8:30 a.m: First curve ball of the day: my preferred butcher doesn’t have pork neck bones for the gravy. Suggests spare ribs instead. What the hell.
8:45—9:15 a.m.: Get list of all Best Picture winners, paste into Word document, open other word document, re-figure-out how to work with two document windows simultaneously, rank Best Picture Winners according to both personal preference and secret rule book issued to Old School (as in “non-Vulgar”) Auteurists, as if I even know the difference any more. Who can tell the dancer from the dance, yo.
9:18 a.m.: Go out for more supplies. Tally up my total of Oscar Best Picture Winners. Second curve ball of the day: I realize I have 89 Best Picture whereas that Buzzfeed piece everyone’s so agitated about only ranked 85. Da fuh? Did I repeat some? I guess we’ll find out as the day progresses.
10:00 a.m.: Put my Rolling Stones albums in the disc changer—for some reason, early-middle Stones, starting with or around the UK Aftermath, is my default gravy-making music—and start slicing up the garlic in, yes, the Goodfellas razor blade style. I really AM in the tank for Scorsese.
10:10 a.m.: Another curveball: As a grateful recovering alcoholic, I forgot to get wine for the gravy. And the corner licka store isn’t open. So I have to schlep over to Scotto’s. While I’m there I might as well get a big-ass Tupperware thingie, as today I’m going to do what I’ve never actually done in all my years of making gravy: I’m gonna strain it before I put it in the fridge. An experiment. Good thing I have nothing to do all day, except make gravy, and rank all the Best Picture Oscar winners.
12 noon: Okay. The onion and garlic are in, the wine is in, the spare ribs are in, I went out and bought a spoon holder, there’s nothing to do but stand, sit, simmer and stir for three hours. Let’s get this Oscar assessment party started.
89: Argo
That’s right, Argo. My list, I can do whatever I want with it. Eat it, 2012!
But seriously: obviously it is ridiculous to assert that this is the WORST Best Picture winner ever. It is, however, entirely arguable that it is the least deserving. Start with the smarmy Hollywood self-congratulation, add the give-with-one-hand/take-away-with-the-other politics, fold in the Jack Kirby snub…”And that’s just for starters,” as Telly Savalas used to say.
88: Cimarron
“Cimarron’s not that bad,” my friend Ed Hulse (Portly And Distinguished Film Historian, we used to call him at Video Review) likes to say. Ed REALLY likes Westerns. Anyway, I did due diligence and watched this for a Première magazine “Worst Oscar Winners” piece and to tell you the truth I don’t remember a thing about it.
87: The Broadway Melody
In the high eighties the distinctions aren’t all that cost effective, so now that I think about it, this early talkie musical snoozer might be WORSE than Cimarron! Sorry Cimarron.
86: Cavalcade
Now this one’s DEFINITELY worse than Cimarron. Whereas I don’t remember much of Cimarron, I definitely remember starting to lose the will to live about twenty minutes into watching this, again doing the due diligence thing. Not recommended. (God, I sure am inputting “Cimarron” a lot.)
85: Around the World In Eighty Days
Okay, now we’re out of the ‘30s and into the ‘50s. This white elephant, a particular bete noir of Sarris’ if I recall correctly, is the sort of thing that made people think the Eisenhower administration was dumb. S.J. Perelman admirers feel as bummed out to be reminded of this as Joan Didion fans are to be reminded of Up Close And Personal. Makes It’s A Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World look like Love And Death.
84: The Greatest Show On Earth
This ill-advised foray into circus life for Cecil B. DeMille has a lot of attractive-seeming elements—great train crash scene, a really weird Jimmy Stewart performance—that one is apt to approach it from a “how bad can it be?” attitude. It’s bad.
83: The Great Ziegfeld
I love William Powell more than the next guy but Jesus H. [lapses into coma]
82: Crash
Man, we watched this the other night and it HAS NOT AGED WELL. And the shot with the Iranian guy with the gun and the American flag subtly secreted in the background oh lord. My wife and I blame it for ruining our weekend. And we dare you to…no, we don’t dare you, that’s hostile, we implore you, for your own safety, keep away from this mess. All that goodwill Paul Haggis built up with me in that Scientology book, shot.
12:20 p.m.: The gravy’s lookin’ pretty good. Sounding good, too—nice steady simmer.
Last couple of years I used a slow cooker to make gravy and while it turned out fine this year, in prepping a Sunday lasagna dinner, I felt that using the slow cooker would mean I wasn’t working hard enough. So I thought I’d go the whole watched-pot hog, do the San Marzano tomatoes. I’ve got to say that there’s something viscerally/spiritually satisfying about closely watching over the whole process.
81: You Can’t Take It With You
Cast and director and source material and all that notwithstanding, this one’s kind of a frantic mess, huh?
80: The Artist
Cloying, winsome, kinda dumb, technically slack. Other than that, fine.
79: The King’s Speech
When I initially reviewed this, I actually wrote that Hooper’s wide-angle excesses helped keep the movie interesting. I can really be a cockeyed optimist some times.
78: Slumdog Millionaire
Hmm. I’m not sure I’ve actually seen this.
77: Chicago
Rob Marshall is a very talented choreographer.
76: The Greatest Show On Earth
Ah! See! I did repeat one. See #84.
75: The Life of Emile Zola
The apogee of the “distinguished” studio biopic back in the day, this day being 1937. I liked Paul Muni better in I Am A Fugitive From A Chain Gang. Everybody else does too.
74: Mutiny on the Bounty
Legendary Laughton performance aside (Gable’s good too but bear with me) this thing’s got Thalberg Prestige written all over it, a particularly bad thing with this kinda story line if you ask me.
73: Chariots of Fire
A remarkably decrepit “distinguished” film, all attempts to contemporize the subgenre notwithstanding.
72: Gandhi
The movie that introduced the world to Ben Kingsley while also showcasing maybe about one-tenth of his range. Watchable.
