Should Have Won the Oscar!
by Hairy_Lime | created - 07 Jan 2011 | updated - 07 Mar 2015 | PublicThe Movies that should have won the Oscar for Best Picture, starting with 2010 and going backwards. I am limiting myself to English language movies, because that is in essence what Oscar does. Only if Oscar has recognized the foreign film with important nominations beyond the foreign film category do I use a foreign film.
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1. Inside Llewyn Davis (2013)
R | 104 min | Drama, Music
A week in the life of a young singer as he navigates the Greenwich Village folk scene of 1961.
Directors: Ethan Coen, Joel Coen | Stars: Oscar Isaac, Carey Mulligan, John Goodman, Garrett Hedlund
Votes: 163,553 | Gross: $13.24M
2. Life of Pi (2012)
PG | 127 min | Adventure, Drama, Fantasy
A young man who survives a disaster at sea is hurtled into an epic journey of adventure and discovery. While cast away, he forms an unexpected connection with another survivor: a fearsome Bengal tiger.
Director: Ang Lee | Stars: Suraj Sharma, Irrfan Khan, Adil Hussain, Tabu
Votes: 667,146 | Gross: $124.99M
3. A Separation (2011)
PG-13 | 123 min | Drama
A married couple are faced with a difficult decision - to improve the life of their child by moving to another country or to stay in Iran and look after a deteriorating parent who has Alzheimer's disease.
Director: Asghar Farhadi | Stars: Payman Maadi, Leila Hatami, Sareh Bayat, Shahab Hosseini
Votes: 258,665 | Gross: $7.10M
I still have many movies to see from 2011, but if any of them are better than this one I'll eat my keyboard. Since AMPAS nominated its screenplay, I'll say they should have nominated this film, and it should have been the easy winner.
4. Winter's Bone (2010)
R | 100 min | Crime, Drama, Mystery
An unflinching Ozark Mountain girl hacks through dangerous social terrain as she hunts down her drug-dealing father while trying to keep her family intact.
Director: Debra Granik | Stars: Jennifer Lawrence, John Hawkes, Garret Dillahunt, Isaiah Stone
Votes: 150,589 | Gross: $6.53M
A dark glimpse at a violent underbelly. Terrific performance by Lawrence and especially Hawkes.
5. A Serious Man (2009)
R | 106 min | Comedy, Drama
Larry Gopnik, a Midwestern physics teacher, watches his life unravel over multiple sudden incidents. Though seeking meaning and answers amidst his turmoils, he seems to keep sinking.
Directors: Ethan Coen, Joel Coen | Stars: Michael Stuhlbarg, Richard Kind, Sari Lennick, Fred Melamed
Votes: 149,983 | Gross: $9.19M
I have no real problem with The Hurt Locker winning, an excellent, deserving picture. But my vote goes to the Bros Coen's brilliant retelling of Job. Maybe.
6. In Bruges (2008)
R | 107 min | Comedy, Crime, Drama
After a job gone wrong, hitman Ray and his partner await orders from their ruthless boss in Bruges, Belgium, the last place in the world Ray wants to be.
Director: Martin McDonagh | Stars: Colin Farrell, Brendan Gleeson, Ciarán Hinds, Elizabeth Berrington
Votes: 461,720 | Gross: $7.76M
I like Slumdog. But the dialogue in this movie crackles and pops with snappy wit like a bowl of Rice Krispies. And the movie deserves the Oscar for the "Inanimate Object" line reading alone.
7. No Country for Old Men (2007)
R | 122 min | Crime, Drama, Thriller
Violence and mayhem ensue after a hunter stumbles upon the aftermath of a drug deal gone wrong and over two million dollars in cash near the Rio Grande.
Directors: Ethan Coen, Joel Coen | Stars: Tommy Lee Jones, Javier Bardem, Josh Brolin, Woody Harrelson
Votes: 1,061,003 | Gross: $74.28M
Chalk.
8. Pan's Labyrinth (2006)
R | 118 min | Drama, Fantasy, War
In the Falangist Spain of 1944, the bookish young stepdaughter of a sadistic army officer escapes into an eerie but captivating fantasy world.
Director: Guillermo del Toro | Stars: Ivana Baquero, Ariadna Gil, Sergi López, Maribel Verdú
Votes: 703,303 | Gross: $37.63M
I am making an exception here to the English language rule because, mostly, Pan's Labyrinth had Oscar recognition beyond the foreign film category. And also because otherwise my pick is Borat. Having honored Scorsese elsewhere, I have no need to throw him a bone for a good but not great movie this year.
9. Good Night, and Good Luck. (2005)
PG | 93 min | Biography, Drama, History
Broadcast journalist Edward R. Murrow looks to bring down Senator Joseph McCarthy.
Director: George Clooney | Stars: David Strathairn, George Clooney, Patricia Clarkson, Jeff Daniels
Votes: 101,319 | Gross: $31.56M
Weak year. But then I still haven't seen Brokeback Mountain, or for that matter, all of Crash. I can always edit.
10. Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind (2004)
R | 108 min | Drama, Romance, Sci-Fi
When their relationship turns sour, a couple undergoes a medical procedure to have each other erased from their memories forever.
Director: Michel Gondry | Stars: Jim Carrey, Kate Winslet, Tom Wilkinson, Gerry Robert Byrne
Votes: 1,078,634 | Gross: $34.40M
By a nose over Sideways. Charlie Kaufman is the best addition to the movies in the last 15 years, and this is his best, most moving and most thought provoking screenplay. Winslet as Clementine walks that fine line between the reality and the fiction of the manic pixie dream girl.
11. American Splendor (2003)
R | 101 min | Biography, Comedy, Drama
An original mix of fiction and reality illuminates the life of comic book hero everyman Harvey Pekar.
