the trick and then some.
20. Ordinary People, 1980
Ordinary People is (thankfully) all substance and no style, aside from Timothy Hutton getting the Hollywood treatment for the afflicted, walking around like a zombie, constantly fidgeting, and living his whole life with bags under his eyes. Still, Ordinary People understands the dynamic inside its fractured household, from the well-intentioned, appeasing father to the mother so crippled by loss that she freezes over entirely. It succeeds by being ordinary, letting its characters be ordinary, and allowing every step in its journey to be ordinary.
19. Kramer vs. Kramer, 1979
Kramer vs. Kramer never totally sells Meryl Streep's Joanna as sympathetic enough or Dustin Hoffman's Ted as neglectful enough to justify anything Joanna does, but it creates an endearing display of single parenthood. It nails the bond between a stressed, working father and his confused, struggling child. It maximizes the small moments that create distance and the sweeping moments that close the gap. It doesn’t pull punches and refuses to back down, and considering the other movies of its kind, it deserves a lot of credit for that.
18. Schindler’s List, 1993
Steven Spielberg's Oscars juggernaut has a complicated legacy: for the millions who praise it as a seminal cinematic achievement, a worthy means of contextualizing the horror of the Holocaust, there are those who feel it pulls its punches, proving more Hollywood than history.
In truth, while Schindler’s List successfully depicts the Holocaust with its pseudo-documentation, it is less compelling as a narrative drama. It wants us to commit to the horror but refuses to fully do so itself, picking and choosing which Jews matter most and offering respite where the Nazis' victims found none. It could never be everything we demand, so we have no choice but to acknowledge how brilliant Spielberg is in paralyzing us while we watch humanity’s most horrific failure unfold.
17. Casablanca, 1943
Iconic line aside, Casablanca would be better if Rick and Ilsa didn’t have Paris. Alas, every rose has its thorn. Between the quick-witted dialogue and conflicting character motivations, Casablanca is a fascinating battle of sentiment vs. internalization and love vs. morality. Few screen lovers fit like Humphrey Bogart and Ingrid Bergmann; with a killer supporting cast and a screenplay that (mostly) hits all the right notes, Casablanca has earned its place in the cinematic pantheon.
16. Lawrence of Arabia, 1962
The second of David Lean’s two Best Picture epics is slightly less engaging than the first, if only because it goes on too long and struggles to justify its back half like its first. We could certainly do without the overlong tracking shots (no, we don't need the desert "characterized." It's big; we get it) and occasional thematic indecision, but when Lawrence of Arabia examines the man and explores its majestic vistas, it soars like nearly no other movie.
15. Oppenheimer, 2023
For years, Christopher Nolan’s fanboys chastised the Oscars for not giving their deity the big prize. Alas, it wasn’t until Oppenheimer that he made a movie worthy of the prize. It drags over its final hour, but for most of its 180-minute runtime, it’s a technically faultless and enrapturing historical epic full of stellar performances, stunning cinematography, and some of the most inventive music and sound work in recent memory.
14. Marty, 1955
Marty is an ode to simplicity, where two people find one another in the same way as most. Marty and Clara are two lonely people who have never gotten a chance. They do not wallow and weep, move mountains, or disavow their morals to be together. They are the friends who we tell are great to reassure them without totally believing in their prospects. They are the heartbreak of never getting called and the indecision of those tethered to their fears. They are what love means to those who have longed for it and the lack of resistance we have when that special someone finally comes along. Marty is not a thematic goldmine, but it hits its one note with magic.
13. Gone with the Wind, 1939
Nothing can be said about Gone with the Wind that has not been said before. We know of its ardent bigotry, but it showcases the subtle differences that dictate sentiment. Many films have been prejudiced, but Gone with the Wind is so ludicrous in casually passing off its racism as a genuine account of antebellum “culture,” it is easily dismissed, almost mocked for its idiocy.
It leaves room to marvel at the lavish costuming, grand set pieces, and how it justifies every minute of its runtime, thanks largely to Scarlett's complicated heroism. Even as we transition from the iconic escape from Atlanta to the rushed domestic squabbles, Gone with the Wind always feels like a story worth watching, warts and all.
12. The French Connection, 1971
The French Connection is best remembered for its thrilling car chase, where a crazed Gene Hackman risks the people of New York to catch a French assassin. It’s an incredible sequence, but surrounding it is a movie that never lets its foot off the gas. It shines a spotlight on OG anti-hero Popeye Doyle, but succeeds most at being a gripping crime drama, setting a relentless detective against a grimy aesthetic that explores its seedy underworld as much as those tasked with cleansing it.
11. The Bridge on the River Kwai, 1957
The Bridge on the River Kwai tackles familiar themes - honor, duty, destiny, legacy - but explores them less typically than most studio movies. It's easy to forget how entranced we get by the concept of things, the immediacy of our circumstances. We abandon what means the most when the stakes are highest; David Lean explores what can play out as we find our way back. A brilliant Alec Guinness and Sessue Hayakawa overcome another smug William Holden showing, allowing this POW epic to serve up compelling drama packed into a gorgeous setting.
