Ranking the Last 20 Best Pictures

Eric Snider at Film.com presented a list of the past 20 Best Picture winners, ranking them in order from worst to best. We thought we'd bring you the same thing, maybe as a way to start some conversation about the movies themselves, but certainly to see that the Oscars aren't an exact science. In fact, there's no science to it at all. To accurately weigh each winner, you need to look at the losers. So within our rankings, we'll list the other films nominated that year. Sometimes there are winners by default, although you wouldn't think that would be possible. Clearly, a movie that beat much better competition earns a demerit. If you're not one of the strongest films of your own year, you sure as hell don't belong very high on the list. 20 - Driving Miss Daisy I asked myself, "Which of these movies would I least like to watch again." Simple question, easy answer. Miss Daisy is just a ho-hum experience; I honestly don't know what makes this so special. Consider its competition and you really start to think that this was indeed one Oscar got way wrong. Other nominees: Born on the Fourth of July, Dead Poets Society, Field of Dreams, My Left Foot 19 - Dances with Wolves They say when you drive a car off the lot, it depreciates immediately. That's true of Dances with Wolves, a movie that wasn't outstanding to begin with and faded rapidly. Sadly, for maybe the bottom five movies on this list, they're more derided because they won. Had they just been nominees, nobody would have a big problem. Wolves earns its scorn, though, because three of its four competitors were not in any way Best Picture material, while the other one might be the best crime movie ever made. Other nominees: Awakenings, Ghost, Godfather III, GoodFellas 18 - Crash Everybody loves to hate Crash. Good Night, and Good Luck was my pick that year, though the popular vote would've probably been Brokeback Mountain. I would imagine this is one of the closest votes of the past 20 years, because Crash didn't win anything else, and every nominee but Munich won a major Oscar earlier in the telecast. Is it a "Best Picture"? Probably not. Other nominees: Brokeback Mountain, Capote, Good Night, and Good Luck, Munich 17 - A Beautiful Mind The disappointing thing about A Beautiful Mind winning is that it represents the best out of nobody involved. Ron Howard has made vastly superior films, Russell Crowe is better in at least five films, and Jennifer Connelly outshone this performance with work in Pollock and Requiem for a Dream in previous years. A Beautiful Mind seems the most perfectly-tailored movie for the Oscar that year, meaning if there's something Oscar voters have a reputation for looking for, it's there. Two artistic breakthroughs, Lord of the Rings and Moulin Rouge! were overlooked so Ron Howard could get a make-up Oscar. Other nominees: Gosford Park, In the Bedroom, The Lord of the Rings: Fellowship of the Ring, Moulin Rouge! 16 - Shakespeare in Love A good film on its own, better than most people remember, and loaded with great dialogue throughout, Shakespeare in Love simply shouldn't have beaten Saving Private Ryan. I'm not even sure how a case can be made. Other nominees: Elizabeth, Saving Private Ryan, The Thin Red Line, La Vita e Bella 15 - Rain Man I remember this movie being all the rage back in 1988. But outside of Mississippi Burning, there's not another movie on the list that year that stood a chance. It hasn't aged well. Hoffman's performance seems a little bit like a joke now, and it's Cruise doing his "watch me really acting" thing that annoys me so much. The story still holds up, but better than the movie does these days. At least it beat Working Girl, though. Other nominees: The Accidental Tourist, Dangerous Liaisons, Mississippi Burning, Working Girl 14 - The English Patient What holds true for A Beautiful Mind also holds true here. Everyone has or had done better films and it seemed to be the movie cut out of the Oscar mold that year. But how on Earth do they vote this over Fargo? That just doesn't make any sense. Other nominees: Fargo, Jerry Maguire, Secrets & Lies, Shine 13 - Chicago Some might have this further down on the list. After all, it kept a Lord of the Rings movie from winning. However, along with Moulin Rouge!, this film is one of the best examples of the musical genre in 40 years. It is also one of the rare musicals based on a stage play that doesn't feel like it's on stage. Before you throw in how unrealistic you think it is when movie characters burst into spontaneous song, I'll remind you that you're probably defending a movie where Hobbits fight dragons. Maybe it shouldn't have won, but it's by no means the worst Best Picture or anywhere close. Other nominees: Gangs of New York, The Hours, Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers, The Pianist 12 - Forrest Gump Three things ultimately neuter Forrest Gump as an Oscar winner. The first two are Pulp Fiction and Shawshank Redemption. The first will be film school fodder for a couple of decades and the second might be the most beloved film of the past quarter century, or was before TNT played it six times a day. The other problem with Gump is that you just can't watch it now. It might have resonated in that moment in 1994, but that moment is gone, and now it's just a cloying three-hour movie. Other nominees: Four Weddings and a Funeral, Pulp Fiction, Quiz Show, The Shawshank Redemption 11 - Gladiator Who says Oscar doesn't reward big hits? Gladiator isn't much more than an action flick. Nobody watched