The Oscar for Best Picture: Daniel's Revisionist History
The Academy Awards, Film’s most prestigious honors, provide plenty of opportunities for every collaborator in a terrific film to be recognized. But without a doubt, the grandest prize of them all, and the one that provides the most talking points in the aftermath is the highly coveted Best Picture. Three weeks ago, that very award for the year of 2018 went to the divisive Green Book.
You may have noticed there was no Couch writeup of the Oscars ceremony in the wake of the Green Book upset. The primary reason for that was, well, there just wasn’t much left to say that wasn’t covered by the entirety of entertainment media. If not as universally panned as 2006 Best Picture winner Crash, the decision this year was not far behind in the outrage it generated. Green Book was beleaguered by controversy throughout its entire awards campaign, but perhaps the most surprising aspect of its victory was that it wasn’t a particularly well-reviewed movie. Metacritic scores it at 69, which of course means it’s garnered more positive reception than negative, but that number is far lower than, say, the recent universally-acclaimed winners Moonlight, Birdman, Spotlight, and 12 Years A Slave.
Though I personally found Green Book enjoyable, engaging and not nearly as problematic as many have made it out to be, there’s no question it’s a pretty stunning choice for Best Picture winner, considering it probably should not have even been nominated amidst the best movies of the year. That got me thinking about other undeserved winners and snubees from years past, which is the inspiration for this piece, a Film-centered redux of Michael Rondello’s article from just last month, which re-selected Grammy Album of the Year winners from the decade.
This article will re-draft the Best Picture field in every year since the turn of the decade, and will select a winner, sometimes the same the Academy chose, but often a different nominee. I am a believer in well-rounded representation of various genres, styles, and popularity levels in Best Picture nominees every year, but I should say, this is a different task than making picks for a Grammy Album of the Year field. Music is much more subjective to the individual, hence why it’s a bit easier to push for a ‘nominee from each genre.’ Cinema is a little easier to have objective criteria for, which is why as much as I will try to introduce diversity in the years’ nominees, one basic criterion is that the film needs to be at least largely positively-reviewed.
One final note: I am going to eschew the expanded Best Picture field and return to a nice round 5 nominees, as in the pre-2010 days; I’ve found that, despite having the intention of including more films, the expanded field has in fact just muddied the plot more, and actually has had an adverse effect in terms of nominee variety. So, we begin with 5 nominees from the year 2010.
*denotes a film that was actually nominated for the award that year
** denotes the film that actually won Best Picture that year
The underlined nominee denotes my pick for Best Picture
2010
Inception*
The King's Speech**
The Social Network*
Toy Story 3*
True Grit*
Also considered: Black Swan, Easy A, The Fighter
We start with a simply marvelous year for cinema. 2010 saw some legendary films from various genres; I’d wager that most cinephiles could find one of their favorite movies from the last decade in this particular year, and you’d likely get a different submission from each demographic. Toy Story 3 won Best Animated Feature, but perhaps more impressively, pulled off the rarity of being a cartoon movie nominated for Best Picture as well. The newly expanded field of nominees might be to thank for that feat, sure, but it’s no fluke. The closing chapter of the Pixar trilogy was a sentimental favorite, a commercial AND critical smash.
Then there were the more “serious” nominees: the Coen Brothers’ remake of the riveting and hilarious John Wayne classic True Grit is a must-watch, and the year’s real-life winner The King’s Speech, often unfairly criticized for being token Oscar bait, is a splendidly crafted film with marvelous acting performances from three veterans, Colin Firth, Helena Bonham Carter, and Geoffrey Rush.
Probably the two most iconic films from 2010, though, were The Social Network and Inception. The former, a biopic of Mark Zuckerberg and peers amidst the development of Facebook, was one of the most acclaimed films of the year, and with a prime Aaron Sorkin screenplay and pulsating Reznor/Ross score to boot, was undoubtedly the fan favorite. My pick for 2010 Best Picture, though, to the surprise of literally nobody who knows me, is Christopher Nolan’s Inception. It’s a movie many critics love to hate, but it’s a classic for a reason. Nolan is the king of making intelligent, well-made popcorn flicks, and Inception is the foremost example of this. With Leonardo DiCaprio leading a big-name cast in a gun-firing, car-chasing thriller that involves running on rotating hallway ceilings (yes, you read that right), it’s not difficult to see the movie’s mass appeal. But lest you think this was brainless entertainment, know that Inception is a brilliantly-conceived film, a screenplay with so many psychological and emotional layers that it took Nolan 10 years to write. It’s blockbuster action, psychological thriller, socio-political drama, and heartwrenching emotion all in one, and the result is one of the best movies of the 21st century.