71: A Man For All Seasons
This movie also infuriated Andrew Sarris: Oh wait, now that I’ve gone and gotten out my copy of The American Cinema (leaving the kitchen for a minute) it’s worse than I thought: “It is the payoff films—High Noon, From Here To Eternity, The Nun’s Story and A Man For All Seasons—that most vividly reveal the superficiality of Zinnemann’s personal commitment. At its best, his direction is inoffensive; at its worst it is downright dull.” That’s Fred Zinnemann, by the way. Andrew’s just warming up: “his true vocation remains the making of antimovies for antimoviegoers.” Whoa. Anyway there’s some people who’ll react to a dis of this movie by insisting that Paul Scofield gives the greatest performance ever given by anyone ever, and he is pretty good. What are you gonna do. The script is pretty highly regarded by some, too.
Man, this gravy is reducing a lot faster than I thought it would. I better go out and get some more tomato purée.
1:00 p.m.: Moving along nicely. The smell of the pork flavor is starting to emerge. Soon the wine will have cooked off and I’ll be able to taste it.
70: Out of Africa
Very pretty, weirdly dramatically moribund. And this seemed to be almost universally acknowledged at the time it got its Oscar. Awards sure are strange.
69: American Beauty
Speaking of movies I fulsomely and egregiously overrated on their initial release, this. I’m still fond of it on some levels but its honors bespeak of the fact that it’s exactly the sort of thing an academy would deem “edgy.”
68: Dances With Wolves
No, don’t slink away. Not EVERYBODY was embarrassed by this movie, it made a shit-ton of money. The screenwriter gets a point or two in my book for the shout-out to Exene Cervenka in his acceptance speech.
67: Oliver!
Carol Reed: What Happened?
66: All The King’s Men
Who’d have known that the only useful thing about the utterly misbegotten Steve Zaillian remake or re-adaptation of the novel or whatever you want to call it would be making this blustery mostly-mess look so much better?
65: Rain Man
“Interesting” story, good star power, moves right along, but a little opportunistic, no?
64: Forrest Gump
Hating on this movie has gotten so common, so conventional-wisdom, that I’m ALMOST ready for unreconstructed Robert Zemeckis lover Dave Kehr’s R.Z.-as-Voltaire read of the movie. It will go down easier, I bet, if I don’t watch the movie again first.
63: The English Patient
I’ve recently concluded that The Good German is a much, much better refutation of Casablanca than this movie. So there.
62: A Beautiful Mind
Russell Crowe is really good in this. In every other respect, though, this might be the most “Huh?” Best Picture Winner of all.
61: Braveheart
Really great battle scenes—it’s pretty clear Mel studied Kurosawa for real before laying this out. Little heavy on the gay-bashing and masochism though. Was there a Scottish lobby working the voters or something?
60: Gladiator
I was entertained.
59: Shakespeare In Love
The moving story of a pedigreed starlet willing to do nudity and her fateful affair with a Prince look alike in Elizabethan dress. Hence, a film for the ages.
58: Driving Miss Daisy
The good liberal movie good liberals love to hate. On the other hand, the legit theater isn’t exactly brimming with opportunities for senior-age white women and middle-aged African American males, so go right ahead and picket the next live production you find. As for the movie, it really IS well-performed, and Bruce Beresford’s an extremely able director who does not falter here.
57: My Fair Lady
Great songs, appealing performers (unless you know a lot about Rex Harrison’s personal life and have taken it to heart), absolutely leaden direction.
56: Amadeus
I watched this a few years ago with the “Milos Forman: What Happened” idea in mind, and was surprised and relieved to discover, lack of surreal touches and New Wave fragmentation aside, it wasn’t at all an “out of character” film for him. It’s just not in the top echelon of his work, I guess. But if you look at it without quailing at its length or thematic emphasis on Stupid Classical Music, it’s good stuff.
55: Terms of Endearment
Come on. James L. Brooks, Larry McMurtry, all of that. If American cinema had a domestic De Sica (albeit one without the wartime sensibility), Brooks was it for this picture.
54: Ordinary People
Like everyone else I’m terribly upset that it beat Raging Bull, whose immortality this loss did not affect a whit, and also yeah middlebrow bourgeois psychotherapeutic clichés but there are some career-high performances here, so let’s just take a deep breath. Wanna rap about it?
53: The Sound of Music
I played Captain Von Trapp in Seltzer School’s 1972 production of this musical, and Max Detweiler in Jefferson Township High School’s 1977 production of same. I love this movie. If you have a Sound of Music problem I feel bad for you, son. I’ve got 80-something Oscar problems but The Sound of Music ain’t one.
52: Hamlet
Good speeches, looks pretty spooky. Hinges on an absolute misinterpretation—“could not make up his mind” my foot—but it gives good Shakespeare for the most part.
51: Silence of the Lambs
Long after there are no more Oscars any more, this will be cited as the only motion picture featuring a Fall song on its soundtrack to ever win the Big One.
50: In The Heat of the Night
Pioneered the “look at all these people sweating” genre that A Time To Kill so adroitly picked up on.
49: Wings
A silent picture, as you may have heard. Production value, a good tough directorial signature courtesy of William Wellman, great action scenes. Don’t let anybody tell you different.
48 Mrs. Miniver
Its utility value has, yes, been decreased by the fact that World War II isn’t going on anymore, but give yourself over to this picture and it will have its way with you.
47: Going My Way
Robin Wood would tell you The Bells of St. Mary’s, the sequel, is the better film, and he’s not wrong, but in my book a Leo McCarey/Bing Crosby collaboration has nothing to not recommend it.
