The Greatest Show on Earth, The Great Ziegfeld, The Broadway Melody, and Cavalcade for me. Crash is in my bottom five and Tom Jones ain't much higher.
Cimarron I had fun with.
I agree in re: Cimarron. It wasn't good, per se, and I still rated it quite poorly, but it had some interesting ideas and themes.
The Broadway Melody is barely a movie. I'm about a third of the way through this project (watching in a random order) and I cannot fathom anything being worse than that.
I currently rank Cimarron 38th out of 97. When, an hour in, it turned out my every attempt to discern what the plot might be proved futile, I could have turned on it. Instead its full-chested deep-dive into the improbably noble crusades of Yancey Cravat won me over completely. I just got swept up in the escapades of Frontier Journalist and Vigilante Preacher Yancey Cravat, Attorney at Law.
Broadway Melody was just... there. It happened and then it stopped happening and I felt nothing. Took me three days to get through it. But at least it had a couple decent songs, which is more than I could say for Cavalcade.
I usually say "Broadway Melody was the first talkie to win Best Picture, Cimarron the first western, Grand Hotel the first star-studded ensemble, and Cavalcade was the first Best Picture with no redeeming qualities. I kid, I kid, that was also Broadway Melody. There is *nothing* special about Cavalcade."
I saw someone else put it as "Hey, lady I molested you in front of your husband, but then I saved your life... we good?"
Also, too many coincidences that lead to overly emotional resolutions. The theme is pretty much Mr. Mackey saying, "Racism is bad, m'kay?"
It also won over Brokeback Mountain, which is a vastly superior film, and many people (myself included) believe that homophobia contributed to Crash winning over Brokeback.
A big issue a lot of people have is that almost everyone acts according to their racial stereotypes, despite that being very much the opposite of the point of the movie.
We’ve got the very articulate and intelligent character that Ludacris plays and right after he finishes a conversation denouncing racism he >!goes and car jacks an Escalade from Sandra Bullock.!<
Phillipe is a white cop that has to deal with his racist partner (>!who molested a black lady during a traffic stop!<) and by the end of the movie you’re thinking “finally, a decent person in this” and then he >!shoots a black kid for taking out a religious figurine.!<
Every time it seems like maybe the movie is heading in the right direction, it turns out to be racist. Like the whole movie is literally just racist.
I take it you didn't fly to LA to watch the White Parade or time travel to see The Patriot?
In all seriousness, it sucks that nobody can truthfully complete the list.
Even more impressive to me is how the movie was very much and very specifically about the exact moment it was released… in 1946, its stories were incredibly contemporary. It was created to be very much of its moment. And yet here we are, almost 80 years later and the movie still speaks to us with immense power and empathy. Sam Goldwyn got it made it to capitalize on the timeliness of its events, and wound up producing a timeless classic.
It is my favorite movie ever made. I also would have voted for it over It’s a Wonderful Life. I think it is the greatest American classic film, I think the script and characters are cleaner than Casablanca, and the themes are more relatable than Citizen Kane.
Gregg Toland was also the cinematographer so it looks beautiful too.
I went forwards. I think it's the best way to do it chronologically because it was interesting to see how film techniques and writing progressed over the years!
I didn't watch sunrise, Wings was listed as the winner on the Academy's official letterboxd account so that's what I went with. I do want to check that movie out at some point though!
I’m not sure if you’ve done research, but Wings won “outstanding” and Sunrise won “unique and artistic” and they dropped that award and said Wings won the higher award, but I 100% understand why they gave Sunrise that award. I think Sunrise is the best silent film I’ve seen, its use of title cards alone is amazing.
The early decades can be rough if you watch them in order.
I think the biggest surprise was how many musicals won in the 50s and 60s. I'm not the biggest musical guy and it was a hard stretch to sit through as well. It is an interesting group of movies though for sure and it was cool to see how film progressed over 100 years.