2011
The Artist**
Moneyball*
Monsieur Lazar
A Separation
Tree Of Life*
Also considered: Bridesmaids, Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows - Part 2, Hugo
What a bizarre year for the Oscars this would have been, with 3 of the 5 Best Picture nominees being non-English-speaking submissions. (The Artist isn't in a foreign language, but is a silent film, directed and written by a Frenchman.)
Two American films that make the cut in my list were two actual nominees that fell short of winning the big prize. First, Moneyball, which tells the story of Oakland A’s general manager Billy Beane and his team’s introduction to the revolutionary world of advanced statistics in sports, is (fittingly) a whipsmart screenplay from— you guessed it, Aaron Sorkin. On the opposite end of the stylistic spectrum, Terrence Malick’s Tree of Life was a gorgeous, trippy depiction of loss, family, and love and life in the most universal sense.
The actual 2011 winner, The Artist, was a pretty significant surprise champion. Not that the Academy has any problem rewarding films about Hollywood, of course, but the fact that this small-budget flick was a silent movie featuring two foreign leads is a pretty notable success story. It’s a highly worthwhile movie, too; ignore your skepticism about a movie with little dialogue and treat yourself to it some time.
But the two strongest pieces of cinema in 2011, in my view, were finalists for the Best Foreign Film award. Canada’s Monsieur Lazar, which is actually set in France and features an Algerian protagonist and lead actor, is a beautiful, heart aching story of a new teacher stepping in to teach schoolchildren in the wake of a traumatic experience. It’s equal parts delightful and tear-jerking, and doesn’t misstep once. And yet, it still wasn’t even the best foreign language movie of the year; that honor belonged to Iran’s A Separation, my personal pick for Best Picture. Acclaimed director Asghar Farhadi found his magnum opus in this film, a simple tale of a married couple’s, well, separation, and its effect on one another, their friends, and most importantly, their daughter. It’s a simple plot, but filmmaking at its finest: every line of dialogue so well-written, every scene so terrifically acted, every set marvelously shot.
2012
Argo**
Beasts of the Southern Wild*
The Dark Knight Rises
Les Misérables*
Lincoln*
Also considered: Silver Linings Playbook, Wreck-It Ralph, Zero Dark Thirty
2012 was one of the few cinematic years in recent history that yielded the correct Best Picture winner in my eyes. (Its rare, but this wasn’t the only one, I promise!) I had no problem with the majority of the nominees this year, the first time I can recall actually watching a vast majority of the Academy-nominated films before the ceremony took place. Lincoln, featuring a larger-than-life performance from Daniel Day-Lewis portraying a larger-than-life figure, and the crowd-pleasing musical Les Misérables, Russell Crowe belting and all, were obvious contenders for the Oscars’ highest honor. I also truly loved indie nominee Beasts of the Southern Wild, a beautiful example of magical realism featuring a stunning performance from young Quvenzhané Wallis.
One qualm with the candidates was that they did not include The Dark Knight Rises. Of course, as a standalone movie, it was nowhere near the quality of its predecessor, whose snub for Best Picture sparked so much outrage it (reportedly) directly led to the expansion of the Best Picture field in future years. But both as recourse for the failure to recognize Dark Knight, and in recognition of a terrific conclusion to a marvelous trilogy, it would have been nice to see TDKR in the nominee field.
But in actuality, the year belonged to Argo, and deservedly so. Ben Affleck’s finest work was a thrilling reenactment of the very real political and personal tension surrounding the Iran-U.S. hostage situation and the remarkable tale of escape and extradition. The film doesn’t completely escape Hollywood cheese, but by and large, it’s a nuanced screenplay buoyed by splendid acting performances across the board.
2013
Captain Phillips*
Fruitvale Station
Frozen
Gravity*
Her*
Also considered: 12 Years A Slave, Nebraska, Philomena
2010 set a high bar, but 2013 is quite clearly the finest year in cinema in the last decade. I exaggerate not when I say there are at least 10 films that could have won Best Picture and I would have been happy. Unfortunately, I committed myself to a field of 5 nominees, so I have to trim some real good ones.
Let’s start with the snubbed. Yes, Frozen deserved a nod, and stop rolling your eyes. Obviously the Best Animated Feature winner enjoyed a ridiculous amount of commercial success, and ensured a place in every home with young children from now until eternity. But lost in its vast popularity and ensuing blowback from cynics is that it really is a legitimately marvelous movie. Frozen presents more deeply-felt emotion, genuine wit, and addicting music than nearly all Disney predecessors, and it’s not a stretch to put it amongst the top tier of films in 2013. Fruitvale Station could not be more different of a movie, but similarly was overlooked by the Academy. Ryan Coogler’s debut and Michael B. Jordan’s breakthrough in the adaptation of the tale of Oscar Grant deserved more attention than it received. It’s a brutal blow to watch, but the tears you will undoubtedly have are earned, not forced by heavy-handedness.