46: The Lost Weekend
Kate Aurthur, who wrote the Buzzfeed piece that indirectly inspired this one, is taking a lot of heat for it in the comments and in the Twittersphere and elsewhere, and as someone who reveres or just likes a lot of the movies that come in for her disdain in the piece, I understand the pain of the howlers. But Ms. Aurthur and I have some mutual friends, and I’m assured that she’s a good egg, and I believe those assurances, even as I recognize, whenever I happen to read her writing, that we don’t have a whole lot in common in terms of taste and sensibility. And as a grateful recovering alcoholic, I do wince as the “you will laugh watching it” assurance in her entry on this film—it seems a little presumptuous. I haven’t had much patience to the “alienating to contemporary sensibilities” condemnation critics so readily tar movies with, for one thing. Still. This is a Buzzfeed article we’re talking about here. We are not, for better or worse, Buzzfeed people here, so why get so bothered. Also: Nick Tosches hates this movie, too, partially because he’s very much higher on Charles Jackson’s book, and then because he thinks the movie’s an egregious piece of Hollywood hackwork. So go tell HIM he’s full of shit. And finally, the bat really IS bad. That said, I’m pretty fond of the picture.
45: Gentleman’s Agreement
Sure it’s dated, but thanks to Kazan’s commitment—and Peck’s—it’s got more sting than you’d expect.
44: Marty
The Academy’s perfunctory bow to the “small film.”
43: Tom Jones
The Academy’s perfunctory bow to the New Wave film. That’s just how much the actual New Wave confused the Academy.
42: West Side Story
There’s a lot wrong with this movie. For instance, Natalie Wood playing a Puerto Rican girl. But—she’s Natalie Wood! All of your other complaints have pretty much the same kind of answer. Live with it.
41: Gigi
MINNELLI POWER MISE EN SCÈNE POWER CHEVALIER POWER FUCK THE HATERS
40: Midnight Cowboy
Still quite the actors’ showcase. In other respects almost as dated as that Zola movie.
39: The Lord of the Rings: Return of the King
The Academy’s perfunctory bow to the AICN/Badass Digest film.
38: West Side Story
Aha! ANOTHER redundancy. What an idiot I am.
37: Patton
The Academy’s not-at-all perfunctory bow to the “Remember When We Knew What The Hell We Were Doing Militarily” film.
36: The Sting
A last gasp of love for studio cinemacraft, amiable diversion division.
35: Hamlet
All right, enough of this nonsense, I’m starting to look bad. (“Starting?”) See #52.
34: Rocky
Marty, with boxing.
33: Platoon
ESPN’s answer to Apocalypse Now.
32: Million Dollar Baby
As implicitly promised, here’s where my shameless auteurist bias really waves its freak flag.
31: The Last Emperor
Poetic, tragic, ravishingly beautiful. A little self-infatuated. Not really that long.
30: Ben Hur
Cheesy and self-important, yes, but also a remarkably assured and technically breathtaking mega-production.
29: From Here To Eternity
What matters here is less direction or even story than a cast that’s almost literally a collection of icons, each signifying a different mode of anxiety (Lancaster, Kerr, Clift, Sinatra, Borgnine, Reed). A magnificent cinematic encapsulation of sorts.
28: One Flew Over The Cuckoo’s Nest
The not-even-incidental sexism in this ode to anarchy rankles like crazy—it did then, too. But Forman’s choreography of the boy’s club is just undeniable.
OK. Gravy is pretty much ready. Now for the strain and to check out the yield. Fingers crossed.
3:00 p.m.: Well as you can see the strain yielded a pretty smooth and colorful result and I’ve got to say it’s pretty tasty too. Largely out of frame is a tomato-splatter mess I’ve got to mop up ASAP.
As some of you might have inferred, I’m making lasagna again. For Sunday dinner. And no, it isn’t an Oscar party. My Lovely Wife and I wanted to have a few friends for dinner, and we gave them some optional dates and the consensus was this Sunday. These friends aren’t Oscar people, so it’s likely Claire and I will be tuning in late, if at all. Last year we didn’t see the ceremony because we were vacationing in Iceland. My thing is, if you really aren’t overly concerned about Oscar ceremonies, telling the world this over and over seems a counterintuitive action. Anyhow. I haven’t eaten all day, except for nibbles at the pork ribs I used to flavor the sauce, so let’s get the top 27 over and done with, okay?
27: The Departed
Oh the incredible irony that a movie its director, one of our greatest living filmmakers, had so relatively little personal investment in, would gain him these industry honors.
26: The Deer Hunter
I may be overrating this, I know. I just can’t ever shake the majesty of its first hour.
25: Kramer Vs. Kramer
I read how this movie is now unacceptable because sexism and I’m not going there, not here. My high esteem for it comes from its being the one Best Picture winner that most resembles a Truffaut film, stylistically.
24: Titanic
Love it or hate it, it’s Cinema, as I learned watching it in a theater with a 90-year-old woman who didn’t speak a word of English, and no smart remarks about my dating proclivities.
23: [Redacted]
The last title that I accidentally reproduced when making this list. Don’t make me beg you, people, how many times can I say I’m sorry for my sloppy work?
22: The Hurt Locker
Pretty tense.
21: Schindler’s List
While I agree with Kubrick’s caveat, I can’t see how American culture could have handled this subject better.
20: Unforgiven
I cannot tell a lie: Like Crash, it features of a shot in which a character is framed within portentous distance of a hanging American flag. Unlike Crash, it is a very good movie.
19: Gone With The Wind
Also Because Cinema, and the art White America has earned, and the unusual result of that intersection.
18: An American In Paris
Complaining about the characterizations in this is about as useful as complaining about the characterizations in The Gang’s All Here. Or Un Chien Andalou even.
17: Grand Hotel
Watched this on the new Blu-ray and was pleasantly surprised at how sprightly it remains. Will always be a sentimental favorite because it’s the only movie I ever saw screened at Paris’ Cinema MacMahon. Suck it!
16: Casablanca
Because Curt Bois plays the pickpocket.
15: The Bridge on the River Kwai
Because without it, no The Geisha Boy.
14: All Quiet on the Western Front
Because it’s not that stodgy.
13: Rebecca
Because Hitchcock.
12: It Happened One Night
Because Claudette Colbert.
11: The Apartment
Yeah, I’m getting pretty tired of the “because” device too.
