The Academy Award for Best Picture has been dished out to the best film of the previous year since 1929. But is it always given to the most deserving film? There are those who always feel robbed. Sadly, Oscar ceremonies have never had a Kanye West moment where the winner gets interrupted. It would be interesting to see a drunk Joe Pesci walking on stage and grabbing the microphone from Sam Mendes after 1917 wins Best Picture: “Excuse me Sam but Scorsese made the best movie of 2019.”
Perhaps it would have been easier if the award was renamed to ‘Best Pictures’ and handed over to five films instead of one. Sounds great? No? In total, 563 films have been nominated for Best Picture. Some of the winners have remained iconic while some have simply been forgotten. Here’s our case for winners that have aged well and those that haven’t.
Aged Well: Argo (2012)
To be fair, it was hard to ignore Ben Affleck in Argo. He had grown a full beard? He was also directing. Wow! Hand him the Oscar. A Best Actor award would have been enough for Affleck but the Academy was right to recognize his work with a Best Picture award instead.
Argo’s plot is good and it has aged really well. It even seems more fitting to the current political climate. A group of CIA agents creatively attempt to smuggle key American diplomats out of Iran by pretending to be a sci-fi film crew. This looks like something that could be happening at this very moment, given the US-Iran tensions.
Aged Poorly: Shakespeare In Love (1999)
It’s great that Shakespeare was in love but does the author’s romantic expeditions make for a good story? Probably not, given that there are many more different angles about his life worth digging into. The fact that this movie won Best Picture instead of Saving Private Ryan makes it even more painful.
Ever since it came out, Saving Private Ryan has become the template of war movies. Basically every war movie that has come out since 1998 has been compared to Spielberg’s masterpiece to see if it measures up. Even 1917—this year’s major Best Picture contender—has been referred to as the Saving Private Ryan of World War I. While Saving Private Ryan still features much in conversations, Shakespeare In Love never gets a mention.
Aged Well: The Departed (2007)
After Aviator and Gangs Of New York failed to be as iconic as Goodfellas and Casino, there was an argument that post-2000 Scorsese had lost his magic. Then came The Departed. Critics were quickly silenced and the Academy decided to finally give to Marty what belongs to Marty – a Best Picture Oscar.
Jack Nicholson’s performance as gangster Frank Costello is still very fresh in the mind. The opening scene where he is talking but his image only appears as a shadow is pretty iconic too. Matt Damon, Mark Whalberg and DiCaprio were impressive in the film as well. The Departed was one of Nicholson’s final films before he retired. Maybe Scorsese will convince him to come back for one more role like he did with Joe Pesci.
Aged Poorly: Gladiator (2001)
Hmmm… a Best Picture winner with plenty of cringe-worthy mistakes? That’s Gladiator for you. It’s pretty laughable that someone forgot to edit out the gas cylinder in the back of a chariot during a battle in the colosseum. Gladiator is set in 180AD. Gas cylinders were invented quite recently in the 1800s.
Also, when Maximus (Russel Crowe) is wounded by Commodus (Joaquin Pheonix) before the battle, a watch can be seen on the wrist of a soldier. Is this a classic example of time-traveling? The Oscar should clearly have gone to Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon.
Aged Well: The Lord Of The Rings – The Return Of The King (2004)
It’s probably the movie that made the period fantasy genre popular. Without it, studios and networks would have been reluctant to pour money on productions like Game Of Thrones. With stunning visuals and end to end action, Return Of The King had no equal among its fellow contestants.
The film was so good that it won all 11 Academy awards that it had been nominated for. It thus tied with Titanic and Ben-Hur for the highest clean sweep at the Oscars. This was impressive, given that it was the third film in the Lord Of The Rings trilogy. But even without watching the previous two, Return Of The Kings will leave you sufficiently entertained.
Aged Poorly: Driving Mrs. Daisy (1989)
A lot of people aren’t even aware that this movie exists. Oh, yeas it does. And it won Best Picture. Perhaps the fact that is it is based on a Pulitzer Prize-winning made the judges give it a stamp of approval. The movie tells the story of a wealthy and racist Jewish woman called Daisy (Jessica Tandy) who forms a bond with her African-American chauffeur Hoke Colburn (Morgan Freeman).
There isn’t really a groundbreaking moment in the film, except a racist person realizing they don’t need to be racist anymore. In later years, there have been better films about racial tensions. Driving Mrs. Daisy is a great film to watch on a Sunday afternoon when going outside seems like too much work. It’s just not worthy of a Best Picture award.
Aged Well: The Silence Of The Lambs (1991)
Dr, Hannibal Lecter doesn’t have plenty of competition for the title of ‘Cinema’s Greatest Psycho.’ Cockroaches? Hannibal’s face? The Silence Of The Lambs has all the ingredients to make you scared or disgusted. No one has ever failed to take Anthony Hopkins seriously after his appearance in this film.
In 2018, Empire Magazine ranked Silence Of The Lambs at position 48 in their list of 500 Greatest Films Of All Time. The movie was also ranked the 5th greatest film of all time by the American Film Institute. The 2001 sequel didn’t do so well but the original remains as memorable and as chilling as ever
Aged Poorly: The Hurt Locker (2010)
The more the nominees, the more the Academy gets it wrong. In 2010, there were 10 nominees for Best Picture. Even viewers were scratching their heads and wondering who would win. However, we were all sure that it would be either Avatar, District 9 or Tarantino’s Inglourious Basterds. All these three films are still popular, ten years later,
Out of nowhere, the award was given to Hurt Locker, a war drama set in Iraq. It almost feels as if any big-budget war movie is guaranteed to win an Oscar nowadays, it doesn’t matter if it’s good. To make it worse, The Hurt Locker didn’t even do well at the box officer. Spielberg and Tarantino must have been fuming on their way home.
Aged Well: The Godfather (1973)
What more is there to say about The Godfather? It’s simply flawless. It’s the movie that made the mafia appear cool to ordinary citizens. The FBI probably doesn’t feel the same way. It’s also the film that made Al Pacino a huge star. After it’s release, many more mob films were released but none measured up to this masterpiece.
It can be argued that The Godfather is simply the most deserving of all Best Picture winners. It’s hard to pick out a bad thing in the film. Most of the scenes are memorable and so are the individual performances by Pacino and Marlon Brando.
Aged Poorly: Crash (2006)
The fact that Crash won Best Picture instead of Brokeback Mountain which was a way superior film broke many hearts. Crash tackled the issue of racism and xenophobia in Los Angeles through the eyes and experiences of an African-American detective, a caucasian district attorney, a Mexican locksmith, and a Persian shop owner.
The character development was worthy of a thumbs up but nothing else in Crash made it stand out from other films that had explored similar topics before. Out of the nominees, it wasn’t even the second-best film, considering the fact that Munich had been nominated too. Later on, Crash director Paul Haggis would later come out to admit that his film didn’t deserve Best Picture. What? Won’t you defend your work?