Directors: Shari Springer Berman, Robert Pulcini | Stars: Paul Giamatti, Shari Springer Berman, Harvey Pekar, Chris Ambrose
Votes: 52,379 | Gross: $6.00M
Completely overlooked by Oscar, including Giamatti's great, great, lead performance. And let me shout it to the heavens: Paul Giamatti gave the two best lead actor performances of the decade in back to nack years, and never even got freaking nominated! AMPAS, AMPAS, you have your head up your rectum!
12. Adaptation. (2002)
R | 115 min | Comedy, Drama
A lovelorn screenwriter becomes desperate as he tries and fails to adapt 'The Orchid Thief' by Susan Orlean for the screen.
Director: Spike Jonze | Stars: Nicolas Cage, Meryl Streep, Chris Cooper, Tilda Swinton
Votes: 203,140 | Gross: $22.25M
More Kaufman! Cage as lead, as well as Cooper, Streep, and Cage in supporting roles, are wonderful. Worth it for the script writing seminar alone.
13. The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring (2001)
PG-13 | 178 min | Action, Adventure, Drama
A meek Hobbit from the Shire and eight companions set out on a journey to destroy the powerful One Ring and save Middle-earth from the Dark Lord Sauron.
Director: Peter Jackson | Stars: Elijah Wood, Ian McKellen, Orlando Bloom, Sean Bean
Votes: 2,008,302 | Gross: $315.54M
The virtue of doing this backwards is I get to honor the whole of the trilogy in its first year, where the competition is so so - The Pianist would be my second choice. I have come around to seeing this as the best of the trilogy anyways.
14. Traffic (2000)
R | 147 min | Crime, Drama, Thriller
A conservative judge is appointed by the President to spearhead America's escalating war against drugs, only to discover that his teenage daughter is a crack addict. Two DEA agents protect an informant. A jailed drug baron's wife attempts to carry on the family business.
Director: Steven Soderbergh | Stars: Michael Douglas, Benicio Del Toro, Catherine Zeta-Jones, Jacob Vargas
Votes: 219,819 | Gross: $124.12M
Again, not a great year. Thought about O Brother, but it's minor Coens. Maybe Crouching Tiger, but I decided to go with an English language film instead, since Oscar would. OK. mostly English language.
15. Magnolia (1999)
R | 188 min | Drama
An epic mosaic of interrelated characters in search of love, forgiveness and meaning in the San Fernando Valley.
Director: Paul Thomas Anderson | Stars: Tom Cruise, Jason Robards, Julianne Moore, Philip Seymour Hoffman
Votes: 328,644 | Gross: $22.46M
Still Paul Thomas Anderson's best movie.
16. Shakespeare in Love (1998)
R | 123 min | Comedy, Drama, History
The world's greatest ever playwright, William Shakespeare, is young, out of ideas and short of cash, but meets his ideal woman and is inspired to write one of his most famous plays.
Director: John Madden | Stars: Gwyneth Paltrow, Joseph Fiennes, Geoffrey Rush, Tom Wilkinson
Votes: 234,419 | Gross: $100.32M
It was too! Suck on it, haters! Saving Private Ryan won the Oscars it deserved, neither more nor less. Shakespeare in Love is a better movie; better screenplay, better acting, more thought provoking and more interesting for its full length.
17. L.A. Confidential (1997)
R | 138 min | Crime, Drama, Mystery
As corruption grows in 1950s Los Angeles, three policemen - one strait-laced, one brutal, and one sleazy - investigate a series of murders with their own brand of justice.
Director: Curtis Hanson | Stars: Kevin Spacey, Russell Crowe, Guy Pearce, Kim Basinger
Votes: 618,153 | Gross: $64.62M
Brilliant neo-noir, with top notch acting, including surprisingly good performances by a couple of people I normally do not like (Crowe, Basinger). There were a couple of times I cursed the director and wanted to through my feces at the screen like a chimp in a zoo (I hate directors that insult my intelligence, PM me for details) but the strength of the movie otherwise overcomes the flaws.
18. Fargo (1996)
R | 98 min | Crime, Thriller
Minnesota car salesman Jerry Lundegaard's inept crime falls apart due to his and his henchmen's bungling and the persistent police work of the quite pregnant Marge Gunderson.
Directors: Joel Coen, Ethan Coen | Stars: William H. Macy, Frances McDormand, Steve Buscemi, Peter Stormare
Votes: 727,076 | Gross: $24.61M
The best film by our best current film makers. This is where the Coens matured - the addition of a major character that contains a human message in the middle of nihilistic bleakness elevates the movie beyond the normal brilliant technical work the Coens always give us. In other words, I heart Margie!
19. Richard III (1995)
R | 110 min | Drama, Sci-Fi, War
The classic Shakespearean play about the murderously scheming 15th-century king is reimagined in an alternative setting of 1930s England as clouds of fascism gather.
Director: Richard Loncraine | Stars: Ian McKellen, Annette Bening, Christopher Bowen, Edward Jewesbury
Votes: 15,577 | Gross: $2.60M
A weak year, and I am a sucker for Shakespeare anyway. See, 1998, above. Great performances in a great play. It's hard for a good actor to do Richard badly, but Ian McKellan does him great.
20. Three Colors: Red (1994)
R | 99 min | Drama, Mystery, Romance
A model discovers a retired judge is keen on invading people's privacy.
Director: Krzysztof Kieslowski | Stars: Irène Jacob, Jean-Louis Trintignant, Frédérique Feder, Jean-Pierre Lorit
Votes: 110,060 | Gross: $4.04M
Kieslowski's nomination for Best Director brings this under my rules. I'd otherwise go with Pulp Fiction, but I am not a huge fan of that movie, as much as I admire the technique. And the other two of 1994's Big Three... well, I'm not a fan. Red is Kieslowski's last film, and it is a brilliant envoy to the series and his career.
21. Naked (1993)
Not Rated | 131 min | Comedy, Drama
An unemployed Mancunian vents his rage on unsuspecting strangers as he embarks on a nocturnal London odyssey.