10. Moonlight, 2016
Moonlight’s legacy will always be the hysterical mishap that saw La La Land falsely announced as Best Picture. We could pretend it will carve out something more on merit, but that would be overestimating the impact of modern movies. Make no mistake: that’s an indictment on us, not Moonlight, which blends genuine social commentary with authenticity that forces introspection. All the while, we feel one with Chiron, the young Black boy struggling with his sexuality in a world that feels familiar, no matter how much we collectively try to claim it’s far away.
9. The Silence of the Lambs, 1991
Jonathan Demme manages a rare feat: purposeful style. Every frame of dialogue is so tight that it’s like popping a balloon whenever he pulls away. When it builds that pressure, it’s an intriguing cat and mouse game between two people whose ultimate role in each other’s lives is just as unclear to them as it is to us. When it gets released, it’s an engaging crime thriller that balances shocking violence with riveting detective work. As the film crescendos, so does our anticipation: few films provide as much of a payoff.
8. Titanic, 1997
James Cameron willed the world’s most popular film into existence, overcoming a troubled production that roped in two studios and sent 50 crew members to the hospital. It was inevitable that something so fated for disaster would defy expectations. Titanic utters its lovers' names too often and occasionally asks us to suspend disbelief too high in its horrible CGI night sky, but its cheese makes it what it is: a movie that understands the moment better than most ever have. As a result, we get an iconic love story. Death to the haters: Titanic is a masterpiece.
7. Amadeus, 1984
It is a testament to Amadeus that its fast and loose interpretation of Mozart does not undo its gripping finale. It's unorthodox in execution, weaving drama in with childish outbursts and burning just as slowly as it does brightly, making a unique viewing experience that never sacrifices substance for style. Anticipate the construction of Mozart’s Requiem, but don’t forget to admire the gorgeous staging and incredible performances en route to the big finish.
6. The English Patient, 1996
It’s unfair that a Seinfeld episode tainted The English Patient’s legacy. Anthony Minghella's epic cannot ask us to genuinely root for its central romance, but it examines love and the two people caught in its unethical embrace like few movies do. Almásy and Katherine warp each other into everything they didn’t want to be, and such internal tragedy externalizes itself in ways that, while manipulative, prove moving. We can mock it all we want, and lament the debut of the Weinstein Oscars machine, but The English Patient is a well-crafted drama that does and says much more than we think.
5. The Last Emperor, 1987
Bernardo Bertolucci’s sprawling biopic about the life of China’s last monarch is an exercise in seized opportunities. It was the first Western film ever shot inside Beijing's Forbidden City. Its story, while veiling the more troubling aspects of its subject's brief reign, capitalizes on its themes. Puyi is a boy of many struggles who becomes a man desperate to recapture everything the world stripped from him. The Last Emperor lays itself out plainly, but it says more about our need for identity and self-determination than most movies.
4. A Man for All Seasons, 1966
Fred Zinnemann was an expert at sapping his adaptations of individuality and leaning on their inherent qualities: none of his films reflect that better than A Man for All Seasons. Yet, instead of being a meandering stage play put to film, it’s tight and compact, giving every word meaning as Sir Thomas More engages in a parade of intellectual sparring matches with King Henry VIII and his bloodthirsty court. As the movie weighs the cost of standing by your principles, we get challenged to ask ourselves if we are as righteous as we claim. It may lag for some, but beneath a plain façade is a movie with quite a lot to say.
3. No Country for Old Men, 2007
The Coen Brothers finally claimed Oscar supremacy with their adaptation of Cormac McCarthy’s novel about an illegal drug deal gone awry near the Texas-Mexico border. No Country for Old Men zeroes in on its subject matter, maximizing dialogue by spacing it out and bridging the gap with intense cat and mouse games as a local hunter tries to make off with millions in loot. We mostly recall it for Javier Bardem’s iconic Anton Chigurh, equipped with that infamous haircut and a captive bolt pistol, but it's a masterful thriller where the themes get established in a parade of metaphors batted between its characters and then played out in a series of pulse-pounding visual displays.
2. All About Eve, 1950
All About Eve pits a ruthless ingenue intent on theater stardom against a naïve group of established stage mainstays ignorant to her schemes. The movie speeds out of the gate with its merciless back and forths, slowly revealing a sociopathic villain whose gambit ping pongs between evil genius and near-hits with implosion. No movie has ever captured the brutal one-upmanship of the climb to glory with such acidity, but All About Eve never forgets to sprinkle humanity amongst its sass. Come for the bark, stay for the bite, and dwell on everything it says about being human, aging into obscurity, and the cost of getting what we want.
1. Spotlight, 2015
The world changed forever when the Boston Globe’s Spotlight team unlocked the city Archdiocese’s vault of sordid secrets regarding child sexual abuse. The film depicting it can never reach that level of impact, but its integrity in showing the frustration of investigative journalism creates a compelling drama that unravels a series of troubling mysteries and humanizes its many characters. Few films would ever show the restraint to balance a story’s organic developments and the cinematic touch needed to make them shine on screen. With skilled players (particularly Michael Keaton) and how well it weaves emotion into the pursuit of fact, Spotlight is a film for the ages.
So, there ya have it. Many controversial choices, but ones I stand by 100%. If there's one thing we can all agree on after all this, it is, without question...
why is Arkansas pronounced that way? Also...
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