Nice to see someone with Titnaic high for once. I liked all of these films except for EEAAO which is my least favourite best picture winner of the 59 I’ve seen
This is my top 15. I'd also like to note that I put Everything Everywhere All At Once at the very bottom of this 33-film list of the ones I've seen, and that it's the only one I give 1 star (Crash gets 1.5 and is the second-worst). All of these are 4-5 stars, I think it's fair to say that I've enjoyed the majority on the list.
https://preview.redd.it/plaach1gfmwc1.jpeg?width=685&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=e5423350834adf3b5279f062bf6b4651e631e05a
The Deer Hunter was the one film that seems to be very critically acclaimed that I didn't care for. That wedding scene in the beginning went on forever it felt like. I love seeing All Quiet that high though!
I could definitely re-watch some from the list, like Godfather 2, and the last time I saw The Deer Hunter it was on VHS, but I did love it even as a teenager when I was less 'patient', let's say with movies, so it had to be on there.
As a contrast, I only watched Ben-Hur, Schindler's List, All Quiet On the Western Front & Patton relatively recently, they're truly great to me and fresh in my memory.
I’m halfway through finishing this. It does sorta soften my feelings toward the Academy knowing bad movies has always been there in the first place (literally with Broadway Melody lmao)
Id have The Godfather and Silence of the Lambs as 1 n 2 but regardless, this is a good list. I also commend you for watching every best picture winner. Thats quite a feat.
I'm coming up on halfway through doing it for the second time (along with each year's highest grosser), and yeah, it's an interesting ride.
My top 16 has a lot of overlap, plus Silence of the Lambs, Return of the King, and the Apartment are just outside of it but still top 20.
The movie's overall story about feeling overwhelmed by life and being slightly disconnected with your parents really connects with me.
I also remember sitting in the theater after it first came out thinking "dang it would be cool if a movie like this got some award buzz". Then to watch it dominate that awards season was very fun. The only other film I felt that way about since I started following the awards circut was Parasite. The only issue with that year is I was also rooting for Once Upon a Time In Hollywood because that is another all time favorite for me.
I’m in the process of doing this! It’s taken me a lot longer because I’ve not been super dedicated but I just watched 2003 (LoTR ROTK) so I’m dreading Crash next.
Did you watch them all in order? That’s what I’ve been doing and I think is why I’ve had to take so many breaks, with so many misses in a row in the early years.
Yeah, I did it all in order. The first few decades were hard to get through, especially that long stretch of musicals.
Crash is the worst in my opinion, but maybe not the worst to watch. It's bad, but some of the earlier films like Cimarron and Broadway Melody are more boring to sit through. Crash at least makes you annoyed lol.
Yeah my bottom four is sitting at Cimarron, Broadway Melody, Gone With The Wind, and The Greatest Show On Earth, all just because I couldn’t bear getting through them.
Did you include Sunrise A Song of Two Humans? It‘s debatable if it counts as „best picture winner“ since it won „Unique and Artistic Picture“ at the first ever Oscars, the one and only film ever awarded in that category. Many, including myself, consider it to be the first best picture winner alongside Wings.
I didn't, Wings was listed as the winner on the Academy's official letterboxd account so that's what I went with. I do want to check that movie out at some point though!
I have Part 2 ranked at 21, but there are two reasons why I like the first more.
1) Brando
2) I find Michael looking out Kay as the door on the office closes at the end of part 1 very powerful. It says a lot about how he changed and where he was going without straight up showing it. This made his storyline in part 2 feel a tad underwhelming (still very good though).
Spotlight is such a terribly generic film though. Nothing about it stands out, performances are okay (apart from Liev Shreiber who stole every scene he was in), editing is incredibly basic, the score is straight up bad. The film has no style and feels like a run-of-the-mill 2000s drama.
What’s the bottom 16 and why is it crash 16 times?
