best picture

Brando in On the Waterfront (1955)

The Oscars were first awarded in 1927, and there have been 84 films that have won best picture. Some of them are absolutely incredible and some, not so much. I haven't seen all of them, in fact, I've probably only seen around half of them. The earliest one I've ever seen, or that I want to admit I've seen is 1940's Rebecca (I saw Gone With the Wind, 1939, and even though I was just a child I weep I won't get those four dreary hours back). Rebecca was Alfred Hitchcock's first American project, which has a woman who marries a British fellow, and lives in the shadow of his deceased wife. Casablanca, I think everyone has seen at one point or another, is great, sure, but I'm not sure if's it was Best Picture worthy. For Whom the Bell Tolls was nominated for Best Picture in 1942 , the same year Casablanca won, and was a better movie. Gary Cooper and Ingrid Bergman in an adaptation of a Hemingway novel, portraying the leads (handpicked by Ernest himself) and kicking some serious ass. Good times. The fifties has one of the greatest best pictures of all time, 1954's On the Waterfront. Marlon Brando as Terry Malloy, witnesses a murder that was set-up by the local waterfront union to knock off a potential whistle blower. The union's head Johnny Friendly is a tough S.O.B., and his right hand man, and Terry's brother, is Charlie the Gent, played perfectly by Rod Steiger. Not to mention Karl Malden is positively brilliant as the priest who tries and convince Brando to testify against the union, offering a real sense of morality, all the while smoking, drinking whiskey and beer. 

Lemmon & Shirley McLaine in The Apartment (1960)

The sixties, 1960 to be exact, boasted The Apartment as Best Picture, where Jack Lemmon is a low level executive who scores points with the big bosses by renting out his apartment to them for.. extra curricular activties. I'll skip over most of the musicals, that went through a real revival for 1969's Midnight Cowboy, where small town diner dishwasher Jon Voight picks up and heads to New York City with dreams of becoming a male escort for rich old ladies. 1969 also included Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid ("who were those guys?!"), which lost it's nomination for Best Picture, but won four other Oscars. 

Stallone & Burgess Meredith in Rocky (1976)

The seventies might have been the greatest decade for Best Picture. Honestly, every one is a beauty. 1970's Patton starred George C Scott (in his only good role ever) as General George Patton who was a brilliant mind when it came to war, found himself in trouble in WWII because of his very VERY short temper. The French Connection, 1971. Best. Car chases. Ever. 1972 - The Godfather.. do I need to say anything about this or its 1974 sequel and also Best Picture winner The Godfather Part II. Wedged between those was The Sting with Robert Redford and Paul Newman as small time Chicago hustler who try to take a rich schmuck from NYC who killed one of their pals. My favorite three year stretch in Best Picture history is definitely 1975-77. One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest swept the 1975 Oscars taking home all five major awards (Picture, Screenplay, Best Director - Milos Forman, Best Actor - Jack Nicholson, Best Actress - Louise Fletcher). Jack is brilliant as a con who think going to a mental hospital will be better than jail. He was wrong. Other members of Jack's (or R.P. MacMurphy) psych ward include Danny DeVito, Christopher Lloyd, and that guy from the original The Hills Have Eyes movie. ROCKY! ROCKY! ROCKY! Everyone loves the Cinderella story of the Philadelphia club fighter given his chance to take on the champion of the world. Sylvester Stallone wrote the script in a week, working day and night. The studio loved it, wanted it, and offered Stallone big money for the script so they could cast Ryan O'Neal or some 70s bankable tough guy to play the lead. Stallone refused, and wound up making himself a house hold name in the lead role. Stallone was even nominated for Best Actor (doesn't quite seem right does it), with one critic making comparisons of his performance to that of Marlon Brando's in On the Waterfront. There are definite similarities between the two roles, but let's face it, as much as I enjoy his movies, the first Rocky is the only movie where he's ever shown any actual acting talent. 1977's Annie Hall ranks up there with my favorite movies of all time. The scary part is, it's arguably Woody Allen's second best movie of the 70s (how good is Manhatten?). It follows (not in a linear fashion) the relationship of Woody's Alvy Singer and Diane Keaton's Annie. Sweet, bittersweet, funny, sad, intelligent.. just a great movie start to finish. And about the acting, this is a movie geek fact, but whatevs. The average shot in Annie Hall is 14.5 seconds, whereas other films from 1977 averaged about 4-7 seconds, and how much lower do you think it is nowadays? The average shot feels like 1 second now. 

Woody Allen & Diane Keaton in Annie Hall (1977)

Berenger in Platoon (1986)

The first truly great Best Picture in the eighties was 1986's Platoon, quite possibly the best war movie ever made. Set during, and in the Vietnam War, it follow dissent within a unit, with the two highest ranking officers in the Platoon, Willem Dafoe and Tom Berenger, constantly at odds with each other. Also starring Charlie Sheen, Forest Whitaker, Johnny Deep. Directed by Oliver Stone. Kind of a weak decade really though, with bio-pics in particular being well received (like Gandhi, Amadeus, The Last Emporer and Chariots Of Fire - but usually boring and overlong). Oh, and Driving Miss Daisy.. Really?

Clint & his kids in Unforgiven (1992)

Silence Of the Lambs was great in 1991, but never really felt like a Best Picture type film, despite how good Sir Anthony was. But in 1992, my favorite western of all time, Clint Eastwood's Unforgiven took home the trophy. It follows a long since retired gun slinger, who now runs a small farm with the help of his young son and daughter. Two cowboys go rolling through a Wyoming town and hook up with some prostitutes. One of them laughs at the size of the cowboy's package so he slashes her with a knife, scarring her permanently. When the towns ruthless sheriff Gene Hackman plays off the incident, so the girls take all their money and put a bounty on the cowboys head. Yup, Clint comes out of retirement. And his good pal Morgan Freeman is going along with him on one last kill. Amazing. 1994 was a super year for movies. Pulp Fiction maybe should have won Best Picture but I like Forrest Gump just fine, so no big deal. It was a damn shame Ed Wood didn't get a nomination (though it did pull in an Oscar for Martin Landau's portrayal of Bela Lugosi), as I think it is everywhere as good as Pulp Fiction and Forrest Gump.. No big deal, but it is my favorite Tim Burton movie. The nineties had some great movies but none of them won, with the Academy opting for  Titanic over LA Confidential, The English Patient over Fargo, etc. The 2000s weren't much better though. Yea, No Country For Old Men deserved the Oscar, so did The Departed, but did Million Dollar Baby or Lord Of the Rings (Lost In Translation was the same year.. wtf?) really deserve Best Pictures? Nope. They have redeemed themselves with last years mostly silent masterpiece The Artist, the reigning Best Picture. Who will win next February?

The Artist... reigning Best Picture.