this when it came out and thought it could be a Best Picture winner. It was a strange year. The Academy was afraid of Requiem for a Dream, overlooked Almost Famous, nominated Chocolat, and went against its nature by not nominating Cast Away. Clearly, Crouching Tiger was the best film nominated, but they couldn't let that win, now could they? Other nominees: Chocolat, Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon, Erin Brockovich, Traffic 10 - Titanic The first half of Titanic isn't much better than a lot of romantic dramas. The second half - the sinking of that mammoth boat almost in real time - is incredible filmmaking. But even at its very best, L.A. Confidential is better, smarter, and more entertaining. Other nominees: As Good As It Gets, The Full Monty, Good Will Hunting, L.A. Confidential 9 - American Beauty We're getting to the stage where we can't really make arguments against the winners and it just comes down to the quality of each film. However, American Beauty won against some incredible films and I'm not sure the vote would go the same way today. Have you seen The Insider lately? Other nominees: The Cider House Rules, The Green Mile, The Insider, The Sixth Sense 8 - The Departed The knock on The Departed is that it's 30 years of Oscar ignorance made up for with one gesture. I don't buy that, although it's not the Scorsese movie that should have won him the Academy Award. It's good, certainly, better in the first two acts before Jack Nicholson gets super high, but I have a feeling we'll get better Scorsese movies for a while as a result of this formula, and there's not a thing wrong with that. Other nominees: Babel, Letters from Iwo Jima, Little Miss Sunshine, The Queen 7 - Million Dollar Baby This was supposed to be the year Scorsese got his obligatory Oscar, but Eastwood had other plans. And it's one the Academy got right. At the time, I thought overlooking The Aviator was the wrong move, but now, Million Dollar Baby has earned its place. I'm not sure Clint deserved Best Director, but in that group of nominees, this is the best movie by a length or two. Other nominees: The Aviator, Finding Neverland, Ray, Sideways 6 - No Country for Old Men My least favorite Oscar nominee last year was Juno. I thought all the others had valid reasons to be in the running. Michael Clayton had three great performances and the best dialogue of the year, Atonement is flat out a work of art from a technical standpoint, and There Will Be Blood and No Country leave bruises on you. Of those films, No Country is the least like an Oscar winner, but its stock will only go up from here, unlike, say, Dances With Wolves. Other nominees: Atonement, Juno, Michael Clayton, There Will Be Blood 5 - Braveheart Perhaps on its own merits, film to film, Braveheart isn't the fifth best movie on this list. I'm fairly certain of it. But 1995 had some stiff competition, particularly the more Oscar-friendly Apollo XIII. There's something we don't have this year: Two big time crowd pleasers going for the Oscar, and they happen to be turning points in their genres to boot. Mel Gibson's an easy target nowadays, but this is a damn fine piece of work. Other nominees: Apollo XIII, Babe, Il Postino, Sense and Sensibility 4 - Unforgiven You kind of have to know the western to realize what Unforgiven did. It forever closed the book on that type of iconic hero, the silent Eastwood type. That character ran his course, and he always did it with Clint at the wheel. But Unforgiven has more humanity and mortality in it than most westerns ever dream of. And it gets a bonus point for having the working title The Cut Whore Killings. Other nominees: The Crying Game, A Few Good Men, Howard's End, Scent of a Woman 3 - Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King Forever legitimizing fantasy, sci-fi, and - yes - even comic book movies, The Lord of the Rings trilogy probably won for its body of work over three films. I have no problem with that; they filmed them all at the same time. It wasn't like they mounted three completely separate productions. The win is probably bigger for this film because of its genre than for any other film on our list, and you know what? It's actually a lot better than the other nominees that year, minus the awkward last 25 minutes. Other nominees: Lost in Translation, Master and Commander: The Far Side of the World, Mystic River, Seabiscuit 2 - Schindler's List This is one of the greatest films ever made. And if you can't see that through all the bluster of the Academy always rewarding Holocaust movies or whatever, then I feel sorry for you. And you've completely missed the point of one of the best movies ever created by the most influential director since Hitchcock. Nice going. Other nominees: The Fugitive, In the Name of the Father, The Piano, Remains of the Day 1 - The Silence of the Lambs It's just timeless. Silence was on cable about three months ago and I just watched the whole thing again. It hasn't aged a day. The transcendant ones never do. I do sense that the film's massive success was an all-around happy accident. Hopkins was hardly an A-list actor, Jonathan Demme would never make a movie this consistent again, the source material's not all that impressive and neither is screenwriter Ted Tally's filmography, and the movie opened a year before the Oscars, making it the earliest released Oscar winner in recent memory, if not ever. But somehow, everything - and I mean everything - came together perfectly. Other nominees: Beauty and the Beast, Bugsy, JFK, The Prince of Tides

