Quest: Academy Award for Best Picture

There are a few different types of movies on this list, so I’ve broken them out into the categories below.

Academy Award Best Picture Winners

While it would be hugely insightful if the voters of the Academy Awards provided a write-up as to why a film was selected as the Best Picture for a given year. The Supreme Court of the United States of America does it when they levy a decision, often followed along by a dissenting opinion. Often times a film’s selection seems to coincide with something culturally, serving as a reflection for historical perspective. But since we don’t get the reasoning behind the awardee selection, we can only speculate why one film was chosen over another.

Everyone has his/her own favorite films of a given year, and often discussions occur regarding what SHOULD have been chosen as the Best Picture. Without seeing the film actually selected to win the award, I’m not able to make an informed opinion as to whether I agree with the selection or not. So to be part of the conversation, the requisite films to be seen starts with the winner. I have a LADDER established for this at Half Popped Reviews, so I can see my progress there, but here’s the list of films currently on my watchlist:

Remaining Films to See:

Gentleman’s Agreement
The Best Years of Our Lives
How Green Was My Valley
Gone With The Wind
You Can’t Take It With You
The Life of Emile Zola
The Great Ziegfeld
It Happened One Night
Cavalcade
Grand Hotel
Cimarron
All Quiet on the Western Front (1930)
The Broadway Melody
Wings

Academy Award Best Picture Nominees

As I was mentioning above with needing to see the Best Picture winner to be able to join the conversation, seeing the other films deemed to be the top films of the year are important to being able to join the discussion. The numbers add up quick, so I have my watchlist set at just the films nominated within my lifetime, and then I’ll journey further into history after I make enough progress.

Films to See:

Amour [December ’22]
Beasts of the Southern Wild [October ’22]
The Kids Are All Right [December ’22]
Les Miserables [November ’22]
Tree of Life [December ’22]
War Horse [October ’22]
—–
Atonement
Babel [2022]
Brokeback Mountain
The Hours
Letters from Iwo Jima
Master and Commander
Milk
Munich [September/October ’22]
The Reader
Seabiscuit [October ’22]
—–
Babe
Bugsy
The Crying Game
Elizabeth
The Godfather Part III
Howard’s End
Il Postino
In The Name of the Father
JFK [November ’22]
Life is Beautiful
The Piano
The Prince of Tides
Remains of the Day
Secrets and Lies
Sense and Sensibility
Shine
The Thin Red Line
—–
A Passage to India
A Room with a View
A Soldiers Story
The Accidental Tourist
Atlantic City
The Big Chill
Born on the Fourth of July
Children of a Lesser God
Coal Miner’s Daughter
The Color Purple
Dangerous Liaisons
Dead Poets Society
The Dresser
The Elephant Man
Hannah and Her Sisters
Hope and Glory
The Killing Fields
Kiss of the Spider Woman
Missing
Mississippi Burning
Moonstruck
My Left Foot
On Golden Pond
Places in the Heart
Prizzi’s Honor
Reds
The Right Stuff
Tender Mercies
Tess
The Verdict
Witness
Working Girl

Other Top Films That Year

The discussion about “Oscar snubs” is almost as interesting as the nominations themselves. I often finding myself agree. Because of that, I like to try to see the other top rated films each year that weren’t nominated to see if there are any films I’d add to the list. It gets more and more interesting the further back into history I go, as there is no lack of discussions over some of the best films of all time, many of which didn’t get a nomination for Best Picture at the Academy Awards.