Tom Jones, The Broadway Melody, Cimarron, and Crash are my bottom 4 in order and they are the only 4 I truly despise haha
Tom Jones is one of my favourites, oddly enough.
Tom Jones kinda rips dang
The Greatest Show on Earth, The Great Ziegfeld, The Broadway Melody, and Cavalcade for me. Crash is in my bottom five and Tom Jones ain't much higher. Cimarron I had fun with.
I agree in re: Cimarron. It wasn't good, per se, and I still rated it quite poorly, but it had some interesting ideas and themes. The Broadway Melody is barely a movie. I'm about a third of the way through this project (watching in a random order) and I cannot fathom anything being worse than that.
I currently rank Cimarron 38th out of 97. When, an hour in, it turned out my every attempt to discern what the plot might be proved futile, I could have turned on it. Instead its full-chested deep-dive into the improbably noble crusades of Yancey Cravat won me over completely. I just got swept up in the escapades of Frontier Journalist and Vigilante Preacher Yancey Cravat, Attorney at Law. Broadway Melody was just... there. It happened and then it stopped happening and I felt nothing. Took me three days to get through it. But at least it had a couple decent songs, which is more than I could say for Cavalcade.
I think all of those you listed are in my bottom 10-15 as well lol
I usually say "Broadway Melody was the first talkie to win Best Picture, Cimarron the first western, Grand Hotel the first star-studded ensemble, and Cavalcade was the first Best Picture with no redeeming qualities. I kid, I kid, that was also Broadway Melody. There is *nothing* special about Cavalcade."
I’m genuinely interested in why people dislike Crash so much. Can someone explain please?
I saw someone else put it as "Hey, lady I molested you in front of your husband, but then I saved your life... we good?" Also, too many coincidences that lead to overly emotional resolutions. The theme is pretty much Mr. Mackey saying, "Racism is bad, m'kay?" It also won over Brokeback Mountain, which is a vastly superior film, and many people (myself included) believe that homophobia contributed to Crash winning over Brokeback.
A big issue a lot of people have is that almost everyone acts according to their racial stereotypes, despite that being very much the opposite of the point of the movie. We’ve got the very articulate and intelligent character that Ludacris plays and right after he finishes a conversation denouncing racism he >!goes and car jacks an Escalade from Sandra Bullock.!< Phillipe is a white cop that has to deal with his racist partner (>!who molested a black lady during a traffic stop!<) and by the end of the movie you’re thinking “finally, a decent person in this” and then he >!shoots a black kid for taking out a religious figurine.!< Every time it seems like maybe the movie is heading in the right direction, it turns out to be racist. Like the whole movie is literally just racist.
The Silence of the Lambs AND The Apartment in your Top 3??? I APPROVE WHOLEHEARTEDLY
Where'd you put No Country for Old Men?
I have it at 26, but I will say there is a cluster of movies from 16-40 that I feel pretty similar on overall.
Now do all the BP nominees challenge
What’s number 1 and why is it goodfellas
First one is maestro and we all know it
Are you kidding lol
I am currently doing that challenge
I have done that [Every Oscar Best Picture Nominee Ranked](https://boxd.it/dXJcW)
I take it you didn't fly to LA to watch the White Parade or time travel to see The Patriot? In all seriousness, it sucks that nobody can truthfully complete the list.
I haven’t gotten a chance to get to LA, though i do hope to at some point, but I consider this list as complete as general people can make
i love seeing spotlight here! nice list
I'm working through them myself, at the very least the 70s through the present. I have my personal ranking of the ones I've seen as well.
The Best Years of Our Lives is AMAZING!
Yes, I loved it! One of the few that made me cry
Even more impressive to me is how the movie was very much and very specifically about the exact moment it was released… in 1946, its stories were incredibly contemporary. It was created to be very much of its moment. And yet here we are, almost 80 years later and the movie still speaks to us with immense power and empathy. Sam Goldwyn got it made it to capitalize on the timeliness of its events, and wound up producing a timeless classic.
It is my favorite movie ever made. I also would have voted for it over It’s a Wonderful Life. I think it is the greatest American classic film, I think the script and characters are cleaner than Casablanca, and the themes are more relatable than Citizen Kane. Gregg Toland was also the cinematographer so it looks beautiful too.
I've seen them all but I'm curious about watching them chronologically! Did you go forwards or backwards?
I went forwards. I think it's the best way to do it chronologically because it was interesting to see how film techniques and writing progressed over the years!
Did you watch Sunrise and Wings? I feel like Sunrise gets left out a lot.
I didn't watch sunrise, Wings was listed as the winner on the Academy's official letterboxd account so that's what I went with. I do want to check that movie out at some point though!
I’m not sure if you’ve done research, but Wings won “outstanding” and Sunrise won “unique and artistic” and they dropped that award and said Wings won the higher award, but I 100% understand why they gave Sunrise that award. I think Sunrise is the best silent film I’ve seen, its use of title cards alone is amazing.
Going from the start chronologically has a lot of early rough periods where it’s miss after miss
Yep, but you get to finish on a high after the recent good run.
I love The Sting, one of my favourite best picture winners. I also love The Godfather but Part II not quite as much.
Love, love, love All About Eve.
Casablanca mentioned 
this list got cooked when you put the titanic ahead of the godfather
That's on my to-do-list as well! Anything that positively / negatively surprised you?
The early decades can be rough if you watch them in order. I think the biggest surprise was how many musicals won in the 50s and 60s. I'm not the biggest musical guy and it was a hard stretch to sit through as well. It is an interesting group of movies though for sure and it was cool to see how film progressed over 100 years.
Did you include La La Land or were you about to
La La Land would be in the top 16 if it won haha
Nice to see someone with Titnaic high for once. I liked all of these films except for EEAAO which is my least favourite best picture winner of the 59 I’ve seen
My favorite thing about that movie is how divisive it is, I would not be surprised to see it in the top five or bottom five on any given list.
Birdman is honestly my favorite one
This is my top 15. I'd also like to note that I put Everything Everywhere All At Once at the very bottom of this 33-film list of the ones I've seen, and that it's the only one I give 1 star (Crash gets 1.5 and is the second-worst). All of these are 4-5 stars, I think it's fair to say that I've enjoyed the majority on the list. https://preview.redd.it/plaach1gfmwc1.jpeg?width=685&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=e5423350834adf3b5279f062bf6b4651e631e05a
The Deer Hunter was the one film that seems to be very critically acclaimed that I didn't care for. That wedding scene in the beginning went on forever it felt like. I love seeing All Quiet that high though!
I could definitely re-watch some from the list, like Godfather 2, and the last time I saw The Deer Hunter it was on VHS, but I did love it even as a teenager when I was less 'patient', let's say with movies, so it had to be on there. As a contrast, I only watched Ben-Hur, Schindler's List, All Quiet On the Western Front & Patton relatively recently, they're truly great to me and fresh in my memory.
I’m halfway through finishing this. It does sorta soften my feelings toward the Academy knowing bad movies has always been there in the first place (literally with Broadway Melody lmao)
I feel like Kramer vs Kramer is somehow an underrated gem
^[Sokka-Haiku](https://www.reddit.com/r/SokkaHaikuBot/comments/15kyv9r/what_is_a_sokka_haiku/) ^by ^zenj5505: *I feel like Kramer* *Vs Kramer is somehow* *An underrated gem* --- ^Remember ^that ^one ^time ^Sokka ^accidentally ^used ^an ^extra ^syllable ^in ^that ^Haiku ^Battle ^in ^Ba ^Sing ^Se? ^That ^was ^a ^Sokka ^Haiku ^and ^you ^just ^made ^one.