Director: Mike Leigh | Stars: David Thewlis, Lesley Sharp, Katrin Cartlidge, Greg Cruttwell
Votes: 43,972 | Gross: $1.77M
I think David Thewlis's performance is brilliant. The Oscar went to Schindler's List, and picking against that seems rather... heartless. But I have problems with the emotional hammer Spielberg whangs us with at the end.
22. The Player (1992)
R | 124 min | Comedy, Crime, Drama
A Hollywood studio executive is being sent death threats by a writer whose script he rejected, but which one?
Director: Robert Altman | Stars: Tim Robbins, Greta Scacchi, Fred Ward, Whoopi Goldberg
Votes: 65,821 | Gross: $21.71M
Despite my dislike for Tim Robbins, this is my second favorite Robert Altman film. No real complaint with the very deserving Unforgiven. My big complaint for the year is giving the Oscar to Pacino's god awful one note screech of a performance.
23. Thelma & Louise (1991)
R | 130 min | Adventure, Crime, Drama
Two best friends set out on an adventure, but it soon turns around to a terrifying escape from being hunted by the police, as these two women escape for the crimes they committed.
Director: Ridley Scott | Stars: Susan Sarandon, Geena Davis, Harvey Keitel, Michael Madsen
Votes: 173,330 | Gross: $45.36M
A wonderful evocation of the lure of the open road, distaff style! And I prefer it to a slasher movie with A List stars, yes I do.
24. Goodfellas (1990)
R | 145 min | Biography, Crime, Drama
The story of Henry Hill and his life in the mafia, covering his relationship with his wife Karen and his mob partners Jimmy Conway and Tommy DeVito.
Director: Martin Scorsese | Stars: Robert De Niro, Ray Liotta, Joe Pesci, Lorraine Bracco
Votes: 1,258,224 | Gross: $46.84M
The best movie ever "about" the mob - the Godfather is not "about" the mob - and it has one of the best supporting performances ever. No, I don't think you're funny, Tommy. No sir.
25. Crimes and Misdemeanors (1989)
PG-13 | 104 min | Comedy, Drama
An ophthalmologist's mistress threatens to reveal their affair to his wife while a married documentary filmmaker is infatuated with another woman.
Director: Woody Allen | Stars: Martin Landau, Woody Allen, Bill Bernstein, Claire Bloom
Votes: 60,808 | Gross: $18.25M
Woody Allen's best movie that is not primarily funny. Great acting performances from Landau and Huston, and a unsettling glimpse of a world that is not under the eyes of God. And I pee better movies than Driving Miss Daisy.
26. A Fish Called Wanda (1988)
R | 108 min | Comedy, Crime
In London, four very different people team up on a jewel heist, then try to double-cross one another for the loot, complicated by their efforts to fool a very proper barrister.
Directors: Charles Crichton, John Cleese | Stars: John Cleese, Jamie Lee Curtis, Kevin Kline, Michael Palin
Votes: 153,978 | Gross: $63.49M
Comedy is Oscar's least appreciated genres, and this is one of the best comedies of the last 30 years. Kevin Kline is great in particular, but the whole film is full of great comic performances. Rain Man is on my list of least deserving winners.
27. My Life as a Dog (1985)
Unrated | 101 min | Drama, Comedy
In the late '50s, young Ingemar learns a lot about life and himself when he is sent away from his sick mother to live with his aunt and uncle in a town full of eccentrics.
Director: Lasse Hallström | Stars: Anton Glanzelius, Tomas von Brömssen, Anki Lidén, Melinda Kinnaman
Votes: 22,545 | Gross: $8.35M
I'd normally not really look to a writing Oscar to justify the inclusion on this list, but this was a dog of a year (pun intended) and this is a wonderful, touching, brilliant movie. Oscar eligible for 1987 despite being a 1985 film.
28. Hannah and Her Sisters (1986)
PG-13 | 107 min | Comedy, Drama
Between two Thanksgivings two years apart, Hannah's husband falls in love with her sister Lee, while her hypochondriac ex-husband rekindles his relationship with her sister Holly.
Director: Woody Allen | Stars: Mia Farrow, Dianne Wiest, Michael Caine, Barbara Hershey
Votes: 76,813 | Gross: $40.08M
Another Allen movie, structured like an episodic novel, well acted all around, except by Woody himself who never really acts. But it is a great screenplay, and a wonderful, evocative movie. Room With A View as a nice runner up. Platoon? Not in the picture.
29. Witness (1985)
R | 112 min | Drama, Romance, Thriller
While protecting an Amish boy - who is the sole witness to a brutal murder - and his mother, a detective is forced to seek refuge within their community when his own life is threatened.
Director: Peter Weir | Stars: Harrison Ford, Kelly McGillis, Lukas Haas, Josef Sommer
Votes: 104,730 | Gross: $68.71M
A love story, a slice of life documentary, and a thriller, and it does all of them very, very well. Peter Weir has not been at this level since, not even near it. Out of Africa is a dull movie with star power, nothing more.
30. Paris, Texas (1984)
R | 145 min | Drama
Travis Henderson, an aimless drifter who has been missing for four years, wanders out of the desert and must reconnect with society, himself, his life, and his family.
Director: Wim Wenders | Stars: Harry Dean Stanton, Nastassja Kinski, Dean Stockwell, Sam Berry
Votes: 119,158 | Gross: $2.18M
It has my ten favorite minutes of dialogue - mostly monologue - in any movie, ever. It's Harry Dean Stanton, turning his back on his ex-wife behind a one way mirror, and telling her, I knew these people... these two people... and absolutely breaking everyone's heart. God I wish I could write like that. Amadeus is an OK winner, but there were several other better movies.
31. The Year of Living Dangerously (1982)
PG | 115 min | Drama, Romance, War
A young Australian reporter tries to navigate the political turmoil of Indonesia during the rule of President Sukarno with the help of a diminutive photographer.
