Top Ten Most Deserving Best Picture Winners

Sometimes the Academy gets things right.  Naturally, there are none from the genre spike of the 80’s.

10. Gone with the Wind

1939

D: Victor Fleming

 

9. Lawrence of Arabia

1962

D: David Lean

8. Schindler's List

1993
D: Steven Spielberg
Very poignant. 

 

7. The Bridge on the River Kwai

1957

D: David Lean

6. The Deer Hunter

1978

D: Michael Cimino

 

5. Patton

1970

D: Franklin J. Schaffner

 

4. Ben-Hur

1959

D: William Wyler

 

3. Gladiator

2000

D: Ridley Scott

I don’t care what Doug Walker or any one else says.  Gladiator is a great movie.  It’s pretty refreshing that a movie that actually was my favorite of the year won this award so recently.  However, I think Best in Show is a very close second and should have been nominated.

 

2. Casablanca

1943

D: Michael Curtiz

1. The Godfather

1972

D: Francis Ford Coppola

I did not include Godfather Part II on this list because I actually liked The Conversation better.

HONORABLE MENTIONS  

Unforgiven (1992, Clint Eastwood) 

Very good movie, but my favorite from that year was Army of Darkness.  I think that Porco Rosso and The Last of the Mohicans should also at least have been nominated, too.  

The Silence of the Lambs (1991, Jonathan Demme)
I liked Terminator 2 more, but it is a movie whose flaws people tend to forgive because of how much fun it was.

No Country for Old Men (2007, The Coen Bros.) 

I think 2007 was a slow year for movies.  My favorite was Grindhouse, a feature that I thought was more than the sum of its parts.  I loved Ratatouille despite its having flaws, and Persepolis should have been a nomination.  At least No Country is a good movie, and this this was an overdue award for the Coens.

  

The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King (2003, Peter Jackson)

This was not my favorite Lord of the Rings movie, nor was it my favorite movie of 2003.  If any movie of this series deserved the award it was the first one.  However, if this was meant to be a retroactive award applying to the Trilogy as a whole, I suppose it would be a deserving one.  I’m also happy that for once the Academy awarded a fantasy.  

Birdman (2015, Alejandro G. Inarritu)
The Grand Budapest Hotel was better, and Calvary should have been nominated.