10: Annie Hall
Not just a great romantic comedy but still a pretty damn sturdy metamovie.
9: No Country For Old Men
Not just a great thriller but still a pretty damn sturdy metamovie. Oh crap, you see what’s starting to happen.
8: Lawrence of Arabia
7: The French Connection
6: All About Eve
5: How Green Was My Valley
4: The Best Years of Our Lives
Eat it, Raymond Chandler!
3: The Godfather
2: On The Waterfront
1: The Godfather, Part II
You have been reading “Ranking Best Picture Winners While Making Gravy.” Thanks and have a great weekend.
Very entertaining, just not sure I understand the motivation – OCD-esque timekiller?
Awesome-sauce, in more ways than one. Nice to see kind words for Driving Miss Daisy and Going My Way – doesn’t often happen in lists of this kind. I hope some middlebrows drop by to sputter about How Green Was My Valley finishing so high – “But – but – it beat Citizen Kane!”
A fine list. Nice to see the HOW GREEN WAS MY VALLEY love.
Now I’m hungry.
Was impressed that when I finally saw Cavalcade after all these years, on that nice Fox Blu-ray, it was as bad as it’s reputation.
After Margaret Lindsay and what’s his name talk about how glorious their honeymoon has been, I imagined the shot of the life preserver labeled “Titantic” replaced with one labeled “S.S. Minnow.”
Also, now I’m hungry.
Aaaaaaaaawesome list. Love, love, love How Green Was My Valley and Best Years of Our Lives in the top five. Also love that you didn’t shit on Mrs. Miniver as so many are wont to do (clearly I’m a Wyler guy). Sorry It Happened One Night and The Apartment couldn’t crack the top 10 (I’d personally swap them out with Annie Hall and No Country), but that’s picking nits. Great stuff.
Also I’ll add that I’m forever in your debt for posting this at 4:15 on a Friday. You just killed about 20 minutes of what’s left of my work week. Thank you.
We’re in agreement on many of these. Thank you for ranking HOW GREEN WAS MY VALLEY so high. I just saw it for the first time last week. It rankles that the movie has gotten so much grief because it beat CITIZEN KANE that year. Must it be an either/or? HOW GREEN is just as fine a film IMHO.
Here’s how I would categorize the winners:
Winners that were actually the best Picture of the year: All Quiet on the Western Front, Casablanca, Lawrence of Arabia, A Man for All Seasons, The Godfather, Annie Hall, Schindler’s List, The Lord of the Rings: the Return of the King
Winners that were worthy of being nominated for best picture: Gone with the Wind, The Best Years of Our Lives, All About Eve, Around the World in Eighty Days, Oliver!, The Sting, The Godfather, Part II, Gandhi, The Last Emperor, The Silence of the Lambs, The English Patient, The Hurt Locker
Winners that almost deserved to be nominated for best picture: An American in Paris, The Apartment, West Side Story, The Sound of Music, Midnight Cowboy, The Deer Hunter, Platoon, Unforgiven
Winners that are perfectly enjoyable: Grand Hotel, It Happened One Night, Mutiny on the Bounty, You Can’t Take it With you, The Bridge on the River Kwai, My Fair Lady, The Departed, Slumdog Millionaire, The Artist
Winners that are perfectly reasonable: Hamlet, From Here to Eternity, On the Waterfront, Patton, The French Connection, One Flew over the Cuckoo’s Nest, Ordinary People, Amadeus, Out of Africa
Winners I’m largely indifferent to: Cavalcade, Rebecca, How Green was My Valley, The Lost Weekend, All the King’s Men, Marty, In the Heat of the Night, Terms of Endearment, Rain Man, Million Dollar Baby
Irritating Oscarbait (benign edition): Wings, The Great Ziegfeld, The Greatest Show on Earth, Gigi, Driving Miss Daisy, Dances with Wolves, Shakespeare in Love, Chicago, The King’s Speech, Argo
Irritating Oscarbait (malign edition): The Broadway Melody, Cimarron, The Life of Emile Zola, Mrs. Miniver, Going my Way, Tom Jones, Rocky, Kramer vs. Kramer, Chariots of Fire, American Beauty, Gladiator, A Beautiful Mind
Special talented but meretricious category: Ben-Hur, Forrest Gump, Titanic, No Country for Old Men
Just bad movies: Braveheart, Crash
I have never seen “Gentleman’s Agreement.” It never shows up on TCM and “It Happened on Night” and “How Green was My Valley” never seem to be on TCM at the best time for me to rewatch them. Michael Wood said that “Oliver!” is actually a pretty good movie, it’s “The Agony and the Ectasy” (which I’ve never seen, or read) where the rot set in for Oliver Reed. “The Apartment” would have made my top 5 for 1960 if there were not four foreign language movies that the Academy, of course, would never have nominated. It is kind of cheap to point out that “How Green was my Valley” beat out “Citizen Kane.” It also beat out “The Maltese Falcon,” “Hellazoppin,” “Dumbo,” and “The Lady Eve.” As for Zinnemann, “The Sundowners” may not be a great movie, but it’s arguably as good as Preminger’s fourth best movie.
The “How Green beat Citizen Kane therefore it must be flogged” cliché is one of the laziest in all of mainstream movie writing and has absolutely thrashed the movie’s reputation over the years, which pisses me off to no end, because it’s a magnificent movie and vintage Ford. Just pop it into a Google News search around Oscar time and you’ll get scores of “biggest Oscar travesties” pieces. It’s become so ubiquitous that I really shouldn’t let it bother me like I do, but it grinds my gears every year.
Gladiator is not “irritating Oscar bait.” It came out in May of 2000, a couple of weeks after Mission: Impossible 2, and was marketed as a summer action epic (if I recall, Kid Rock’s “Bawitaba” was used extensively in the advertising). That made it an incredibly strange choice for an Oscar front-runner and, when it did become that, it was a real head-scratcher. But it was not made or marketed as an Oscar movie, and therefore it does not fit the traditional definition of Oscar bait.
