Best and Worst of the Best Pictures

[The Gipper]

Here is an exercise I am going to undertake and perhaps you all can play along. I am going to list the movies that won the Best Picture of the year in each decade, then I am going to choose which of those movies was the best of that decade and which was the worst...in my opinion. You may of course then give your own opinion:

2000s: Slumdog Millionaire, No Country for Old Men, The Departed, Crash, The Return of the King, Chicago, A Beautiful Mind, Gladiator

My best: Close between Chicago and Return of the King. Choice: Chicago

Worst: Crash

1990s: American Beauty, Shakespeare in Love, Titanic, The English Patient, Braveheart, Forrest Gump, Schindler's List, The Unforgiven, The Silence of the Lambs, Dances with Wolves

My best: Schindler's List

Worst: The English Patient (by a wide, wide margin)

Comment: Overall a better decade than the 2000s and the 80s

1980s: Driving Miss Daisy, Rain Man, The Last Emperor, Platoon, Out of Africa, Amadeus, Terms of Endearment, Ghandi, Ordinary People

My best: Amadeus

Worst: Again, by far: Out of Africa

1970s: Kramer vs. Kramer, The Deer Hunter, Annie Hall, Rocky, One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest, Godfather II, The Sting,

The Godfather, The French Connection, Patton

My best: The Godfather

Worst: Kramer vs. Kramer Every decade seems to have a major stinker, this was it

Comment: By far the best decade for "Best Pictures" (the 90s would be second on my list)

1960s: Midnight Cowboy, Oliver, In the Heat of the Night, A Man for All Seasons, The Sound of Music, My Fair Lady, Tom Jones, Lawrence of Arabia, West Side Story, The Apartment

My best: Lawrence of Arabia considerably over In the Heat of the Night

Worst: Oliver A mediocre musical or worse even when compared to the other musicals of the decade

1950s: Ben Hur, Gigi, The Bridge on the River Kwai, Around the World in 80 Days, Marty, On the Waterfront, From Here to Eternity, The Greatest Show On Earth, An American In Paris, All About Eve

My Best: The Bridge on the River Kwai

Worst: Gigi I was just not much into it.

1940s: All the King's Men, Hamlet, Gentleman's Agreement, The Best Years of Our Lives, The Lost Weekend, Going My Way, Casablanca, Mrs. Miniver, How Green Was My Valley, Rebecca

Best: Casablanca needless to say

Worst: no real opinion, would have to go back an re-view them

1930s: Gone With The Wind, You Can't Take It with You, The Life of Emile Zola, The Great Ziegfield, Mutiny on the Bounty, It Happened One Night, Cavalcade, The Grand Hotel, Cimarron

Best: It Happened One Night

Worst: Again no real opinion as I think I have never seen half these films

Comment: Many would give the nod to Gone with the Wind. Not me.

Carry on.

[Westside Steve]

Great post Gipper.

Hard to dispute much though I really liked the interwoven CRASH.

KRAMER V KRAMER did lack gravitas.

It'd be a lot of work but I bet a list of great films that missed the cut would be interesting.

GLENGARRY GLEN ROSS, GRAN TORINO...

WSS

[The Gipper]

@westside-steve said:

Great post Gipper.

Hard to dispute much though I really liked the interwoven CRASH.

KRAMER V KRAMER did lack gravitas.

It'd be a lot of work but I bet a list of great films that missed the cut would be interesting.

GLENGARRY GLEN ROSS, GRAN TORINO...

WSS

I think that for half the years the Oscars have been given that you could argue that "such and such" a movie was "really better than the one that won". For sure. Perhaps that is another post.

[The Gipper]

@westside-steve said:

Great post Gipper.

Hard to dispute much though I really liked the interwoven CRASH.

KRAMER V KRAMER did lack gravitas.

It'd be a lot of work but I bet a list of great films that missed the cut would be interesting.

GLENGARRY GLEN ROSS, GRAN TORINO...

WSS

Also, Steve, I really didn't mind CRASH, it didn't suck sewer water like The English Patient, Out of Africa, or Kramer vs. Kramer, its just that I couldn't put it ahead of any of the other movies on the list, though it came close with Its A Beautiful Mind.

[Westside Steve]

@the-gipper said:

Also, Steve, I really didn't mind CRASH, it didn't suck sewer water like The English Patient, Out of Africa, or Kramer vs. Kramer, its just that I couldn't put it ahead of any of the other movies on the list, though it came close with Its A Beautiful Mind.

Well I liked THE ENGLISH PATIENT though OUT OF AFRICA bored me. (so did GHANDI) and didn't like BEAUTIFUL MIND much.

WSS

[Kosar_For_President]

@westside-steve said:

Well I liked THE ENGLISH PATIENT though OUT OF AFRICA bored me. (so did GHANDI) and didn't like BEAUTIFUL MIND much.

WSS

I think you are the only straight man who liked that piece of shit movie, The English Patient.

[The Gipper]

@westside-steve said:

Well I liked THE ENGLISH PATIENT though OUT OF AFRICA bored me. (so did GHANDI) and didn't like BEAUTIFUL MIND much.

WSS

Well, which of the "Best Pictures" of the 90s that was listed would you put behind the English Patient?

[Kosar_For_President]

True Story.

My Uncle who was in the service at the time, was driven from the airport by a gentlemen by the name Hugh Gravitt. My uncle remember's the guy's name because he didn't have enough money for the fare and asked if he could mail him the balance of the ride. The taxi driver agreed. He dropped him off at his destination. While chit chatting with the taxi driver, my uncle found out that he was his last fare for the day.

Days later Margaret Mitchell (author of Gone with the Wind) was pronounced dead after she was struck by a man in his car named Hugh Gravitt. The dude who killed Margret Mitchell drove my uncle from the airport and right after on his way home hit her with his car.

My uncle never paid him back.