Best Picture Vs. “Best Picture”: Mark’s picks (1927-2023)

Greetings, my fellow cinemaniacs!

As you know, one of the most cherished traditions of movie-lovers everywhere is complaining about the Academy Awards and how they always (or nearly always) get it wrong. This is especially true for the Big Dog—namely Best Picture. Of the 96 films that have received the top prize, I have seen 94 of them, and IMO, relatively few of them deserved to win. So I have listed all 94 movies along with the movies that I feel should have won. (Btw, in order to list the “true” winners, I’m including for consideration ALL movies from a given year, not just those that were nominated.) I’d love to know what you think of my selections and what movies YOU thought should have won Best Picture.
Before I begin though, I’d like to note one thing here. Just because I don’t think a given movie should have won Best Picture doesn’t necessarily mean I didn’t like said movie. If you see an asterisk next to an official BP winner, it means that I thought it was a worthy recipient but felt there was another movie that was just a little more deserving. I find many BP winners to be wonderful in their own right but weak compared to what else was on offer in a given year. Also, there were few movies that I thought were merely good or mediocre and didn’t deserve to be nominated at all. And there was only one BP winner that I disliked outright.
Okay, here we go! To quote a character from a Best Picture winner: “Fasten your seatbelts.”

1927/1928
Official Best Picture: Wings
Real Best Picture: Metropolis

1928/1929
Official Best Picture: The Broadway Melody
Real Best Picture: Since The Broadway Melody is the only movie that I’ve seen from this year and thought was mediocre, I declare no real winner.

1929/1930
Official Best Picture: All Quiet on the Western Front
Real Best Picture: All Quiet on the Western Front

1930/1931
Official Best Picture: Cimarron
Real Best Picture: City Lights

1931/1932
Official Best Picture: Grand Hotel
Real Best Picture: Dracula

1932/1933
Official Best Picture: Cavalcade
Real Best Picture: King Kong

1934
Official Best Picture: It Happened One Night
Real Best Picture: It Happened One Night

1935
Official Best Picture: Mutiny on the Bounty
Real Best Picture: Triumph of the Will

1936
Official Best Picture: The Great Ziegfeld
Real Best Picture: Modern Times

1937
Official Best Picture: The Life of Emile Zola
Real Best Picture: Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs

1938
Official Best Picture: You Can’t Take It with You
Real Best Picture: The Adventures of Robin Hood

1939
Official Best Picture: Gone with the Wind*
Real Best Picture: The Wizard of Oz

1940
Official Best Picture: Rebecca
Real Best Picture: The Great Dictator

1941
Official Best Picture: How Green Was My Valley
Real Best Picture: Citizen Kane

1942
Official Best Picture: Mrs. Miniver
Real Best Picture: Yankee Doodle Dandy

1943
Official Best Picture: Casablanca
Real Best Picture: Casablanca

1944
Official Best Picture: Going My Way
Real Best Picture: Double Indemnity

1945
Official Best Picture: The Lost Weekend
Real Best Picture: Our Vines Have Tender Grapes

1946
Official Best Picture: The Best Years of Our Lives
Real Best Picture: The Best Years of Our Lives

1947
Official Best Picture: Gentleman’s Agreement
Real Best Picture: Gentleman’s Agreement

1948
Official Best Picture: Hamlet
Real Best Picture: The Treasure of the Sierra Madre

1949
Official Best Picture: All the King’s Men*
Real Best Picture: The Third Man

1950
Official Best Picture: All About Eve*
Real Best Picture: Sunset Boulevard

1951
Official Best Picture: An American in Paris
Real Best Picture: Ace in the Hole

1952
Official Best Picture: The Greatest Show on Earth
Real Best Picture: Singin’ in the Rain

1953
Official Best Picture: From Here to Eternity
Real Best Picture: Shane

1954
Official Best Picture: On the Waterfront*
Real Best Picture: A Star is Born

1955
Official Best Picture: Marty
Real Best Picture: Rebel Without a Cause

1956
Official Best Picture: Around the World in 80 Days
Real Best Picture: The Ten Commandments

1957
Official Best Picture: The Bridge on the River Kwai*
Real Best Picture: 12 Angry Men

1958
Official Best Picture: Gigi
Real Best Picture: Touch of Evil

1959
Official Best Picture: Ben-Hur*
Real Best Picture: Rio Bravo

1960
Official Best Picture: The Apartment
Real Best Picture: Peeping Tom

1961
Official Best Picture: West Side Story*
Real Best Picture: Judgment at Nuremburg

1962
Official Best Picture: Lawrence of Arabia
Real Best Picture: Lawrence of Arabia

1963
Official Best Picture: Tom Jones
Real Best Picture: The Haunting

1964
Official Best Picture: My Fair Lady*
Real Best Picture: Dr. Strangelove or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb

