Top Ten Thursdays: Best Picture Winners

The Oscar winner for best picture is often controversial and always leaves room for debate.  It is certain that many films that have received the award did not by any means deserve, the most notable example being Chicago.  Regardless, I have decided to offer up my ten favorites from all the winners since the Academy Awards began in the 1920's.  They are by no means my favorite films from any given year, but they are all great pieces of cinema in there own right.

10.All Quiet on the Western Front (1929)

One of the quintessential war films, this is a sobering vision of the inhumanity of warfare at a time when making such a film assured becoming a pariah.

9. No Country for Old Men (2007)

 A bleak film about a psychotic killer that is brilliantly suspenseful, No Country for Old Men was not my favorite film of the year, but it is certainly much better than many of its contemporaries.

8. Schindler's List (1993)

One of the best Holocaust films to date, Schindler's list is a difficult film to watch and one that legitimized Spielberg as a respected director.





  
7. The King's Speech (2010)

The King's Speech is the most recent Oscar-winner.  I found it to be a great film that is by all definitions perfect.  The acting, cinematography, and music all coexist in perfect harmony.  It is a lesson in period piece filmmaking.

 

6. Rain Man (1988)

Rain Man cemented both Dustin Hoffman and Tom Cruise as Hollywood players.  The film itself is well shot and seems also transcendent of a decade with a large amount of terrible movies.

5. On The Waterfront (1954)

Marlon Brando's "I coulda been a contender speech" will break your heart.

4. The Godfather (1972)

Brando is so good in fact that his picture appears twice in this top ten list, although to be fair it is all about Al Pacino is this classic.  I also have a review of this film worth checking out

3. American Beauty (1999)

Perhaps the most anti-consumerist film to ever win best picture, American Beauty shows the darkest depths of suburbia and leaves no possibility for redemption.

2. Annie Hall (1977)

This existentialist manifesto and independent woman fashion statement is Woody Allen at this finest.  It really makes me wish I grew up under a roller coaster.







1. Casablanca (1943)

Propaganda has never, and probably will never look this good again.  Next to Breathless Bogart and Bergman provide cinema with their most memorable and iconic couple

Honorable Mention

The Bridge on the River Kwai (1957)
Midnight Cowboy (1969)
Amadeus (1984)
The Hurt Locker (2009)