(I don’t like a lot of the Best Picture winners. I far prefer the “losers”, in general – some true classics there. It was hard to leave off a couple but I gave myself the task to pick 5. So there you go. What are your faves?)
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Wow…narrowing it down to five is really hard. Here are mine:
The Apartment – every time I see this, I find something new to enjoy and admire.
Patton – I think George C. Scott’s performance is my all-time favorite.
The Godfather – It would be silly not to include my favorite movie.
The Sting – I think I could watch this once a month and never get tired of it.
Ordinary People – OK, so I’m one of the small minority who prefers this to “Raging Bull.” But I love it, and after all, I wrote about 2500 words on my blog last month defending it.
Whew, I’m with Jeff, this is tough, but here are my picks:
Patton
One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest
Rocky
Unforgiven
No Country for Old Men
For all the ragging on the Academy voters that us folks do, they picked a pretty good list without any opportunity for hindsight. My favorite five would be:
Gone With The Wind
Casablanca
Lawrence of Arabia
The Two Godfathers.
And the late 90’s selections (Shakespeare in Love, American Beauty, Gladiator) , while not making the top five, are all films I enjoy watching again.
Hmmm… My “faves” which are definitely NOT the “Most Deserving” but:
The Bridge on the River Kwai
Ben-Hur
The Sound of Music
Patton
Braveheart
Then again, these are the only ones I own on DVD
JFH – why aren’t they the most deserving? I don’t understand your comment. This is about opinions, JFH. The ones here are my choices. This is about conversation, JFH, sharing opinions back and forth. You know. The definition of a blog. Unless you really think those films aren’t deserving – then that would mean you’re not playing along with the point of the post.
I had to make some tough decisions with my choices. How could I leave off Bridge Over River Kwai? And my instinct said to put Hurt Locker on there too but I think it’s too soon to tell.
And Casablanca – it killed me to leave off Casablanca. I chose Midnight Cowboy because it still blows my mind that that film won Best Picture. The only rated X film to ever win Best Picture. An underground phenom, controversial, with gay themes, great acting, gritty unforgettable performances – and … rated X. The revolution has been televised – it’s still unbelievable to me. Great film, surprise win, amazing to me.
mutecypher -For me, from the films of the 90s (which, in general, was not a good decade for Best Picture winners) – I’d pick Schindler’s List, Titanic and Unforgiven as my faves of that decade – and certainly the most deserving. One of these days I am going to write a defense of Titanic, and I have my full arsenal of examples at the ready!
In the “aughts”, (which has also been pretty terrible, in my opinion – lots of pandering and one particularly awful film) I would pick No Country For Old Men. And then Hurt Locker, too – although I always like to have perspective, a bit more perspective, for choices like this one.
Jeff – I agree – narrowing it down to 5 is hard! I almost caved and made it be 10 most deserving … but it’s fun to pick and choose, kind of a fun exercise!
Cullen – Rocky!! – another surprise win – and one of the few Best Picture winners that has actually far surpassed its original reputation and become part of the American culture. That almost never happens!!
I’m glad i’m not the only one that has put thought into this for no good reason before :P
For mine I’d have to go No Country for Old Men. Maybe that one means so much to me since it’s the first time since I was born (1991) that the movie i really felt had to win won and that was so exciting for me.
Other than that:
Annie Hall
The Apartment
It Happened One Night
Casablanca
I have a thing for comedys that go against the odds and win and I feel like all of these earned that. … and I don’t feel I need to explain Casablanca.
I’m surprised nobody else includes The Deer Hunter, not just a great film, but the first serious effort to make sense of all that Vietnam meant to this country.
The rest of my list:
Ordinary People, because it is quite possibly a perfect film
Midnight Cowboy, for all the reasons Sheila laid out, plus perfect casting
Casablanca, because it’s Casablanca
Schindler’s List, because a director shouldn’t have to make only the kind of films his public wants (see The Color Purple)
Choosing five is hard, especially when
“deserving” is the standard!
Actually, April, Tracks – from 1977 – directed by Henry Jaglom, starring Dennis Hopper, pre-dates The Deer Hunter, and is the first movie to handle Vietnam, and the problems veterans had coming home, and try to attempt to look for a meaning. It was unknown territory at the time, cinematically – and the movie was embraced by veterans, wholeheartedly (many of whom still speak of it with affection).
If you haven’t seen it, I highly recommend it. Dean Stockwell’s in it too!
I talk about it here, in a piece I wrote about Dean Stockwell.
Deer Hunter may have been a bigger hit, but Tracks was the first to deal with that subject matter.
To me, The Deer Hunter has a couple of stand-out scenes, as good as anything ever filmed, with a couple of acting moments that are seared into my brain for all time – but I don’t think it quite works as a whole. Hence, my leaving it off.
Patrick – yay for It Happened One Night!!!
Also, Patrick – Yeah, how about The Apartment winning?? I love that that won Best Picture. What a fantastic angry funny film.
I love Dean Stockwell and Dennis Hopper, but had never even heard of Tracks — I’ll have to see if I can find it! Thanks for the info.
April – yeah, it’s great to see them together (all of their scenes are together). Definitely well worth while!