Director: Peter Weir | Stars: Mel Gibson, Sigourney Weaver, Linda Hunt, Bembol Roco
Votes: 22,903 | Gross: $10.28M
Yep, Peter Weir used to be great. One of the few times I've really liked Mel Gibson in a movie, and Linda Hunt is brilliant as a (male) Indonesian/Chinese midget. Or is it dwarf? No wonder the kill themselves.... Again a release date for Australia, Oscar eligible for 1983.
32. E.T. (1982)
PG | 115 min | Adventure, Family, Sci-Fi
A troubled child summons the courage to help a friendly alien escape from Earth and return to his home planet.
Director: Steven Spielberg | Stars: Henry Thomas, Drew Barrymore, Peter Coyote, Dee Wallace
Votes: 437,754 | Gross: $435.11M
This is the movie Spielberg deserves to be remembered for. Spielberg is always at his best when he gives us emotional film making, not intellectual film making.
33. Atlantic City (1980)
R | 104 min | Crime, Drama, Romance
In a corrupt city, a small-time gangster and the estranged wife of a pot dealer find themselves thrown together in an escapade of love, money, drugs and danger.
Director: Louis Malle | Stars: Burt Lancaster, Susan Sarandon, Kate Reid, Michel Piccoli
Votes: 18,305
Lancaster, Sarandon, and lemons. Oh, to be a lemon.... I like Chariots of Fire more than a lot of people do, but this is a wonderful, and much better, film.
Once again, this was its Oscar year.
34. Raging Bull (1980)
R | 129 min | Biography, Drama, Sport
The life of boxer Jake LaMotta, whose violence and temper that led him to the top in the ring destroyed his life outside of it.
Director: Martin Scorsese | Stars: Robert De Niro, Cathy Moriarty, Joe Pesci, Frank Vincent
Votes: 380,444 | Gross: $23.38M
The biggest screw up in AMPAS's long history of screw ups. Worse even than How Green Was My Valley over Kane and The Maltese Falcon because at least How Green Was My Valley was a pretty good movie. DeNiro and Pesci and Scorsese are all at their absolute best.
35. All That Jazz (1979)
R | 123 min | Drama, Music, Musical
Director/choreographer Bob Fosse tells his own life story as he details the sordid career of Joe Gideon, a womanizing, drug-using dancer.
Director: Bob Fosse | Stars: Roy Scheider, Jessica Lange, Ann Reinking, Leland Palmer
Votes: 35,418 | Gross: $37.82M
A glorified A List Cast Lifetime Movie Network Movie of the Week over this and Apocalypse Now? Criminies, Oscar! Talk about cranial rectal immersion! I prefer this innovative and daring deconstruction of the director's life and - eventually - death over Coppola's great Nam picture, but people who feel otherwise get no argument from me.
36. The Deer Hunter (1978)
R | 183 min | Drama, War
An in-depth examination of the ways in which the Vietnam War impacts and disrupts the lives of several friends in a small steel mill town in Pennsylvania.
Director: Michael Cimino | Stars: Robert De Niro, Christopher Walken, John Cazale, John Savage
Votes: 362,408 | Gross: $48.98M
Chalk. I love love love the first half of the movie; the second half not so much. But it was better than anything else that year.
37. Annie Hall (1977)
PG | 93 min | Comedy, Romance
Alvy Singer, a divorced Jewish comedian, reflects on his relationship with ex-lover Annie Hall, an aspiring nightclub singer, which ended abruptly just like his previous marriages.
Director: Woody Allen | Stars: Woody Allen, Diane Keaton, Tony Roberts, Carol Kane
Votes: 278,527 | Gross: $39.20M
More chalk. Good show, Oscar, honoring an intelligent adult comedy over teen fantasy sci fi special effects stuff. Even real, real good teen fantasy sci fi special effects stuff.
38. Taxi Driver (1976)
R | 114 min | Crime, Drama
A mentally unstable veteran works as a nighttime taxi driver in New York City, where the perceived decadence and sleaze fuels his urge for violent action.
Director: Martin Scorsese | Stars: Robert De Niro, Jodie Foster, Cybill Shepherd, Albert Brooks
Votes: 921,367 | Gross: $28.26M
I understand why Oscar did not honor this movie - I never want to see it again. But it is a brutal, brilliant masterpiece, and easily the best movie of the year.
39. Nashville (1975)
R | 160 min | Comedy, Drama, Music
Over the course of a few hectic days, numerous interrelated people prepare for a political convention.
Director: Robert Altman | Stars: Keith Carradine, Karen Black, Ronee Blakley, Shelley Duvall
Votes: 28,575 | Gross: $14.82M
The best movie of my lifetime; a sprawling, funny, sad, and biting slice of America at 200 years. It may not all add up, but what of that? It comes close enough, and frankly, it don't worry me....
40. Chinatown (1974)
R | 130 min | Drama, Mystery, Thriller
A private detective hired to expose an adulterer in 1930s Los Angeles finds himself caught up in a web of deceit, corruption, and murder.
Director: Roman Polanski | Stars: Jack Nicholson, Faye Dunaway, John Huston, Perry Lopez
Votes: 350,049
Nicholson's best performance, a neo-noir that is memorable in every way, except for the plot which is barely comprehensible in one viewing. As it should be. Who the Hell could follow the plot of The Big Sleep? The plot's almost as meaningless as in a Marx Brothers movie.
41. Badlands (1973)
PG | 94 min | Action, Crime, Drama
An impressionable teenage girl from a dead-end town, and her older greaser boyfriend, embark on a killing spree in the South Dakota Badlands.
Director: Terrence Malick | Stars: Martin Sheen, Sissy Spacek, Warren Oates, Ramon Bieri
Votes: 78,438
Not sure between this and The Last Detail. I know the best picture was NOT The Sting.
42. The Godfather (1972)
R | 175 min | Crime, Drama
The aging patriarch of an organized crime dynasty transfers control of his clandestine empire to his reluctant son.
