- Every year starting in late August and ending sometime around late February, Hollywood is consumed with winning an eight-and-a-half-pound gold trophy. Even in a world overrun with awards shows, the Oscars remain the grandest prize, and a Best Picture victory cements filmmakers and actors’ place in history. It also means that, for the rest of time, a lot of people will complain that your movie wasn’t that great and should have lost to some other movie they felt was eminently more deserving.
It’s very easy to second-guess the Academy on its Best Picture picks, but while putting together our ranking of every winner, we decided that, all in all, there aren’t that many terrible choices. Sure, mediocrity rules the roost, but for the most part this list is littered with good movies — sometimes very good, occasionally incredible, but largely good-enough movies. That becomes a Best Picture winner’s cross to bear — the fact that a particular film won’t stand up over time, and may actually look pretty terrible in retrospect — but, honestly, we’re pretty sure most Oscar recipients don’t much mind what the rest of us think. After all, they have an Academy Award, and we don’t.
So here it is: our ranking of all 90 Best Picture winners. You’ll probably disagree with us. That’s what the Academy Awards are all about.