1965
Official Best Picture: The Sound of Music
Real Best Picture: The Sound of Music

1966
Official Best Picture: A Man for All Seasons*
Real Best Picture: The Good, the Bad and the Ugly

1967
Official Best Picture: In the Heat of the Night*
Real Best Picture: The Producers

1968
Official Best Picture: Oliver!
Real Best Picture: 2001: A Space Odyssey

1969
Official Best Picture: Midnight Cowboy
Real Best Picture: The Wild Bunch

1970
Official Best Picture: Patton
Real Best Picture: Little Big Man

1971
Official Best Picture: The French Connection*
Real Best Picture: A Clockwork Orange

1972
Official Best Picture: The Godfather
Real Best Picture: The Godfather

1973
Official Best Picture: The Sting*
Real Best Picture: The Exorcist

1974
Official Best Picture: The Godfather Part II*
Real Best Picture: Chinatown

1975
Official Best Picture: One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest*
Real Best Picture: Nashville

1976
Official Best Picture: Rocky
Real Best Picture: Network

1977
Official Best Picture: Annie Hall*
Real Best Picture: Star Wars

1978
Official Best Picture: The Deer Hunter*
Real Best Picture: Days of Heaven

1979
Official Best Picture: Kramer vs Kramer
Real Best Picture: Apocalypse Now

1980
Official Best Picture: Ordinary People*
Real Best Picture: Raging Bull

1981
Official Best Picture: Chariots of Fire
Real Best Picture: Reds

1982
Official Best Picture: Gandhi*
Real Best Picture: Sophie’s Choice

1983
Official Best Picture: Terms of Endearment
Real Best Picture: The Right Stuff

1984
Official Best Picture: Amadeus*
Real Best Picture: Once Upon a Time in America

1985
Official Best Picture: Out of Africa
Real Best Picture: The Color Purple

1986
Official Best Picture: Platoon
Real Best Picture: Platoon

1987
Official Best Picture: The Last Emperor
Real Best Picture: The Last Emperor

1988
Official Best Picture: Rain Man
Real Best Picture: Talk Radio

1989
Official Best Picture: Driving Miss Daisy
Real Best Picture: Do the Right Thing

1990
Official Best Picture: Dances with Wolves*
Real Best Picture: Goodfellas

1991
Official Best Picture: The Silence of the Lambs*
Real Best Picture: JFK

1992
Official Best Picture: Unforgiven
Real Best Picture: Unforgiven

1993
Official Best Picture: Schindler’s List
Real Best Picture: Schindler’s List

1994
Official Best Picture: Forrest Gump
Real Best Picture: The Shawshank Redemption

1995
Official Best Picture: Braveheart
Real Best Picture: Se7en

1996
Official Best Picture: The English Patient
Real Best Picture: Hamlet

1997
Official Best Picture: Titanic*
Real Best Picture: L.A. Confidential

1998
Official Best Picture: Shakespeare in Love
Real Best Picture: Dark City

1999
Official Best Picture: American Beauty
Real Best Picture: Magnolia

2000
Official Best Picture: Gladiator
Real Best Picture: Almost Famous

2001
Official Best Picture: A Beautiful Mind
Real Best Picture: Mulholland Dr.

2002
Official Best Picture: Chicago
Real Best Picture: Minority Report

2003
Official Best Picture: The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King
Real Best Picture: The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King