The three 3 real-life nominees that made my cut were so terrific in such different ways, it’s difficult to compare. Gravity was of course a technical marvel, but was also a tour de force from Sandra Bullock and George Clooney, and a terrific fable of human perseverance. Her was one of the most original movies in years, inspiring laughs and tears, enjoyment and discomfort in equal proportions. I still maintain Joaquin Phoenix not even being nominated for Best Actor, a trophy he deserved to win, is the biggest snub of the 21st Century.
But, in one of the toughest decisions of this whole piece, my pick has to be Captain Phillips. Paul Greengrass is perhaps the finest socio-political drama director out there (the Bourne trilogy, Bloody Sunday, United 93), and true to form, was proficient at eschewing Hollywood glitz and fluff in order to show the bare-bones events; after all, the capture of a freighter captain by Somali pirates dramatic enough without filler. Captain Phillips is riveting from the start, but it’s a slow burn that finishes with an absolute gut punch of an ending, one of the best closing scenes in recent cinema history.
2014
Birdman or (The Unexpected Virtue of Ignorance)**
The Grand Budapest Hotel*
Nightcrawler
Selma*
Whiplash*
Also considered: Gone Girl, Interstellar, The LEGO Movie
There’s a noteworthy tonal shift in 2014’s movies, which may explain that year’s Oscar upset, with Birdman knocking off the favored Boyhood. The actual winner was an enthralling dark comedy that led to the first of two straight Best Director nods for Alejandro Gonzalez Iñárritu. Shot as if it were one continuous take, it’s a terrific viewing experience from start to finish, but chock full of nasty snark.
Nightcrawler was another deliciously dark film, with Jake Gyllenhaal doing his best modern-day Daniel Plainview impression as a man who has essentially sold any sort of soul he may have had in his blind pursuit of economic success. And though Damien Chazelle may now be synonymous with the more starry-eyed La La Land and First Man, his debut film Whiplash, while still wildly enjoyable, was significantly more cynical. Case in point: J.K. Simmons was awarded Best Supporting Actor for portraying a verbally and occasionally physical abusive teacher in the movie.
Perhaps that is the reason my two favorites of the year were the more invigorating Best Picture nominees Selma and The Grand Budapest Hotel. The former, Ava DuVernay’s breakthrough, was a holistic look at Martin Luther King, Jr., and he and fellow civil rights leaders’ strategy in the lead to the famous Selma protests. It shies away from Spielbergesque hero worship and sentimentality, and keeps the story grounded in the harsh reality of Alabama in the 60s. The latter, my introduction to Wes Anderson, is also riveting from start to finish, albeit for very different reasons. Grand Budapest Hotel is a visual pleasing artistic comedy, but it’s also nonstop action, and subtly, a very heartfelt World War II story. Ralph Fiennes’ Gustave H is so tremendously charismatic that you can’t take your eyes off of him.
2015
The Big Short*
Inside Out
Room*
Spotlight**
Steve Jobs
Also considered: Brooklyn, The Martian, The Revenant
Another year in which I agree with the Academy’s selection! I remember jumping off my couch and shouting in excitement when Morgan Freeman announced Spotlight as the surprise winner over The Revenant.
To be fair, I would have been happy with most nominees that year, and would have been really happy with any of the above five. The Big Short was an uproarious, informational dramedy about the housing market collapse, and makes for a good rewatch. Inside Out was a brilliant movie, one of the most intelligent animated films to date, a fun story with a real gut wrenching and important lesson at its center. Room was a remarkable risk: not only confining over half of the film’s action to a single room, but also placing the most climactic scene in the movie at about the midway point. It paid off tremendously, though, thanks in no small part to the best acting performances of the year from Brie Larson and Jacob Tremblay. And Steve Jobs was a fascinating Shakespearean character study on its namesake, bolstered by a pulsating screenplay from (guess who?) Aaron Sorkin.
But Spotlight was just a slight step above in another very good year for movies, thanks to an airtight screenplay, and note-perfect performances from its entire ensemble. It dealt with serious and convoluted subject matter with deft touches, managing to unfurl the story of worldwide sexual abuse in the Catholic Church without muddying up the facts and nuances of the tragedy.
2016
Arrival*
Fences*
Hell Or High Water*
La La Land*
Moonlight**
Also considered: Lion, Manchester By The Sea, Zootopia
What’s this? Two straight years of endorsing the actual Oscar winner? It’s true. Once again, the Academy made the right call here, even if it took them about 5 minutes to properly do so. I would say of all the years in this article, 2016 was the one most ready-made for a field of 5 candidates. Not counting the terrific documentaries that were released that year, the quality gap between the five movies listed above and all other films released in 2016 is pretty significant.