Director: Francis Ford Coppola | Stars: Marlon Brando, Al Pacino, James Caan, Diane Keaton
Votes: 2,013,964 | Gross: $134.97M
The sine qua non of chalk. The best movie ever to win an Oscar.
43. McCabe & Mrs. Miller (1971)
R | 120 min | Drama, Western
A gambler and a prostitute become business partners in a remote Old West mining town, and their enterprise thrives until a large corporation arrives on the scene.
Director: Robert Altman | Stars: Warren Beatty, Julie Christie, Rene Auberjonois, William Devane
Votes: 27,663 | Gross: $8.20M
Yes, more Altman. Like the Coens and Woody Allen and Billy Wilder, Altman's best movies reach me in ways most films do not even approach.
44. Little Big Man (1970)
PG-13 | 139 min | Adventure, Comedy, Drama
Jack Crabb, looking back from extreme old age, tells of his life being raised by Native Americans and fighting with General Custer.
Director: Arthur Penn | Stars: Dustin Hoffman, Faye Dunaway, Chief Dan George, Martin Balsam
Votes: 37,913 | Gross: $31.56M
Yeah, a little revisionist. But the Massacre at the Washeetah (deliberately misspelled to avoid a beep) River scene is one of the few scenes that gets me to cry openly, every time. No real problem with Patton's win.
45. Z (1969)
M/PG | 127 min | Crime, Drama, Thriller
The public murder of a prominent politician and doctor amid a violent demonstration is covered up by military and government officials. A tenacious magistrate is determined not to let them get away with it.
Director: Costa-Gavras | Stars: Yves Montand, Irene Papas, Jean-Louis Trintignant, François Périer
Votes: 31,363 | Gross: $0.08M
Another foreign film, but Oscar nominated it for the BP, so who am I to complain? It's my second favorite foreign film of the year, but we cannot expect Oscar to appreciate Melville.
46. The Lion in Winter (1968)
PG | 134 min | Biography, Drama, History
1183 A.D.: King Henry II's three sons all want to inherit the throne, but he won't commit to a choice. When he allows his imprisoned wife Eleanor of Aquitaine out for a Christmas visit, they all variously plot to force him into a decision.
Director: Anthony Harvey | Stars: Peter O'Toole, Katharine Hepburn, Anthony Hopkins, John Castle
Votes: 34,230 | Gross: $22.28M
One of my favorite Christmas movies ever. What is more in the holiday spirit than a dysfunctional family reuniting over Christmas to plot and plan with and against each other to destroy everyone and everything? In my family at least. The less said about Oliver! beating this and 2001, the better.
47. Bonnie and Clyde (1967)
R | 111 min | Action, Biography, Crime
Bored waitress Bonnie Parker falls in love with an ex-con named Clyde Barrow and together they start a violent crime spree through the country, stealing cars and robbing banks.
Director: Arthur Penn | Stars: Warren Beatty, Faye Dunaway, Michael J. Pollard, Gene Hackman
Votes: 120,653
Where would Tarantino and the Coens be without Arthur Penn? Bonnie and Clyde is a rich masterpiece of film making, acting, editing, and cinematography. In The Heat of the Night has some great moments, but its world view is - pardon this but I know no other way to put it - too black and white.
48. The Fortune Cookie (1966)
Passed | 125 min | Comedy, Romance
A crooked lawyer persuades his brother-in-law to feign a serious injury.
Director: Billy Wilder | Stars: Jack Lemmon, Walter Matthau, Ron Rich, Judi West
Votes: 15,585
Actually not a favorite Wilder movie, but this was a down year. So let me just toss in a recommendation for the actual best movie of the year, Au hasard Balthazar. It's about a donkey. No, seriously, that's what it's about.
49. Chimes at Midnight (1965)
Not Rated | 115 min | Comedy, Drama, History
When King Henry IV ascends to the throne, his heir, the Prince of Wales, is befriended by Sir John Falstaff, an old, overweight, fun-loving habitual liar. Through Falstaff's eyes we see the reign of King Henry IV and the rise of Henry V.
Director: Orson Welles | Stars: Orson Welles, Jeanne Moreau, Margaret Rutherford, John Gielgud
Votes: 10,154 | Gross: $0.12M
Falstaff and Welles are both larger than life, and Welles has only been better once - and since he was only in the other movie for 8 minutes and running through the sewer for most of it, this gets the award for his best substantial performance. It's available on youtube but hard to find otherwise. Watch the opening segment, and Welles's reactions to the foolish, prating Shallow. And the battle scene. Brilliance.
50. Dr. Strangelove or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb (1964)
PG | 95 min | Comedy, War
An unhinged American general orders a bombing attack on the Soviet Union, triggering a path to nuclear holocaust that a war room full of politicians and generals frantically tries to stop.
Director: Stanley Kubrick | Stars: Peter Sellers, George C. Scott, Sterling Hayden, Keenan Wynn
Votes: 518,531 | Gross: $0.28M
I really need to reappraise Kubrick, but this one I do not need to. It's the one Kubrick movie I unreservedly love.
51. 8½ (1963)
Not Rated | 138 min | Drama
A harried movie director retreats into his memories and fantasies.
Director: Federico Fellini | Stars: Marcello Mastroianni, Anouk Aimée, Claudia Cardinale, Sandra Milo
Votes: 125,248 | Gross: $0.05M
Thank God Fellini got that Best Director nod. I had nowhere else to go.
52. The Manchurian Candidate (1962)
PG-13 | 126 min | Drama, Thriller
An American POW in the Korean War is brainwashed as an unwitting assassin for an international Communist conspiracy.
Director: John Frankenheimer | Stars: Frank Sinatra, Laurence Harvey, Janet Leigh, Angela Lansbury
Votes: 79,863
The ultimate political mind muck movie. Wonderfully constructed, written, and shot. Angela Landsbury is chillingly great in this.