2004
Official Best Picture: Million Dollar Baby*
Real Best Picture: Downfall

2005
Official Best Picture: Crash
Real Best Picture: Syriana

2006
Official Best Picture: The Departed*
Real Best Picture: Letters from Iwo Jima

2007
Official Best Picture: No Country for Old Men
Real Best Picture: No Country for Old Men

2008
Official Best Picture: Slumdog Millionaire
Real Best Picture: The Dark Knight

2009
Official Best Picture: The Hurt Locker
Real Best Picture: Inglourious Basterds

2010
Official Best Picture: The King’s Speech
Real Best Picture: The Social Network

2011
Official Best Picture: The Artist*
Real Best Picture: Tree of Life

2012
Official Best Picture: Argo
Real Best Picture: Cloud Atlas

2013
Official Best Picture: 12 Years a Slave*
Real Best Picture: Her

2014
Official Best Picture: Birdman or (The Unexpected Virtue of Ignorance)
Real Best Picture: Interstellar

2015
Official Best Picture: Spotlight
Real Best Picture: Mad Max: Fury Road

2016
Official Best Picture: Moonlight
Real Best Picture: Silence

2017
Official Best Picture: The Shape of Water*
Real Best Picture: The Lost City of Z

2018
Official Best Picture: Green Book
Real Best Picture: BlacKkKlansman

2019
Official Best Picture: Parasite
Real Best Picture: Once Upon a Time… Hollywood

2020
Official Best Picture: Nomad
Real Best Picture: Mank

2023
Official Best Picture: Oppenheimer
Real Best Picture: Oppenheimer

Mark C

I haven't seen all of these so I can't really comment on all of them. Definitely City Lights over Cimarron which wasn't that good of a movie. Triumph of the Will of Mutiny on the Bounty? That's an odd choice, especially as Mutiny on the Bounty is a powerful story.

How Green was My Valley best Citizen Kane, I guess I didn't know that. Agree Kane should've won.

No argument regarding How Green Was My Valley and Citizen Kane

Titanic is batter than L.A. Confidential

Chicago is better than Minority Report

The Departed is better than Letters from Iwo Jima

IMO.

2019
Official Best Picture: Parasite
Real Best Picture: Once Upon a Time… Hollywood




We'll have to agree to disagree on this one.

994
Official Best Picture: Forrest Gump
Real Best Picture: The Shawshank Redemption

1995
Official Best Picture: Braveheart
Real Best Picture: Se7en

1996
Official Best Picture: The English Patient
Real Best Picture: Hamlet

1997
Official Best Picture: Titanic*
Real Best Picture: L.A. Confidential

1998
Official Best Picture: Shakespeare in Love
Real Best Picture: Dark City

1999
Official Best Picture: American Beauty
Real Best Picture: Magnolia

2000
Official Best Picture: Gladiator
Real Best Picture: Almost Famous


Definitely agree regarding Shawshank; Hated Braveheart, but not sure about S7ven as an option; Totally agree regarding LA Confidential and Almost Famous

I agree with 2 out of 3 However for me Letters from Iwo Jima was nothing short of amazing. One of the best war films I've seen.

I hated Oppenheimer but don't know if there was anything better in 2023?

My favorites from 2023:
M3GAN (2022-2023)
The Killer
Eileen
Talk to Me (2022-2023)
Mission: Impossible - Dead Reckoning
Barbie
Strays

The only one I seen was Barbie and I liked it mostly. So I guess that would be my Oscar winner for that year

I'm gonna allow myself a moment to announce I'm making Tugg's Top 20 Movies of The First Half of 2020s (2020-2024). It will be 20 favorite movies with short descriptions next year after I finish watching 2024 movies.

Wow, great effort Mark.

I actually did this once...frankly it's a good list. Very horrorcentric which is ironic that you dumped Silence of the Lambs for JFK.

Filmmaker count would be interesting to dive deep in there...the big glaring choices I would disagree with. And it's very male-film centric.


1935
Official Best Picture: Mutiny on the Bounty
Real Best Picture: Triumph of the Will
(Top Hat)

1948
Official Best Picture: Hamlet
Real Best Picture: The Treasure of the Sierra Madre
(Red Shoes)

I would also try and slip a Bergman, Cassavettes, and Kurosawa film in there

1982
Official Best Picture: Gandhi*
Real Best Picture: Sophie’s Choice
Fanny and Alexander

1985
Official Best Picture: Out of Africa
Real Best Picture: The Color Purple
Ran

1959
Official Best Picture: Ben-Hur*
Real Best Picture: Rio Bravo
Shadows

Nice list once again.

__________________
IMDb
Letterboxd

I wanna do this one but am still finalising my 100 American.

Thanks for your responses, guys!

“Very horrorcentric which is ironic that you dumped Silence of the Lambs for JFK.”

Siddon, Silence of the Lambs is a classic, but JFK is phenomenal. If I were to rank the films of 1991, I would put Silence at 5, behind JFK, Beauty and the Beast, Boyz N the Hood, and T2: Judgement Day.

“Triumph of the Will of Mutiny on the Bounty? That's an odd choice, especially as Mutiny on the Bounty is a powerful story.”

Citizen Rules, Triumph of the Will, like The Birth of a Nation, is a cinematically fantastic film with an evil message. Some of the images in it have a hypnotic quality. Mutiny on the Bounty is okay, but I’ve always hated its portrayal of Captain Bligh as a ruthless, unfeeling tyrant. I love the Bounty story. Not only did I read the three volumes of the story by Nordhoff and Hall, but I read the excellent non-fiction account by historian Caroline Alexander, titled The True Story of the Bounty. In the book, Alexander writes that not only was Bligh not the tyrant he is usually made out to be, he was actually more lenient than ship captains of his time. For example, it was common practice for European captains to take native civilians hostage in order to ensure good behavior. The James Cook, Bligh’s mentor, did this repeatedly. But Bligh could never bring himself to do that.

