Best Picture Winners (2024-1970), Revised

In which I try to be less wrong than the Academy

I made this list because I believe that the Academy is prone to making terrible choices. Not only that, but it seems like they’re getting worse. In the past two and a half decades, I don’t think they’ve once made the right choice. (I believe they were much better at choosing winners in previous decades, as we shall see.)

Some of these Best Picture winners — CODA, Shape of Water, Crash, Argo — are barely watchable. Some are all but forgotten: The King’s Speech, The Artist.

Part of the issue is that there is no group of people more swayed by cultural-political winds than Academy voters. Further distorting things, they sometimes choose merely adequate movies (The Departed) to reward somebody who probably should have been rewarded decades ago (Scorsese).

And so, here is my list(s) going back to 1970, in which I try not to be distorted by anything other than my subjective taste. I did not limit myself to what was nominated. I made my own nomination lists and selected from there.

There were some years when I thought the Academy was shockingly wrong: Crash over Brokeback Mountain (2006), Million Dollar Baby over Eternal Sunshine (2005), Birdman over lots of great 2015 options— Interstellar, Night Moves, Winter Sleep, and Leviathan...

Many decisions were really tough, as with 2008, when No Country for Old Men, There Will Be Blood, and Into the Wild were in the mix. For those, and many other years, I could only rely on my guy. (I think There Will Be Blood is a touch overrated, and I say that as a huge PTA fan.) For years such as these, I’ll accept quibbles and dissents with good humor.

The 1986 Oscars was among my most difficult choices: Ran or Back to the Future? Or back to 2005: Sideways or Eternal Sunshine?

There were some years (Wings of Desire 1988, Deer Hunter 1979), when there was nothing close to a stand-out victor.

Below, for paid subscribers, is the rest of my list, going back to 1970..