Fences was a splendid film adaptation of the family drama play, written by August Wilson. Performances from Denzel Washington and Viola Davis especially rendered it one of the better movies of the year. Hell or High Water and Arrival, in most other years, would have a legitimate claim for the best movie of the year. The former was a Western drama more in the manner of the Coen Brothers rather than the yee-haw shoot-em-ups of the John Wayne era. It’s a terrific game of cops and robbers, with blurred lines of ethics abound, and a subdued Chris Pine turning in perhaps his strongest acting performance to date. Arrival takes part near-equally in Montana and outer space, and is delightfully interesting science fiction and a poignant human love story all in one.
But 2016 was the year of two mammoth movies: La La Land and Moonlight, which both were among the most well-reviewed films of the last decade. La La Land cleaned up in the early awards circuit, and the wildly successful, Hollywood-set musical seemed to be a shoo-in for Best Picture before Moonlight’s memorable upset. Though I am an unabashed fan of La La Land, I wholeheartedly support the victory for Moonlight. Barry Jenkins’ grounded film is so brilliant in every facet. The script has no weak points, every actor and actress (including children) were good enough to be award-worthy, the cinematography was picturesque, and of course, the story was enough to make your heart break, heal and expand all within an hour and a half.
2017
Dunkirk*
Get Out*
Lady Bird*
Mudbound
Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri*
Also considered: The Big Sick, The Disaster Artist, Phantom Thread
2017 was a strange year for cinema, in that most of its high points were in the form of comedy. The two frontrunners for Best Picture, The Shape of Water and Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri were often comedic, albeit in absurd (Shape) and dark (Billboards) ways. The Big Sick, a rom-com based on a true story and The Disaster Artist, a hilarious biopic of a very real man and movie, were truly among my personal favorites of the year. In the end, I was happy with the straightforward comedy slot being filled by the wonderful, hilarious, and touching Lady Bird.
Two films that I don’t think made me crack a smile once, but were terrific all the same, were the nominated Dunkirk and the snubbed Mudbound. Christopher Nolan’s Dunkirk was a vastly different subject matter and style from his previous filmography, but the director once again employed non-linear time progression and a haunting Hans Zimmer score, this time to enhance a beautifully made World War II film from England’s shores. Mudbound, a Netflix film, takes place in the rural South, and follows relational strife, both within families and between races. It’s a gritty, slower-paced watch, but one that’s too good not to sit through.
All this being said, I truly think we’ll look back at 2017 as the year Get Out somehow didn’t win. The horror/comedy/social commentary film absolutely took the U.S. by storm last year, both in meme form and in critical response. It was a stunning debut from comedy icon Jordan Peele, and the amount of symbolism present and genres satisfied is an all-time feat.
2018
Black Panther*
The Favourite*
First Man
If Beale Street Could Talk
Roma*
Also considered: Eighth Grade, First Reformed, A Quiet Place
2018’s slew of Best Picture nominees was bizarre in that I really didn’t dislike any of the candidates, but truly liked only 1 or 2. They could have completely re-drafted the nominee field, and I likely would have been just as happy with the result.
As it stands, in my field of 5, I’m happy to let a few real-life nominees remain in. Black Panther may be just one chapter in the Marvel universe but it was such a terrific standalone film that I almost wish it was separate from the comic book galaxy. It was stunningly beautiful to watch, and the political dynamics in the storyline felt like a clash of kings you might see in Game of Thrones or the Lord of the Rings trilogy. The Favourite was the Best Picture nominee I was actually cheering for: a delightful raucous comedy, with enough elements of olde English drama and suspense to keep you tuned in to the plot. Roma, though not my personal #1, was objectively the most well-made movie of the year. Alfonso Cuarón’s directorial eye is magnificent, as he shows a beautiful portrayal of both lower-class and upper-class life in Mexico, amidst tragic civil unrest and marital and family strife.
But it’s a shame we were robbed of Jenkins And Chazelle, Part 2. Barry Jenkins, director of Moonlight, was back with another gorgeous tale of love and humanity in If Beale Street Could Talk. Damien Chazelle, who lost Best Picture to Jenkins in 2016 but beat him out for Best Director with La La Land, offered possibly his best film yet of his limited, but impressive filmography. First Man was a marvelous feat, authentic in its portrayal of both the difficulty of the Apollo missions, but also the personal ordeal of Neil Armstrong and his family. Both as a technical film and an emotional one, it soared. First Man deserved better than the 2 Oscar nods it got, and knowing the plight of space films in the race for Best Picture, would have made a terrific choice for top honors.