Mark

2000
Official Best Picture: Gladiator - not agree.
Real Best Picture: Almost Famous - not agree. I prefer In the Mood for Love or Billy Elliot or Dancer in the Dark or Snatch.

2001
Official Best Picture: A Beautiful Mind - not agree.
Real Best Picture: Mulholland Dr. - not agree. I prefer Amélie or Royal Tenenbaums or The Man Who Wasn't There

2002
Official Best Picture: Chicago - not agree.
Real Best Picture: Minority Report - not agree. I prefer The Pianist or About Schmidt or Russian Ark

2003
Official Best Picture: The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King
Real Best Picture: The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King - I don't have a candidate.

2004
Official Best Picture: Million Dollar Baby* - not agree.
Real Best Picture: Downfall - not agree. I prefer Sideways or The Consequences of Love

2005
Official Best Picture: Crash - that's OK
Real Best Picture: Syriana - not agree. I prefer Caché

2006
Official Best Picture: The Departed* - not agree.
Real Best Picture: Letters from Iwo Jima - not agree. I prefer Babel or The Queen

2007
Official Best Picture: No Country for Old Men -
Real Best Picture: No Country for Old Men - tie with There Will Be Blood - Yes, that's it!

2008
Official Best Picture: Slumdog Millionaire - not agree.
Real Best Picture: The Dark Knight - not agree. I prefer The Wrestler or Vicky Cristina Barcelona

2009
Official Best Picture: The Hurt Locker - That's OK
Real Best Picture: Inglourious Basterds - not agree. I prefer Mary and Max

2010
Official Best Picture: The King’s Speech - that's OK
Real Best Picture: The Social Network - not agree. I prefer Biutiful or Poetry

2011
Official Best Picture: The Artist*
Real Best Picture: Tree of Life - not agree. I prefer Midnight in Paris or A Better Life

2012
Official Best Picture: Argo - not agree.
Real Best Picture: Cloud Atlas - not agree. I prefer Amour

2013
Official Best Picture: 12 Years a Slave* - not agree.
Real Best Picture: Her - not agree. I prefer Nebraska or The Great Beauty or Blue Jasmine

2014
Official Best Picture: Birdman or (The Unexpected Virtue of Ignorance)
Real Best Picture: Interstellar - not agree. I prefer The Grand Budapest Hotel

2015
Official Best Picture: Spotlight - not agree.
Real Best Picture: Mad Max: Fury Road - not agree. I prefer 45 Years or Youth

2016
Official Best Picture: Moonlight - not agree.
Real Best Picture: Silence - not agree. I prefer Maudie or Julieta

2017
Official Best Picture: The Shape of Water* - not agree.
Real Best Picture: The Lost City of Z - not agree. I prefer Phantom Thread

2018
Official Best Picture: Green Book - not agree.
Real Best Picture: BlacKkKlansman - not agree. I prefer Roma or ...

2019
Official Best Picture: Parasite - Yes, that's it!
Real Best Picture: Once Upon a Time… Hollywood - not agree.

2020
Official Best Picture: Nomadland - Yes, that's it!
Real Best Picture: Mank - not agree.

2023
Official Best Picture: Oppenheimer
Real Best Picture: Oppenheimer - not agree. I Prefer: Perfect Days or The Holdovers
---

that's for now.

__________________
"Population don't imitate art, population imitate bad television." W.A.
"You can't depend on your eyes when your imagination is out of focus." M.T.

how do you find out whether a film was commercially released in California?!

It's an interesting list. While I can't say that I entirely agree, I can't imagine that I would completely share anybody's top-whatever. The second part of the question would be the Why? part. Every one of these choices would involve a personal decision, based on some personal logic, e.g., I can't imagine ever putting Best in the same sentence with Triumph of Will, no matter what it's technical virtues. I like how they occasionally match, like Casablanca or The Best Years of Our Lives.

I don't think I'd do enough cogitating to come up with a comprehensive list of Oscar disagreements since I have not seen all of them and yeah, I'd definitely pick Titanic over LA Confidential....Grandiose wins out over Noir-ish there.

I have a question for anyone...if you were to put together your own Oscar Best Picture choice list, would you feel you'd need to have seen all the Best Picture noms for each year?