53. West Side Story (1961)
Approved | 153 min | Crime, Drama, Musical
Two youngsters from rival New York City gangs fall in love, but tensions between their respective friends build toward tragedy.
Directors: Jerome Robbins, Robert Wise | Stars: Natalie Wood, George Chakiris, Richard Beymer, Russ Tamblyn
Votes: 121,254 | Gross: $43.66M
I could argue for La Dolce Vita, but again, with a deserving nominee, I am preferring English language movies. And Yojimbo's only Oscar nom was a costume design nom in 1962. Not enough.
54. The Apartment (1960)
Approved | 125 min | Comedy, Drama, Romance
A Manhattan insurance clerk tries to rise in his company by letting its executives use his apartment for trysts, but complications and a romance of his own ensue.
Director: Billy Wilder | Stars: Jack Lemmon, Shirley MacLaine, Fred MacMurray, Ray Walston
Votes: 196,976 | Gross: $18.60M
Oscar gets it right again.
55. Some Like It Hot (1959)
Passed | 121 min | Comedy, Music, Romance
After two male musicians witness a mob hit, they flee the state in an all-female band disguised as women, but further complications set in.
Director: Billy Wilder | Stars: Marilyn Monroe, Tony Curtis, Jack Lemmon, George Raft
Votes: 283,678 | Gross: $25.00M
Unnominated. Billy Wilder's great farce is far better than the actual winner, the rather stiff and stultifying - chariot race excepted - Ben Hur.
56. Vertigo (1958)
PG | 128 min | Mystery, Romance, Thriller
A former San Francisco police detective juggles wrestling with his personal demons and becoming obsessed with the hauntingly beautiful woman he has been hired to trail, who may be deeply disturbed.
Director: Alfred Hitchcock | Stars: James Stewart, Kim Novak, Barbara Bel Geddes, Tom Helmore
Votes: 427,192 | Gross: $3.20M
Why oh why had Oscar no use for Hitch? Because they were too busy watching Gigi and mistaking it for something that didn't suck, that's why. This is Hitch's best, most personal, and most intriguing movie.
57. The Bridge on the River Kwai (1957)
PG | 161 min | Adventure, Drama, War
British POWs are forced to build a railway bridge across the river Kwai for their Japanese captors in occupied Burma, not knowing that the allied forces are planning a daring commando raid through the jungle to destroy it.
Director: David Lean | Stars: William Holden, Alec Guinness, Jack Hawkins, Sessue Hayakawa
Votes: 233,410 | Gross: $44.91M
1957 was the second best year for movies ever. I might prefer Roshomon or Seventh Seal, but whatever. Witness for the Prosecution, 12 Angry Men, Paths of Glory.... Of the English Language films, this was the best.
58. The Searchers (1956)
Passed | 119 min | Adventure, Drama, Western
An American Civil War veteran embarks on a years-long journey to rescue his niece from the Comanches after the rest of his brother's family is massacred in a raid on their Texas farm.
Director: John Ford | Stars: John Wayne, Jeffrey Hunter, Vera Miles, Ward Bond
Votes: 96,353
Yes, there has probably never been so great a movie with such bad acting, But this is John Ford's masterwork, a complex and moving portrait of a man consumed by racist hate. And maybe unrequitable love.
59. Bad Day at Black Rock (1955)
Passed | 81 min | Crime, Drama, Mystery
A one-armed stranger comes to a tiny town possessing a terrible past they want to keep secret, by violent means if necessary.
Director: John Sturges | Stars: Spencer Tracy, Robert Ryan, Anne Francis, Dean Jagger
Votes: 24,268
Never been a Marty fan. Love Tracy and Ryan in this movie. Sort of a template for some of Eastwood's midperiod westerns.
60. Rear Window (1954)
PG | 112 min | Mystery, Thriller
A wheelchair-bound photographer spies on his neighbors from his Greenwich Village courtyard apartment window and, despite the skepticism of his fashion-model girlfriend, becomes convinced one of them has committed murder.
Director: Alfred Hitchcock | Stars: James Stewart, Grace Kelly, Wendell Corey, Thelma Ritter
Votes: 522,384 | Gross: $36.76M
Yeah, On the Waterfront was the best of the nominees, and a deserving win. But Rear Window is all of us, gaping and gazing like voyeurs into the lives of others on a huge screen, rooting for murders and unspeakable crimes to lighten our days. Really, we are the most frightening ghouls I have ever known.
61. Shane (1953)
Not Rated | 118 min | Drama, Western
A weary gunfighter in 1880s Wyoming begins to envision a quieter life after befriending a homestead family with a young son who idolizes him, but a smoldering range war forces him to act.
Director: George Stevens | Stars: Alan Ladd, Jean Arthur, Van Heflin, Brandon De Wilde
Votes: 44,165 | Gross: $20.00M
One of the landmark westerns. I could've gone with Stalag 17 here, and I actually prefer it, but I got a lot of Wilder already. A bit of a compromise of my standards, but what good are standards if you cannot undermine them?
62. High Noon (1952)
PG | 85 min | Drama, Thriller, Western
A town Marshal, despite the disagreements of his newlywed bride and the townspeople around him, must face a gang of deadly killers alone at "high noon" when the gang leader, an outlaw he "sent up" years ago, arrives on the noon train.
Director: Fred Zinnemann | Stars: Gary Cooper, Grace Kelly, Thomas Mitchell, Lloyd Bridges
Votes: 110,233 | Gross: $9.45M
Over Singin in the Rain in a coin flip - or rather because High Noon was nominated. Need some reason to choose. What is indefensible is the thoroughly bad pile of poo that got the Oscar when the greatest traditional musical could not even get a nod. I can barely bring myself to type its name, and so won't.
63. Ace in the Hole (1951)
Approved | 111 min | Drama, Film-Noir
A frustrated former big-city journalist now stuck working for an Albuquerque newspaper exploits a story about a man trapped in a cave to rekindle his career, but the situation quickly escalates into an out-of-control circus.