Comments

[ned]

Most of the movies on the list are average at best and a few are flat-out terrible--I mean, Driving Miss Daisy is Citizen Kane compared to Crash! The Oscars aren't relevant or interesting.

[Cameron]

I think Crash was an appropriate choice seeing how it opened the suburban world to the fact there is still racism out there. Now Gladiator was a wrong choice all around!

[Get The Big Picture]

I think the problem Crash encounters is that there were films that year people seemed to feel more strongly about.

[Lillian James]

And I just can't condone Chicago winning Best Picture. I mean, I love Chicago, I own it and all. But I don't understand how it could have beaten The Pianist. Hey, and there's a Holocaust movie that WASN'T rewarded for whoever says they always are. And it should have been. I think that year the Academy did one of it's "Oh we messed up last year so we'll fix it now" things ,and they handed it to the musical when it should have gone to Moulin Rouge the year before. But maybe that's just me.

[Michael]

Good list and a very entertaining read. I just keep thinking about 1994. I don't really have a problem with Gump winning it but Pulp Fiction and The Shawshank Redemption are two of my all-time favorites. If only every year could be that strong.

[MRPigg]

The one thing I remember about the Shakespeare in Love win was that Harrison Ford was the presenter, and he seemed just as shocked as the rest of us. You know for a fact that he was chosen specifically to hand the award to Spielberg who was thought to be the surefire winner.

It's hard to argue with any of the positionings of your list. A couple disagreements, though. I am not a Crash hater, I along with the Academy thought it was the correct choice that year. I also disagree with your assesment of Forrest Gump as "cloying," it deserved the win, but just not against that specific competition. Although you are correct that it is not as timeless as the other two.

[Anybody]

Return of the King is the worst of the entire list... Only the first Lord of the Rings was any good and worth a nomination/win. RotK suffers from something I call multiple endings syndrome when the film just won't stop. It had three of four logical end points but just kept going and going ruining all that came before it (like casino royal, which if they had cut the last 25 minutes from it and put it at the beginning of Quantum they'd both be better flicks instead of average and awful).

The review of The Departed is spot on though, great first two acts and a weaker third (but at least a strong finish saved the overall pic). Silence is amazing, good call on that, as is Unforgiven. Shakespeare though deserves some more credit, it is one of the best written films I've ever seen where Saving Ryan starts with a bang and fades (its great too though).

Overall good idea and good list. Kudos.

[Anybody]

Oh, and Gump is crap (Ben Button is the superior Gump). How it beat Pulp and Shawshank is almost as bad as Denzel winning for Training Day and Ordinary People trumping Raging Bull.