My top 5: Godfather II, No Country, Schindler’s List, Lawrence, The Godfather.
My bottom 5: Out of Africa, Slumdog, The Greatest Show on Earth, A Beautiful Mind, Crash (just the worst).
I never thought of Gladiator as an Oscar-bait movie but rather as a popcorn movie that broke through in an otherwise weak year for odd reasons.
I don’t hate most of these films, but I don’t feel passionately in favor for an overwhelming majority of the winners either.
My ten favorites:
10: Rebecca
9: Unforgiven
8: The Hurt Locker
7: The Best Years of Our Lives
6: The Godfather
5: No Country For Old Men
4: How Green Was My Valley
3: Annie Hall
2: Lawrence of Arabia
1: The Godfather, Part II
Yes, I admit “Gladiator” isn’t the best example of Oscarbait, nor does “Chariots of Fire,” which at the time was lucky to get nominated. But I vaguely recall “Gladiator” as a front runner for best picture as early as July, and it kept that position up until it won. Once its makers realized that it had appealed to a certain section of Academy voters nostalgic for a pseudo-serious epic, they worked that appeal for all it was worth. Likewise “Chariots of Fire,” once nominated did manage to win for particularly bad reasons: it was more serious than “Raiders” it was not as left-wing as “Reds,” and it was so much more pleasant than “Atlantic City.” Also it plays on snobbish anglophillia, which even the New York Review of Books thinks is Vernacular American for Internationalism. I think that you can include both movies if you expand oscarbait to move beyond Mirimax productions to any undeserving movie that cunningly plays on bad reasons to win the award.
Your comment on #34 is just right, sir. Good stuff.
Also, Curt Bois, yes, awesome. Every time I click through his filmography, I’m reminded that there is a batshit-sounding version of “The Woman in White” that features Sydney Greenstreet as Count Fosco. I need me some of that.
I forgot “Sunrise” – I don’t care what the Academy says, they can’t retroactively redefine its Oscar as anything less than Best Picture. And not only was it the best of that year, it’s arguably the best American silent film ever.
I forgive Broadway Melody, Cimamron and Calvacade winning best picture oscars-the academy was a young institution. What I can’t stomach is phony movies like American Beauty and Crash being honored. Those 2 get my vote for worst ever Best picture winners. I really hate both of them. And Martin Scorsese Won his oscar for his worst movie.
Best “best” pictures- Godfather, Godfather 2, On The Waterfront, Sound Of Music, Casablanca, It Happened One Night, Annie Hall, Ben Hur , Bridge on The River Kwai and On The Waterfront,
As far as that goes, several other films partisan designates as “Oscarbait” seem like no such thing to me. How could WINGS, the first winner, be Oscarbait? The awards had very little public profile the first couple of years, so no one was making films with an eye on the prize at that time. I can’t imagine GOING MY WAY, THE GREATEST SHOW ON EARTH, ROCKY or AMERICAN BEAUTY were made with Oscar in mind either.
Also, partisan, you meant Carol Reed, not Oliver (though Oliver does appear in, uh, OLIVER!
I’ll beat this tired drum one more time: The English Patient has a lot more going on than a Casablanca rehash, and I’m surprised that Glenn even tried to make connections between the two, as I thought most people just thought it was a 90s version of Lawrence Of Arabia or Out Of Africa (also underrated). Familiarity with Ondaatje’s abstract novel makes the adaptation more impressive, but I’ll tell you, you could find a lot worse ways to spend 2.5 hours than listening to the commentary with Minghella, Ondaatje and Zaentz to fully appreciate the unique alchemy that occurred on this production. Plus, Walter Murch’s deft navigation of the flashback structure is like ballet, especially when working with Minghella’s matched audio/visual cuts. That guy’s presence alone should garner more respect. The film never can never catch a break from either side because it’s too poetic and its politics too nuanced for people that are partial to classic romantic Hollywood epics, and yet it’s too Miramax prestige/Golden Age wannabe for indie snobs.
Anyway. I’m glad Glenn gave some props to The Last Emperor, which usually gets disparaged as sellout Bertolucci or whatever. I screened it recently for friends and people really liked it.
And Gladiator becoming a major contender was strange to me back in 2000/2001 because I just thought it was a deeper-than-normal summer blockbuster. But Traffic was perhaps a bit too “intellectual” or cool emotionally to win the big prize, even if it wound up taking writing, directing, and editing honors.
For years I used a gravy recipe from Mrs. Scorsese I found in Entertainment Weekly back when Goodfellas came out. Curiously, her recipe did not call for the razor method for the garlic. In fact, I believe she called for whole cloves in the sauce. Whatever the method, nothing quite like spending an afternoon cooking a nice red sauce.
Speaking of how to make grwvy:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Yb4YWJgfmQE&feature=youtube_gdata_player
I recently watched If Only You Could Cook, 1935 William A. Seiter comedy touted by Dave Kehr in the NY Times and on his late blog. In it, Jean Arthur lands the job as a cook for classy Italian mobster Leo Carrillo by being the only candidate who uses his preferred method for adding garlic to a sauce. While others add whole cloves, Arthur just kind of waves it six inches over the pan (it’s gotta be six inches).
A couple years ago around Oscar Season™ I tried to catch up on all the Best Pictures winners I hadn’t seen. I trudged through about a dozen before I hit a wall somewhere around OUT OF AFRICA. (Is there a more gruelling form of Oscar-bait than the three-hour epic directed by a non-auteur? Never made it to Richard Attenborough’s GANDHI.)
Anyway, I’d like to speak on behalf of two Best Pictures that landed with a thud near the bottom of your list: CIMARRON and BROADWAY MELODY.
They ain’t bad.
