Thursday, March 15, 2007

How the Academy has scored over the years on best picture

Here's a big, grand list of how the Academy did year by year. If another film isn't listed, it means that in retrospect that film still has the critical consensus as the best film of that year.If it isn't the best film, than i mark approximately what that film is ranked among that years entries and what other films are ahead of it. This isn't my personal list, but an effort at establishing critical consensus. It would be pointless to debate "well, Crash was only my 9th favorite film of 2005." We all have different opinions. My conclusion is that we all complain a lot but the Academy has never done worse than 7th by my count.



Wings/Sunrise 3rd (Jazz Singer)
Broadway Melody of 1929
All Quiet on the Western Front
Cimarron/Little Ceaser 2nd
Grand Hotel
Clavacade/42nd Street 3rd (I Am a Fugitive from a Chain Gang)
It Happened One Night
Mutiny on the Bounty
Great Ziegfield/Dodsworth 3rd (Mr Deeds Goes to Town)
Life of Emile Zola/Awful Truth 3rd (Lost Horizon)
You Can’t Take it With You/Bringing Up Baby 4th (Jezebezel, Adventures of Robin Hood)
Gone With the Wind
Rebecca/Grapes of Wrath 3rd (His Girl Friday)
How Green was My Valley/Citizen Kane 4th (Maltese Falcon, Sullivan’s Travels)
Mrs Miniver/Yankee Doodle Dandy 2nd
Casablanca
Going My Way/Double Indemnity 5th (Laura, Meet me in St Louis, To Have and Have Not)
Lost Weekend
Best Years of Our Lives
Gentleman’s Agreement
Hamlet/Treasure of the Sierra Madre 3rd (Lady from Shanghai)
All the King’s Men
American in Paris/Streetcar Named Desire 5th (Place in the Sun, African Queen, Strangers on a Train)
Greatest Show on Earth/Singing in the Rain 3rd (High Noon)
From Here to Eternity
On the Waterfront
Marty
Around the World in 80 Days/Searchers 5th (Giant, 10 Commandments, Lust for Life)
Bridge on the River Kwai
Gigi/Vertigo 5th (Touch of Evil, Cat on a Hot Tin Roof, Defiant Ones)
Ben Hur
Apartment
West Side Story
Lawrence of Arabia
Tom Jones/Hud 7th (How the West Was Won, Lillies in the Field, Great Escape, 8 1/2, Cleopatra, Lillies in the Field)
My Fair Lady/Dr Strangelove 4th (Mary Poppins, Topaki)
Sound of Music
Man for All Seasons/Who’s Afraid of Virginia Wolff 2nd
In the Heat of the Night/Bonnie and Clyde 3rd (Graduate)
Oliver!/Lion in the Winter 4th (2001: A Space Odyssey, The Producers)
Midnight Cowboy
Patton
French Connection
Godfather
Sting/Exorcist 6th (American Graffitti, The Way We Were, Sleeper, Mean Streets)
Godfather II
One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest/Nashville 2nd
Rocky/Network 4th (Taxi Driver, All the Presdietn’s Men)
Annie Hall/Star Wars 2nd
Deer Hunter
Kramer vs Kramer/Apocolypse Now 4th (Alien, Being There)
Ordinary People/Raging Bull 4th (Shining, Tess)
Chariots of Fire/Reds 4th (Raiders of the Lost Ark, On Golden Pond)
Ghandi/Tootsie 2nd
Terms of Endearment
Amadeus
Out of Africa
Platoon
Last Emperor/Broadcast News 2nd
Rain Man
Driving Miss Daisy/Born on the 4th of July 6th (Crimes and Misdemeanors, Dead Poets Society, Do the Right Thing, Glory)
Dances with Wolves/Goodfellas 2nd
Silence of the Lambs
Unforgiven
Schindler’s List
Forrest Gump/Pulp Fiction 2nd
Braveheart/Apollo 13 2nd
English Patient/Fargo 2nd
Titanic
Shakespeare in Love/Saving Private Ryan 3rd (Thin Red Line)
American Beauty
Gladiator/Traffic 2nd
A Beautiful Mind
Chicago
Lord of the Rings: ROTK
Million Dollar Baby/Aviator (3rd, Sideways)
Crash/Brokeback Mountain (3rd Munich)
Departed/Little Miss Sunshine (3rd, Babel)

No comments: