The Top 25 'Best Picture' Winners of All Time (COUNTDOWN THREAD).

[Walt Disney]

 

 

THANKS TO EVERYONE WHO VOTED!!

 

 

The results were continuously sprinkled with some of the weaker Oscar selections. However, the list is great when we reached the top 4.

 

The Bad Choices:

 

No Country for Old Men is a bad movie. I'd argue one of the worst of all-time. It's easily the worst best picture winner ever...and that's saying a lot.  It never should have won a Best Picture Oscar, forget about actually making this list....and at number 15. Seriously?

 

Annie Hall made the list at number 25. It wasn't even the best movie in its year of release. How could it be one of the top 25 best picture winners? It's one of the biggest mistakes in the best picture category though. Maybe people actually voted for the year 1977, thinking Star Wars won the best picture award and not Annie Hall.

 

Titanic isn't the best movie the year it was released (LA Confidential is), so I don't see how it's a top 25 best picture winner.

 

LOTR the Return of the King isn't one of the 25 best picture winners of all-time. It's no where near being one of the top 5 best pictures of all-time. It's just not.

 

Braveheart...one of the first Mel Gibson movies with revisionist history. I guess this list taught history a lesson. Definitely not a movie that should have won best picture, forget about a top 25 best picture winner.

 

The Snubs:

 

-As for the snubs, will some actual great movies did make this list, and there were some choices that I could see being argued, but there were a lot of great movies that missed the list.

 

1) West Side Story- how in the world did this not make the list? Oh wait, maybe it's because you can only have 1 Romeo+Juliet adaption and people wasted their vote on Titanic. However, West Side Story is a wonderful musical with a lot of heart. In fact, Rita Moreno just won a lifetime achievement award at the SAG's, and West Side Story was her most well known role. But, unfortunately, West Side story has actual singing and dancing and doesn't have CGI of a big boat.

 

2) The Best Years of Our Lives- Seriously? A movie with a supporting actor who is a legit double amputee war veteran. That's not impressive seeing a double amputee? Oh wait, it was real and not a CGI version of a double amputee, so people weren't really impressed. Moreover, it was well acted and had a heart warming plot. But, it didn't have CGI trees and a CGI creature, so better vote for ROTK.

 

3) Patton - well, we know historical accuracy isn't important, so I can see why Braveheart made the list and this didn't. However, this was an excellently crafted film, highly deserving of its award. And it didn't need Mel Gibson wearing a dress to win.

 

4) A Beautiful Mind - very well made. Just excellently acted. A superb, truly heart warming story.

 

5) All Quiet on the Western Front - absolutely amazing film. Truly a classic film.

 

6) It Happened One Night -just a wonderful and clever film. This is the definition of a classic movie. Frank Capra is just a wonderful director. But, it's not goofy and dorky like Annie Hall, so it probably didn't stand a chance.

 

The other snubs:

 

There were only 5 truly bad choices on this list, so I only named the 6 biggest snubs because there were 6 that just had to be there. The rest are just films that I believe rank in the top 25 and are better choices than some of the films that actually made the list. However, an argument can be made for the movies that made the list ahead of them.

 

 

Platoon

Ben-Hur

Mutiny on the Bounty

Grand Hotel

 

Overall, I agree with 15 out of 25 movies on the list, so that's pretty good. Even though certain films weren't on my list, that doesn't mean that they didn't deserve to be there. However, the bad choices are sprinkled throughout, and No Country for Old Men...that's just bad.

Edited January 20, 2014 by Walt Disney

[baumer]

Well, I'll reiterate it again, LA Confidential is not anywhere near Titanic in quality so it's one of the few things the academy has gotten right over the years.

 

The Annie Hall win is a joke.  It's such a ridiculous film to win best picture with.  It's a nice movie but SW should have won and everyone knows it.

[Dementeleus]

I like BEST YEARS OF OUR LIVES a lot; it's pretty understated and un-melodramatic, especially compared to a lot of other films from the 40s. And it gets a lot of credit for telling a sobering story of war veterans just a year after the war ended. It's probably in my top 30.

[narniadis]

Tele - bout the same way I think about it. It really is a well done film but not top 25.

[MovieMan89]

Aside from No Country and Titanic, can pretty much agree with the list. I feel bad for Crash coming in at #2 worst though. It's not one of the best by any means but I also think it's a ways from the worst too. Gets too much hate.

[riczhang]

I think all quiet missing is an absolute travesty. I mean it is literally the greatest film of all time.

[Michael Gary Scott]

I think all quiet missing is an absolute travesty. I mean it is literally the greatest film of all time.

not really Chris Tragger

[mahnamahna]

Aside from snubs for The Apartment, Best Years of Our Lives and All Quiet on the Western Front, this is a pretty complete, well rounded list 

[MovieMan89]

Trying to fill in some of my BP gaps recently, and I just watched Ordinary People for the first time and was blown away by what a profoundly poignant film I found it. Definitely would have made my top 25 list. Maybe I'm just a sucker for movies that can accurately portray depression at a teen level, since I know what that was like, but I really thought its themes were exceptionally conveyed. Mary Tyler Moore definitely should have won for it, I've never seen someone nail a character like Beth so perfectly. Her aloof and calculated mannerisms were just superb. Timothy Hutton was amazing too and made his character seem so real. Was unaware of him prior to watching it, it's too bad he didn't have a more prolific career after the film.

[CoolioD1]

Ordinary People is a beautiful, incredible film. First time I watched it I was around the same age as the Timothy Hutton character and it was quite the emotional experience. It's almost a shame that it won Best Picture because now the only reason anyone ever brings it up is to shit on it as the film that beat Raging Bull, and it deserves so much better. 

[MovieMan89]

Ordinary People is a beautiful, incredible film. First time I watched it I was around the same age as the Timothy Hutton character and it was quite the emotional experience. It's almost a shame that it won Best Picture because now the only reason anyone ever brings it up is to shit on it as the film that beat Raging Bull, and it deserves so much better. 

Oh I'd pick it over Raging Bull in a heartbeat. DeNiro's performance is the only thing I've ever found exceptional about that movie. The Academy got it right that time as far as I'm concerned.

[luna]

 

Close, but no cigar:

 

All Quiet on the Western Front: 25

 

ugh.

[luna]

IT HAPPENED ONE NIGHT didn't even make the short list? Damn, people, go watch it.

 

not my favourite screwball really

[luna]

And just when I thought we couldn't possibly hit another new low......

 

We should make it mandatory to have seen all the 85 winners before voting

 

if there wasn't such a stringent limit in the first place i would have bben able to vote for all quiet on the wester front.

[luna]

The results were continuously sprinkled with some of the weaker Oscar selections.

 i agree. 

The Bad Choices: No Country for Old Men is a bad movie. I'd argue one of the worst of all-time. It's easily the worst best picture winner ever...and that's saying a lot.  It never should have won a Best Picture Oscar, forget about actually making this list....and at number 15. Seriously? Annie Hall made the list at number 25. It wasn't even the best movie in its year of release. How could it be one of the top 25 best picture winners? It's one of the biggest mistakes in the best picture category though. Maybe people actually voted for the year 1977, thinking Star Wars won the best picture award and not Annie Hall.

however, it seems our 'agreement' is about as useful as people 'uniting' because the government is doing a bad job.

[Jessie]

I remember Shakespeare in love winning that one year.... what a joke.