I can understand attacking CIMARRON’s hokey manifest-destiny narrative, its patriarchal moral pieties, and its often blithe racism (which I think is counteracted somewhat by a few sorta sympathetic scenes featuring black characters). But for me, the film remains a fascinating example of an early “talkie” epic, with awkwardly hushed sections clearing space in every dialogue scene, and a compositional style that ranges from stiff proscenium staginess to God’s‑eye-view mass formations on the open plain. I love Richard Dix in the pic, too (shout out to THE GHOST SHIP, yo), especially during his hair-flopping defense of a hooker in court, and when he lies crushed in the mud at the end, looks up to Irene Dunne and says, with perfect corn and poignancy: “Wife. Mother. Stainless woman. Hide me in your love…hide me in your love.…”
As for BROADWAY MELODY: Well, again, this has to do with my fondness for early talkies, when everybody seemed caught in that awkward reverie of newly recovered voices. The musical numbers aren’t so great, but the movie keeps sparkling on account of the lead performances by Bessie Love and Anita Page (who was, amazingly, still alive six years ago). Their sisterly confidences are natural and charming, and one has to lament the fact that in the 80+ years since this movie was made, Hollywood has only gotten worse at narratives of female affection and camaraderie. Unfortunately, the movie does set a precedent for teary-eyed pining after dull male leads.
Both problematic films, to be sure. But also more pleasurable than countless dull, self-important pictures that went on to win the category after them.
Finally: DRIVING MISS DAISY is drippy vanilla-chocolate swirl soft-serve. Still, the Worst Pictures for me are FORREST GUMP and THE GREATEST SHOW ON EARTH.
Personally, I rarely have any interest in watching the Oscars and consider its choices just a few hairs more relevant than the grammys. Most years, Jethro Tull wins for best heavy metal performance. But for some reason, I do like reading about it. Thanks for the gravy.
My favorites in rough order would be:
How Green Was My Valley, The Godfather, The Godfather Part II, Unforgiven, Lawrence of Arabia, On the Waterfront, Annie Hall, Million Dollar Baby, The Apartment, It Happened One Night, No Country for Old Men, Going My Way, Casablanca, Rebecca, The Departed, All About Eve
That said, notable ones I haven’t seen or have only vague memories of:
All Quiet on the Western Front, Gone With the Wind, Mrs. Miniver, The Best Years of Our Lives, Hamlet, An American in Paris, The Bridge On the River Kwai, Gigi, My Fair Lady, Ben-Hur, The Sound of Music, Midnight Cowboy, The French Connection, One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest, Rocky, Driving Miss Daisy
May I just say how much I love that you are using the term “gravy” for a tomato-based sauce. My husband winces and complains whenever I use the New Orleans-ism “red gravy” and says that up North where he’s from (Boston-ish), intelligent people call it “tomato sauce.” I’ve always suspected he’s full of shit on this point, and now I feel vindicated.
PS: Would you share your gravy recipe?
Loved this. Glenn and I have been pals for so long that I think he could, all by himself, go through and pick out which choices I second, and which make me drop on the fainting couch. So I won’t bother. Glenn may not realize, though, that I am warming up to Greatest Show on Earth, although it will always have Betty Hutton to shred my nerves.
Cameron, wonderful spirited defense of Cimarron and Broadway Melody, two movies that hardly anybody ever sticks up for. Hope Ed Hulse sees it.
Great read! Some instant reaction;
1. Is CRASH really that bad?
2. AMERICAN BEAUTY really is that bad.
3. SHAKESPEARE IN LOVE at 59; too high.
4. AMADEUS at 56; too low.
5. WINGS > MRS. MINIVER.
6. Spot on re: PLATOON.
7. HURT LOCKER > TITANIC.
8. Actually PRETTY MUCH ANYTHING > TITANIC.
9. Can we get over GONE WITH THE WIND already?
10. Can we get over REBECCA already?
11. Be careful not to add any CIMARRON to the gravy ba dum I’ll be here all week try the veal.
Thanks for the list! Enjoy the feast!
Thanks Siren!
Now I’m curious to know what it is about THE GREATEST SHOW ON EARTH you’re “warming up to.” Aside from the justly famous train crash scene Glenn alluded to, I can’t think of a thing to recommend it. Does a more lavishly boring BP winner exist? I mean, we’re subjected to, like, 40 minutes worth of circus performers and animals promenading on slow-moving floats. Then of course there’s Jimmy Stewart’s creepy clown with a “secret past” (I think we all guessed “serial killer”), and Betty Hutton gee-gollying every one of her lines…
Glenn–
I love you, but there’s a big boo boo here– you managed to omit the greatest best picture of them all: Murnau’s Sunrise. I blame the fumes. And despite Stone’s recent work, Platoon deserves higher than 33.
Larry—Because this was a real-time exercise, mistakes were/are built in. But as I compiled, I had this nagging feeling in the back of my head…concerning “Sunrise.” But as it happens (and this explains its absence from the Buzzfeed list too), “Sunrise” is not on the Academy’s own list of Best Picture Winners…because it was given a an award for “Unique And Artistic Production,” while “Best Picture” went to “Wings.” Odder still, the award was not a special one; “Unique And Artistic Production” was a category itself, with other nominees that year, which were Cooper and Schoedsack’s “Chang” and Vidor’s “The Crowd.”
All that said, “Sunrise” is great and immortal and would surely have been in my top three had it been a Best Picture winner.