Director: Billy Wilder | Stars: Kirk Douglas, Jan Sterling, Robert Arthur, Porter Hall
Votes: 39,135 | Gross: $3.97M
"Too cynical" they all said back then. Well, they did not sit wide eyed and gaping at some murderer in a slow speed chase in a white Ford Bronco. Or watch a 24 hour news cycle. Or think about what the news coverage would have been like had the Chilean miners not gotten out. Cynical my hairy bum.
64. The Third Man (1949)
Approved | 93 min | Film-Noir, Mystery, Thriller
Pulp novelist Holly Martins travels to shadowy, postwar Vienna, only to find himself investigating the mysterious death of an old friend, Harry Lime.
Director: Carol Reed | Stars: Orson Welles, Joseph Cotten, Alida Valli, Trevor Howard
Votes: 181,899 | Gross: $0.45M
All About Eve is the best movie to not deserve its Oscar. And Sunset Blvd., also eligible in 1950, is my second favorite movie ever. Which tells you what I think of this movie. And my screen name should tell you what I think of the way Welles completely dominates the memory of this movie despite only being in it for 8 minutes. This was its Oscar year, despite the 1949 release.
65. The Fallen Idol (1948)
Approved | 95 min | Drama, Film-Noir, Mystery
A butler working in a foreign embassy in London falls under suspicion when his wife accidentally falls to her death, the only witness being an impressionable young boy.
Director: Carol Reed | Stars: Ralph Richardson, Michèle Morgan, Sonia Dresdel, Bobby Henrey
Votes: 9,671 | Gross: $0.34M
I thought about using The Third Man here and Sunset Blvd. in 1950, but that would be contrary to my standards. And I wouldn't want to violate my standards, now would I? Same director, same screen writer, so close enough. Another delayed Oscar year.
66. The Treasure of the Sierra Madre (1948)
Passed | 126 min | Adventure, Drama, Western
Two down-on-their-luck Americans searching for work in 1920s Mexico convince an old prospector to help them mine for gold in the Sierra Madre Mountains.
Director: John Huston | Stars: Humphrey Bogart, Walter Huston, Tim Holt, Bruce Bennett
Votes: 132,475 | Gross: $5.01M
Huston's brutal look at greed and madness and suspicion. As good as any film on the subject since, well, Greed. And better than the Anderson movie modeled on it be a longshot. Especially in the lead performance.
67. Great Expectations (1946)
Approved | 118 min | Adventure, Drama, Mystery
A humble orphan boy in 1810s Kent is given the opportunity to go to London and become a gentleman, with the help of an unknown benefactor.
Director: David Lean | Stars: John Mills, Valerie Hobson, Tony Wager, Jean Simmons
Votes: 26,420
Its Oscar year, and proof that Lean was a great director before he went all epic on us.
68. Notorious (1946)
Not Rated | 102 min | Drama, Film-Noir, Romance
The daughter of a convicted German spy is asked by American agents to gather information on a ring of German scientists in South America. How far will she have to go to ingratiate herself with them?
Director: Alfred Hitchcock | Stars: Cary Grant, Ingrid Bergman, Claude Rains, Louis Calhern
Votes: 107,315 | Gross: $10.46M
Arguably Hitch's best made movie. Grant and Bergman and Rains are all fantastic.
69. Spellbound (1945)
Approved | 111 min | Film-Noir, Mystery, Romance
A psychiatrist protects the identity of an amnesia patient accused of murder while attempting to recover his memory.
Director: Alfred Hitchcock | Stars: Ingrid Bergman, Gregory Peck, Michael Chekhov, Leo G. Carroll
Votes: 52,265 | Gross: $7.00M
Hitch is sort of a default "Best" through these years. The Oscar went to Lost Weekend, which is a close second. Because if the best movie of the year was not Hitch, it was usually Wilder.
70. Double Indemnity (1944)
Passed | 107 min | Crime, Drama, Film-Noir
A Los Angeles insurance representative lets an alluring housewife seduce him into a scheme of insurance fraud and murder that arouses the suspicion of his colleague, an insurance investigator.
Director: Billy Wilder | Stars: Fred MacMurray, Barbara Stanwyck, Edward G. Robinson, Byron Barr
Votes: 167,539 | Gross: $5.72M
A ground breaking movie, visually and story wise, for noir. Tremendously written and acted. Who knew Fred MacMurray could be such an arse? Well, who besides Billy Wilder. Well, Edward Dmytryk. Who besides them?
71. Casablanca (1942)
PG | 102 min | Drama, Romance, War
A cynical expatriate American cafe owner struggles to decide whether or not to help his former lover and her fugitive husband escape the Nazis in French Morocco.
Director: Michael Curtiz | Stars: Humphrey Bogart, Ingrid Bergman, Paul Henreid, Claude Rains
Votes: 606,317 | Gross: $1.02M
Of course! And it saves me from having the BP being 3 Hitch in 4 years. I love Shadow of a Doubt. But Casablanca is the movie that screams "Movie!"
72. The Magnificent Ambersons (1942)
Not Rated | 88 min | Drama, Romance
The spoiled young heir to the decaying Amberson fortune comes between his widowed mother and the man she has always loved.
Directors: Orson Welles, Fred Fleck, Robert Wise | Stars: Tim Holt, Joseph Cotten, Dolores Costello, Anne Baxter
Votes: 26,768
Oh, if only the studio hadn't messed with it! Even as is, great, great, great.
73. Citizen Kane (1941)
PG | 119 min | Drama, Mystery
Following the death of publishing tycoon Charles Foster Kane, reporters scramble to uncover the meaning of his final utterance: 'Rosebud.'
Director: Orson Welles | Stars: Orson Welles, Joseph Cotten, Dorothy Comingore, Agnes Moorehead
Votes: 466,163 | Gross: $1.59M
Well, I guess AMPAS didn't want to bite one of the hands that fed it. But that's no excuse for a middling John Ford film over The Maltese Falcon!