Difficult, especially because most of my favourite films either lost at Oscar or were snubbed out right. Still, there are some gems. My picks would be:
Amadeus
It Happened One Night (everyone’s said it, but c’mon! “Walls of Jericho”, amirite?!
Kramer Vs Kramer (I hate that this beat All That Jazz, but I still secretly love this film.)
Silence of the Lambs
West Side Story
in no particular order,
Amadeus,
The Godfather,
The Sting,
The Sound of Music,
and
Ben-Hur.
what a great idea this post is!
I love to hear everyone’s choices!
Oh, Amadeus, how could I have left you off my list??
Sheila,
You asked for our favorites, but the title of the post was “The 5 most-deserving Best Picture winners”. In my opinion this is two different questions.
The reason I don’t think they are the most deserving as they didn’t move me as much some other movies did, and I judge a movie’s weight or their deserving of distinction, on how they move me. Is that a correct measure? I don’t know but that’s MY distinction between my faves and most deserving.
For example, I could watch the early scenes of “Godfather Part II” again, but the later scenes are too depressing to me to watch again. “The Deer Hunter” which I saw for the first time, strangely enough, just 6 years ago, was FANTASTIC the first time I watched it, but is unbelievably slow the second time.
That said, it irritates me when you know that the purpose of the movie is to “move” you rather than to tell a story and to entertain. My examples of movies like this are “Unforgiven”, “Crash” and “Schindler’s List”… They were good movies, but, in my opinion, were too obvious in their emotional intentions for my tastes.
That said, as I researched this, I DID realize that the worst year for losers was 1994 (and this is NOT to curry favor with you)… I don’t think “Forrest Gump” was THAT bad of a movie, but there is not ONE of the losers that I would not at least consider for my top 10 or maybe 5!
JFH, Everyone else seemed to get the game. It is perfectly clear, if you are in tune with tone and spirit – which you never are. You have never wanted to “play along” on my site. It doesn’t suit you, for some reason. You find me and my site irritating, as you have shown countless times. Again, I don’t care – I just find it curious you keep coming back.
If you don’t understand what I meant by “what are your faves” then I certainly can’t explain it to you. My bad for even acknowledging your comment.
Also “curry favor”? JFH – that’s another example of your flat-out weirdness in behavior on my site which has been going on for years.
You think I want you to curry favor with me? That’s really your opinion of me?
Don’t comment again on my site. I’m serious.
My apologies, everyone, to have to eavesdrop on that. Normally, I just ignore – but this time I didn’t. This has been going on for years, and I’m sick of it. Again, sorry.
Amelie – I got the idea from a Facebook app that’s been making the rounds. It’s so fun to see everyone’s different choices for what they think are the most-deserving, when you compare it to the nominees in each year.
I’m very, very, sorry… Though, if you’d review the last exchange through an objective eye, I think you were itching for a fight with me no matter what I said.
I KNOW what I mean by my words… and you’re interpretation of my words and my attitude is wrong. That said, I’ll honor your wishes.
You never really apologize. Never. Ah yes, you’re always right, right? Nope. Not this time. Try having someone behave on YOUR site for 6 years the way you have behaved on mine, and see how open you would feel to that person.
“Curry favor” sums up my problem with you and your attitude towards me, its sneer, and purposeful misunderstanding.
You are unaware of how you come across on the Internet. So yes. Respect my wishes. This has been ridiculous.
Again, everyone, sorry. This kind of thing used to go on all the time – not so much now.
/Oh, Amadeus, how could I have left you off my list??/
when i read this, i could hear F. Murray Abraham / Salieri saying, “Forget about Mozart, what about me??!”
^_^
(and, Facebook comes up with some good ideas from time to time! you’re right; it’s fun to see everyone’s choices.)
another really interesting Best Picture winner was French Connection – another surprise win. I love the film, but it was certainly an upset when it won. It’s funny how many of these movies are just flat out forgotten – Time will tell which ones will live on.
A lot of my favorite movies were never even nominated – so that just goes to show you how much value I put in all of it. Still, a fun exercise.
Uhm, am I too late?
Okay. My list, no particular order:
All About Eve
Lawrence of Arabia
Godfather II
Unforgiven
Amadeus
Damn. This was hard! “I cannot choose! I cannot choose!”
Do I want to switch things??
Uhm …. no. No. I’ll stick. For now.
Never too late! I have the same thing, Tracey – my list must just stand for this moment – I keep wanting to put other things on there. But I think It Happened One Night and Godfather II are there to stay.
All About Eve!!! What a great flick!
Another late entry here (I’ve been out of town)
An extremely tough assignment, but here goes:
How Green was My Valley – makes me a weepy mess
All Quiet on the Western Front – book to screen perfection
Godfather II – DeNiro Vito as young Brando Vito
Bridge on the River Kwai – Alec, Bill and Sessue
Amadeus – I’m an opera guy
I LOVE the script to “All About Eve”! Such great writing.
“You have a point. An idiotic point, but a point.”
You’ll never get me to argue with Godfather II. It is a fave here.
Mine (No order and there are probably 10-12 movies I liked better than these but they didn’t win):
Godfather II
Ordinary People
It Happened One Night
American Beauty
All the King’s Men
The “Recent Comments” on your sidebar puts older posts back in play. That’s a great improvement on a busy blog like this one.