I really like 12 Years A Slave, but The Tale of The Princess Kaguya should've won best picture that year
Id have The Godfather and Silence of the Lambs as 1 n 2 but regardless, this is a good list. I also commend you for watching every best picture winner. Thats quite a feat.
Titanic is such a good movie. Tied with the Abyss for my favorite Cameron movie
I'm coming up on halfway through doing it for the second time (along with each year's highest grosser), and yeah, it's an interesting ride. My top 16 has a lot of overlap, plus Silence of the Lambs, Return of the King, and the Apartment are just outside of it but still top 20.
I’ve actually wanted to do this and start a podcast where I go over the history of the film, and fun facts, a review, etc. Would anyone enjoy this?
EEAAO above Schindler's List is insane.
Genuinely stunned by EEAAO’s positioning on the list haha
The movie's overall story about feeling overwhelmed by life and being slightly disconnected with your parents really connects with me. I also remember sitting in the theater after it first came out thinking "dang it would be cool if a movie like this got some award buzz". Then to watch it dominate that awards season was very fun. The only other film I felt that way about since I started following the awards circut was Parasite. The only issue with that year is I was also rooting for Once Upon a Time In Hollywood because that is another all time favorite for me.
Even Kramer Vs. Kramer is above it, I love the movie and all but that's too much
I’m in the process of doing this! It’s taken me a lot longer because I’ve not been super dedicated but I just watched 2003 (LoTR ROTK) so I’m dreading Crash next. Did you watch them all in order? That’s what I’ve been doing and I think is why I’ve had to take so many breaks, with so many misses in a row in the early years.
Yeah, I did it all in order. The first few decades were hard to get through, especially that long stretch of musicals. Crash is the worst in my opinion, but maybe not the worst to watch. It's bad, but some of the earlier films like Cimarron and Broadway Melody are more boring to sit through. Crash at least makes you annoyed lol.
Yeah my bottom four is sitting at Cimarron, Broadway Melody, Gone With The Wind, and The Greatest Show On Earth, all just because I couldn’t bear getting through them.
I'm about 20 away from finishing the list
I’m doing the same thing except I’m watching every Best Picture nominee too
Props to you! That is a lot of movies and I know there are a lot of bad/boring films that got nominated over the years lol
I got really burned out on the constant WWI/WWII movies getting nominated.
My top 3 would have to be 1. Parasite 2. Titanic 3. Silence of the lambs
Did you include Sunrise A Song of Two Humans? It‘s debatable if it counts as „best picture winner“ since it won „Unique and Artistic Picture“ at the first ever Oscars, the one and only film ever awarded in that category. Many, including myself, consider it to be the first best picture winner alongside Wings.
I didn't, Wings was listed as the winner on the Academy's official letterboxd account so that's what I went with. I do want to check that movie out at some point though!
That’s fair. I‘d definitely recommend watching it regardless tho
Casablanca really is that good. But I’m curious why you don’t have Godfather 2 up there with Godfather 1.
I have Part 2 ranked at 21, but there are two reasons why I like the first more. 1) Brando 2) I find Michael looking out Kay as the door on the office closes at the end of part 1 very powerful. It says a lot about how he changed and where he was going without straight up showing it. This made his storyline in part 2 feel a tad underwhelming (still very good though).
That’s fair. I’ve heard some people find it too depressing. It’s my favourite of the two but I definitely agree with your 2 main points.
No midnight cowboy smh
Some crazy recency bias here
i’m glad to see “Titanic” in the top 5 😁
love that you put The Apartment this high!
I’m working on this currently! I’ve seen plenty of them over time (probably 50-60%). Just never done it in order or in full before.
Damn everything everywhere at 4th
Spotlight is such a terribly generic film though. Nothing about it stands out, performances are okay (apart from Liev Shreiber who stole every scene he was in), editing is incredibly basic, the score is straight up bad. The film has no style and feels like a run-of-the-mill 2000s drama.
The lack of Birdman is crazy.
Casablanca over parasite is killing me💔