74. Rebecca (1940)
Approved | 130 min | Drama, Mystery, Romance
A self-conscious woman juggles adjusting to her new role as an aristocrat's wife and avoiding being intimidated by his first wife's spectral presence.
Director: Alfred Hitchcock | Stars: Laurence Olivier, Joan Fontaine, George Sanders, Judith Anderson
Votes: 146,836 | Gross: $4.36M
Hitch's only Best Picture winner. Who am I to argue?
75. Ninotchka (1939)
Not Rated | 110 min | Comedy, Romance
A stern Soviet woman sent to Paris to supervise the sale of jewels seized from Russian nobles finds herself attracted to a man who represents everything she is supposed to detest.
Director: Ernst Lubitsch | Stars: Greta Garbo, Melvyn Douglas, Ina Claire, Bela Lugosi
Votes: 22,910 | Gross: $1.19M
In the greatest year for movies, I take a RomCom over seriously great movies like Gone With the Wind - which I wish I could hate! - or Wizard of Oz, or Stagecaoch, or Dark Victory, or Rules of the Game? yes, I do. Because Ninotchka is a witty, funny, charming work, that's why. And Garbo laughs! And Wilder writes! Not incidentally. Have I mentioned I adore Wilder?
76. Bringing Up Baby (1938)
Passed | 102 min | Comedy
While trying to secure a $1 million donation for his museum, a befuddled paleontologist is pursued by a flighty and often irritating heiress and her pet leopard, Baby.
Director: Howard Hawks | Stars: Katharine Hepburn, Cary Grant, Charles Ruggles, Walter Catlett
Votes: 66,123
I admit for a thing for screwball, especially if it stars Cary Grant. I also admit to not finding frenetic funny, which is my problem with You Can't Take it With You.
77. The Awful Truth (1937)
Passed | 90 min | Comedy, Romance
A married couple file an amicable divorce, but find it harder to let go of each other than they initially thought.
Director: Leo McCarey | Stars: Irene Dunne, Cary Grant, Ralph Bellamy, Alexander D'Arcy
Votes: 21,384
See supra. And The Life of Zola is one of the Oscar winners I haven't seen.
78. Modern Times (1936)
G | 87 min | Comedy, Drama, Romance
The Tramp struggles to live in modern industrial society with the help of a young homeless woman.
Director: Charles Chaplin | Stars: Charles Chaplin, Paulette Goddard, Henry Bergman, Tiny Sandford
Votes: 259,620 | Gross: $0.16M
In the great dichotomy of silent comedy, I'm a Buster Keaton kind of guy. But I love this Chaplin film, if only to watch him get force fed. And skate.
79. Top Hat (1935)
Not Rated | 101 min | Comedy, Musical, Romance
An American dancer comes to Britain and falls for a model whom he initially annoyed, but she mistakes him for his goofy producer.
Director: Mark Sandrich | Stars: Fred Astaire, Ginger Rogers, Edward Everett Horton, Erik Rhodes
Votes: 20,717 | Gross: $3.88M
All I know is it's heaven.... I'm in heaven... and there follows five minutes of beautiful elegance and grace and whirling ostrich feathers. Mutiny on the Bounty was a good choice, but I also prefer Captain Blood and Midsummernight's Dream.
80. It Happened One Night (1934)
Passed | 105 min | Comedy, Romance
A rogue reporter trailing a runaway heiress for a big story joins her on a bus heading from Florida to New York and they end up stuck with each other when the bus leaves them behind at one of the stops along the way.
Director: Frank Capra | Stars: Clark Gable, Claudette Colbert, Walter Connolly, Roscoe Karns
Votes: 112,333 | Gross: $4.36M
Chalk. Screwball chalk.
81. Duck Soup (1933)
Not Rated | 69 min | Comedy, Musical
Rufus T. Firefly is named the dictator of bankrupt Freedonia and declares war on neighboring Sylvania over the love of his wealthy backer Mrs. Teasdale, contending with two inept spies who can't seem to keep straight which side they're on.
Director: Leo McCarey | Stars: Groucho Marx, Harpo Marx, Chico Marx, Zeppo Marx
Votes: 62,760
Like Oscar, even back then, was going to recognize how great the Marx brothers were. No, Cavalcade was their idea of a great movie. Screw 'em. This is the best of the many great Marx Brothers comedies. This year apparently worked for two years, so the runner up is also Marxist propaganda, Horse Feathers.
82. M (1931)
Passed | 99 min | Crime, Mystery, Thriller
When the police in a German city are unable to catch a child-murderer, other criminals join in the manhunt.
Director: Fritz Lang | Stars: Peter Lorre, Ellen Widmann, Inge Landgut, Otto Wernicke
Votes: 168,539 | Gross: $0.03M
A German movie with no nominations? What gives Mr. Standards? Back then, there was no differentiation between English language and foreign language films. Plus, I got nothing else I've seen worth the award. And I've seen Grand Hotel.
83. Steamboat Bill, Jr. (1928)
Not Rated | 70 min | Action, Comedy, Drama
The effete son of a cantankerous riverboat captain comes to join his father's crew.
Directors: Charles Reisner, Buster Keaton | Stars: Buster Keaton, Tom McGuire, Ernest Torrence, Tom Lewis
Votes: 16,195
I actually do not know the chronology of films released in the first few Oscar years; they seemed to have been honoring two separate years, with an overlap (1927-1928, 1928-1929, etc.). I don't care. I get to put some Keaton on this list, and that's what matters.
84. Sunrise (1927)
Passed | 94 min | Drama, Romance
A sophisticated city woman seduces a farmer and convinces him to murder his wife and join her in the city, but he ends up rekindling his romance with his wife when he changes his mind at the last moment.
Director: F.W. Murnau | Stars: George O'Brien, Janet Gaynor, Margaret Livingston, Bodil Rosing
Votes: 53,865 | Gross: $0.54M
Sort of chalk.
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