It Happened One Night, Casablanca, The Apartment, Lawrence of Arabia were fine winners. Casablanca was the best film of its year, imo. The Oscars are generally an over-hyped celebration of ignorance and mediocrity, and none of the very greatest directors has yet won the Best Director Oscar.
“Lawrence of Arabia” is one of the very few Best Picture Oscars of note. It raised so many bars I lost count ages ago. Taht certainly can’t be said of “Crash” (the bad one) or “No Country For Old Men.”
From time to time, the Academy DOES make the right choice
The Apartment
On the Waterfront
The Godfather
The Godfather II
The French Connection
One Flew Over the Cukoos Nest
Lawrence of Arabia
Midnight Cowboy
Rebecca
From Here to Eternity
Unfortunately, only All Quiet on the Western Front, Rebecca, and The Departed.
Driving Miss Daisy, Lawrence of Arabia and The Last Emperor
Schindler’s List
Casablanca
All Quiet On The Western Front
Silence of the Lambs
Unforgiven
…and i haven’t seen it in years, but i remember really enjoying The Bridge on the River Kwai
Annie Hall
The only best picture winner I can tolerate is It Happened One Night, not that I condone the watching of Capra.
the deer hunter and on the waterfront
THE GODFATHER, PART II
ANNIE HALL
AMERICAN BEAUTY
JP – if It Happened One Night is the only one you can tolerate, I feel for you dude.
Godfather, The Lost Weekend, The French Connection, The Godfather II, Annie Hall, Unforgiven, The Departed.
Annie Hall
The Apartment
The Godfather
The Godfather Part II
Midnight Cowboy
On the Waterfront
These are the ones that can be found sometimes in my top 25 films of all time.
Really JP? You don’t like, let alone able to tolerate, any of the films on my list?
The Last Emperor gets my vote.
Good call on Annie Hall…
Grand Hotel
that’s it.
Hmmm … a few. And these are not just films I feel deserved to win in their respective years, but are also my favorites as the title says:
The Best Years of Our Lives
The Apartment
Tom Jones
Midnight Cowboy
the Godfather s
Annie Hall
Unforgiven
I am usually most happy with the “great years” for films, or, in other words, when all the nominees in that year “deserve” to win. Think of 1975 (Nashville, Jaws, Dog Day Afternoon, Barry Lyndon and One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest) and 1976 (Bound for Glory, All the President’s Men, Network, Taxi Driver and Rocky ). On a scale of one-to-ten, all of those films are elevens. And 1979, 1980, 1983, 1999 …
Casablanca, The Godfather, On The Waterfront, Schindler’s List. I’ll think of more…
Annie Hall
The Lost Weekend
Midnight Cowboy
Midnight Cowboy
The Godfather
One Flew over The Cuckoo’s Nest (even though I like Dog Day Afternoon more)
On The Waterfront
Schindler’s List
Annie Hall
West Side Story (which is in my Top Ten)
Annie Hall
Casablanca
The Godfather
No Country for Old Men
Unforgiven was the last correct choice. Others: Casablanca, An American in Paris, The Deer Hunter.
i really don’t know if Unforgiven was a good choice or not because individually speaking,1992 had so many great films,Unforgiven can be one of them but certainly not THE top of them.
Oscar speaking though,and i must say outside of Jackson trilogies and Spielbergian dramas,Unforgiven was a solid film,truly a not-so-mainstream choice like Crashs and Million Dollar Babys and Shakespeares or even English Patients!!
and arguably one of the last worthwhile Eastwood films before the absolute decline.
i also admire West Side Story, All the King’s Men, Midnight Cowboy, In the Heat of the Night, Amadeus as FILMS, not fuckin’ Academy winners….
but i hate labeling them as Oscars films, that’s a major problem partly due tot he audence’s ignorance of other film awards and secondly due to (the audience’s once again) horrendous obsessions with top films of each year,thus either diminishing one decade or erupting the next to the skies…
Well Dimitris, I always thought that Unforgiven was a masterpiece – Eastwood’s best.
Haven’t seen Amadeus mentioned much…Giant soft spot for that one.
Since the quality of the final product in Hollywood moviemaking ultimately comes down to bankability—ensured by compromises forced onto filmmakers by businesspeople in the interest of ignorant audiences—it’s appropriate that the awarding of Oscars comes down to money as well.
You can’t always say they’re “rigged,” just as you can’t say presidential elections are rigged—but elections are ultimately about who has the most money, and how cleverly they use it to trick people into voting for them.
Thus, the Academy has never really made a “bad” choice, since the whole thing is a crock to begin with.
I do like Rocky and West Side Story, however, so I’ll go with those.
I am a fan of probably almost half the films that have won best picture. Usually I still think they made the wrong choice. The following are the only winners that I would agree were the best films of their respective years:
Casablanca
West Side Story
Lawrence of Arabia
The Godfather
Silence of the Lambs
Schindler’s List
Casablanca
All About Eve
The Apartment
The Godfather—Part 2
One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest
Platoon
No Country for Old Men
and No Country for Old Men my actually be my favorite of them all.
“You can’t always say they’re “rigged,” just as you can’t say presidential elections are rigged—but elections are ultimately about who has the most money, and how cleverly they use it to trick people into voting for them.”
quite true Tio but what else can you expect from a mass “cultural” technocratic team of “experts” where not even a limited amount of critics takes part (and even the specific ones have insubstantial film knowledge due to their insufficient research) and in the end,cash isn’t the “main thing” but current affairs (!)
curiously enough,i haven’t seen Rocky!!!
but i’ll play along and i’ll also agree that Casablanca, Apartment, All About Eve, Platoon, Cuckoo’s Nest, Godfather (1 + 2) are arguably films individually speaking outsider of Oscar that have offered me much pleasure as well as the more entertaining Silence of the Lambs and Schindler’s List.
but as far as best goes,no…i cannot accept that unless we had a “festival” type of awards from AROUND THE WORLD.
Christopher Langford
For me it’s Casablanca ,Gladiator, and All About Eve
Click here for a full listing of winners