How does theyshootpictures.com rank the best picture winners? Let’s take a look
33. American Beauty #944
32. Out of Africa #882
31. No Country for Old Men #815
30. An American in Paris #670
29. Titanic #661
28. All Quiet on the Western Front #599
27. Rocky #590
26. Forrest Gump #548
25. The Silence of the Lambs #537
24. The French Connection #534
23. Rebecca #505
22. Ben-Hur #495
21. Amadeus #441
20. The Sound of Music #384
19. West Side Story #349
18. Midnight Cowboy #346
17. The Bridge on the River Kwai #330
16. Schindler’s List #309
15. Unforgiven #291
14. How Green was My Valley #290
13. It Happened One Night #280
12. The Deer Hunter #188
11. The Best Years of Our Lives #187
10. On the Waterfront #157
9. One Flew over the Cuckoo’s Nest #135
8. All About Eve #109
7. Gone with the Wind #102
6. Annie Hall #92
5. The Apartment #61
4. Casablanca #37
3. Lawrence of Arabia #22
2. The Godfather, Part II #20
1. The Godfather #7
The following movies have appeared on the top 1000 in the past, but not anymore (#34–49)
Dances with Wolves
From Here to Eternity
Gandhi
Hamlet
In the Heat of the Night
The Last Emperor
The Lord of the Rings: the Return of the King
A Man for All Seasons
Million Dollar Baby
Mutiny on the Bounty
My Fair Lady
Ordinary People
Platoon
The Sting
Tom Jones
You Can’t Take it With you
The site has a top 250 movies of the 21st century which ranks the best pictures of this century as follows:
The Hurt Locker #22
No Country for Old Men #31
Million Dollar Baby #42
The Lord of the Rings: the Return of the King #61
The Departed #76
The Artist #132
Gladiator #159
Argo #164
The King’s Speech #170
Crash #249
Chicago, Slumdog Millionaire but NOT A Beautiful Mind have appeared on this list in the past.
Wings and Crash are also on the top 1000, but they’re not the best picture winners.
Great dish – in both senses of the word!
Let me add my 5 Cents worth of comments and try to ever-so-gently rankle “the auteurist” Glenn a little bit in the process.
71: “A Man for all Seasons” – Of course it’s dull, it’s based on a play by Robert Bolt, so what did you expect?
67: “Oliver! Carol Reed: What Happened?” – Nothing happened. Reed just lavished the same talent and craftsmanship on material that auteurists (and most Americans) don’t care about. This is not the place, but I will always insist that “Oliver!” is a much better (stage) musical than “The Sound of Music”.
61: “Braveheart” – I would argue that one can actually draw a line of inspiration for this movie’s battle scenes beyond Kurosawa to Eisenstein’s “Alexander Nevskji”. How wonderful that a right-wing nut should be inspired by one of the staunchest communists in cinema history!
By the way: is there anyone (apart from Quentin Tarantino) who in the last 25 years has done more work that obviously defines him as an “auteur” than Mel Gibson? In all of his films one can clearly detect the same skills and thematic pre-occupations. So: is there a special place in auteur heaaven for misogynistic, homophobic Christian extremists?
29: “From Here to Eternity” – it’s always fun to see an auteurist twist himself into knots in order to defend a movie that he shouldn’t like because it’s not directed by an accepted master. So in this case, suddenly “direction or even story” don’t matter…
See, nobody can convince me that “Million Dollar Baby” is a great movie, simply because it was directed by Clint Eastwood, or that “An American in Paris” is better than “Gigi” because it is a prime example of the unique auteurist qualities of Vincente Minnelli (it has Oscar Levant and Georges Guétary, for heaven’s sake…)
I always thought that Andrew Sarris must have been punished enough for his apoplectic, dogmatic dismissal of great directors like William Wyler, Fred Zinnemannn and Billy Wilder by spending endless hours dissecting “gems” such as “Topaz” or (later in his life) “The Eiger Sanction” or “Heartbreak Ridge” in order to prove his point that the worst of an auteurist’s output is still far more interesting than anything by a lesser mortal, while the rest of the world enjoyed watching “Jezebel”, “Wuthering Heights”, “The Little Foxes”, “The Heiress”, “Roman Holiday” or “The Search”, “The Member of the Wedding”, “The Nun’s Story”, “The Sundowners”, or “Double Indemnity”, “Sunset Boulevard” and “Some Like It Hot”…
Thanks for the list, Glenn – keep it cooking!
The hard-core auteurists’ insistence that (say) ‘Land of the Pharaohs’ must be superior to ‘Treasure of the Sierra Madre’ is like the planetary epicycles of Ptolemaic cosmology: it’s a very clever and detailed theory, but it’s still wrong.
You know, I actually like Forrest Gump. Quite a bit. I’m not interested in defending it on an intellectual or even really an aesthetic level – a narrative level, I suppose. Its sentimentality doesn’t bother me much, I find it quite funny at times (it has a drier sense of humor than people remember), and hell I’m just a sucker for anything that employs the “wandering narrative” storytelling style in which the character can be somewhere completely different (literally as well as figuratively) and unexpected in a matter of like 15 minutes. I also like films that traverse periods of time, observing the changes even at the expense of a tighter, more cogent focus. For that reason I’m also more forgiving of, yes, Cimarron than most (though Platform it isn’t, it’s still got that thing going for it).
Basically I could trade places with your sensibilities on Sound of Music – that’s a film that (without loathing or anything) I just don’t get the appeal of, especially given its popularity. It seems much smaller in scope and less multidimensional than other audience favorites like, say, Gone With the Wind, Wizard of Oz, E.T., Star Wars, etc. Go figure.
Hope the sauce was good.
P.S. fwiw, this is my only Oscar-related activity of the day; moving on…
23: The most emotionally satisfying of the late-career awards to the Film School/Brat-sum-Easy Riders Raging Bulls generation, De Palma’s brutal, self-referential, formally experimental film was also the most unconventional film ever honored by the Acad– oh, shit. Slipped into an alternate universe there fro a sec.
My ten (alpha order)
12 Years a Slave
All About Eve
The Apartment
How Green Was My Valley
The Godfather Part II
It Happened One Night
Million Dollar Baby
My Fair Lady – leaden direction? George Cukor was aesthetically incapable of ever being leaden. His work soars.
Unforgiven
The Sting (a most brilliant queering of 1930’s movie texts)
Also:
Why should Kate Aurthur get flack? She placed ALL ABOUT EVE at number one – its rightful position. What more can be expected?
As for LAND OF THE PHARAOHS – it is better than THE TREASURE OF THE SIERRA MADRE, and one does not have to be hardcore anything to reach such a conclusion. The film is Hawks most despairing and conflicted meditation on male/female relations. After making it (and then going on the longest break in his career), he returns with his late films which are noticeably more positive/less anxious about women.
Who needs Sarris around to defend ‘Topaz’ when we’ve still got Brian, bless ‘im?
Thank you Oliver. And I do defend TOPAZ – I think the final five Hitchcocks are among his best films – he remakes VERTIGO with MARNIE and then using natural light in TORN CURTAIN goes places in terms of aesthetics that he had never explored before. In the process he does abandon Romantic Modernism (thank goodness), and as a result these late works have not gotten the credit that they are due. Instead, they are seen as a falling off rather than the inspired re-imaginings they are. Hitchcock was doing in cinema what queers and postmodernists were doing in philosophy and other art media.
The final five Hitchcocks are _not_ his best films, and the more committed an auteurist is, the more apparent are the holes in the arguments.
Jeff: I must disagree. These late films are great works of queer deconstruction. Do they operate like VERTIGO and other earlier films as High Modernist works of art? No. So if a viewer approaches them from a Modernist/non-queer perspective, they will experience the films as failures (in much the same fashion that supporters of traditional marriage are distressed by and cannot abide same-sex marriage since it varies from – and in their minds corrupts – their understanding of what marriage should be).
It is the job of an auteurist to follow the artist where she goes, and if she shifts and the viewer fails to do so, then the fault is with the viewer and not the art. Auteurism is robust enough to operate in modernist/postmodern/queer realms, but those who adopt it as an approach must be careful that their calibration of it is so narrow as to render it useless.
I suppose the self-sealing tomb-trap climax of ‘Land of the Pharaohs’ is, at least, memorable. Now ‘Red Line 7000’ on the other hand…
Mr. Dauth, you are a tiresome, blinkered apologist.
That said, I adore Marnie.
“if a viewer approaches them from a Modernist/non-queer perspective, they will experience the films as failures (in much the same fashion that supporters of traditional marriage are distressed by and cannot abide same-sex marriage since it varies from – and in their minds corrupts – their understanding of what marriage should be).”
Or a brilliant, skilled parodist.
I won’t pretend to know what Brian’s talking about, but TOPAZ is a great film, as Richard Jameson eloquently explains here.* To see it properly you have to see the theatrical version (which you can find on the Internet or watch at home if you have a multiregion DVD player that can play the German disc), not the uncut version on American DVDs that contains twenty extra minutes of dreadful business between Frederick Stafford and Dany Robin and the Truffaut actors who play Stafford’s daughter and son-in-law. After the film went over badly at screenings, Hitchcock boldly cut virtually all of Stafford’s family scenes, but Universal for some reason has insisted on “restoring” them to us and changing the meaning of the film.
* http://parallax-view.org/2009/07/30/hitchcock’s-topaz-revisited/
Jeff: why does approaching film from a queer perspective make me a “tired, blinkered apologist”? What I am apologizing for? For seeing success where others experience failure? I will admit that being queer opened up critical avenues for me that might be closed to non-queer viewers since a significant portion of my life experience was devoted to finding success in what society stigmatized as deviant, dirty and disreputable.
But just as the fact of my queerness inflects my aesthetic, so another cinephile’s non-queerness does the same for her aesthetic. In my view, TOPAZ behaves much differently than many previous Hitchcock films. The film does not offer up a central performance for the audience to identify with (in this way TOPAZ seems an extension of the second half of TORN CURTAIN where Michael and Sarah’s agency is gradually reduced to the point where they are replaced visually by two costume baskets – the actor is her clothing).
Some viewers will find the removal of identification figures in these two films to be a signature failure of these movies. But this failure is true only if one first posits the aesthetic axiom that all successful narrative works of art have characters at their center with whom an audience can identify. I find these late films to be vigorously re-thinking this proposition. Again, coming from a queer perspective I am comfortable with films which choose not to offer identification figures since a) the majority of the time such characters are conceived of in heterosexualist terms which I can experience as problematic; b) going against the grain of convention has insured survival for me, so when I see such behavior in a work of art I am cheered. In a similar fashion, viewers who prefer identification figures may find TOPAZ to be unfocused and disorganized since the film is not built around the spine of an identification figure – it is a diffuse film and this diffusion can be experienced by such viewers as failure. I do not agree with that verdict, but I can understand how someone can plausibly arrive at such a conclusion. In the same way, some people do not believe atonal music to have any merit while other listeners do.
Asher: I hope the above helps clarify what I am talking about. I often find that while viewers will acknowledge that spectatorship is a subjective practice, they are much less eager to embrace the conclusions that flow logically from this position – in fact, after acknowledging subjectivity, they then endorse the Romantic fiction that a work of art is a universal confection binding an audience together in a spell of transcendent truth and/or beauty. This spell obviates the differences between spectators (so much for subjectivity), uniting them in a blob of undifferentiated humanity. But what if we are as Ferlinghetti describes us: a melting pot in which nothing ever melts? What if the metaphor of a mosaic rather than a melting pot is more apt, and that as spectators what unites us is the practice of an appreciative critical engagement of the work of art and not a consensus/unified judgment of its worth?
The aesthetic tools a viewer brings to a film are her blinkers – to use Jeff’s term. All viewers have them – in fact, some spectators have several pairs. But no one is without them. The goal in my opinion is to understand deeply the contours of one’s own particular blinkers while simultaneously gaining at least a rudimentary knowledge of those of other viewers. As I said above, I can understand how a viewer with a particular set of aesthetic tools/blinkers could find TOPAZ a disagreeable failure. But differently equipped viewers can with equal conviction find it a success. The outcome depends on a) how a spectator defines aesthetic success and b) what her parameters of aesthetic pleasure are. Hence my comparison to the current debate over the nature of marriage: some people say marriage must be understood in only one fashion – the uniting of one man with one woman in a procreative bond focused on the raising of a family. On this question, their blinkers are quite narrow. Other people’s blinkers are wider and allow for a plurality of views about what should and should not be considered a marriage.
So is TOPAZ a great film? Yes, when engaged from some (but not all) perspectives.