Ranking the Best Picture Winners of the Decade

From August: This is usually the time of the year that I spend talking about the best-received Couch pieces of the last year. But COVID-19 has made our 4th blogaversary considerably more muted, for as you might have noticed, there has been a whole lot less to write about with the world under lockdown.

This is also the time of year where I’d start peppering with you some of the best film, music, sports and television of the first half of the year. But with COVID-19 greatly lessening the presence of new sports and music, and essentially halting new movies and television, we have had very little of that to write about. Instead, what I’m hoping to do over the next several weeks is do what many publications and TV channels alike have been doing over the last 5 months: retrospectives!

More specifically, I’m going to be looking back at the last decade in major awards show decisions. The Grammys and the Oscars— but really the Hollywood awards circuit in general —have become annual viewing experiences and emotional investments for me. They’re my favorite thing outside of actual sporting events to get needlessly worked up and competitive about, and it’s over the last decade that those annual loud and unsolicited opinions of mine really began.

Previously, we've talked about the Grammy for Best New Artist, for Record of the Year, for Song of the Year, and last time out, for Album of the Year. We've also discussed the Oscar for Best Director, for Best Actor, and for Best Actress.

To finish this series off, we go back to the Oscars for a look at the decade's winners of Hollywood's biggest honor: Best Picture. Note that the years listed in the rankings denote the year of cinema that they were nominated for, not the year of the ceremony itself.

Well, I certainly didn’t intend to go nearly a month between the penultimate and final installments of this series. I suppose that’s what happens when you embark on a semi-spontaneous vacation and catch COVID-19 in the process. But if there’s an award worth waiting for, it’s the Academy Award for Best Picture.

I’ve talked before about how movies, more so than television and certainly more so than music, have a long, drawn-out awards circuit, offering films many different ceremonies to receive plaudits. And yet, nothing comes close in prestige to winning the Oscar for Best Picture; there’s a reason this award is the final curtain on the show that is the final curtain of film award ceremonies. It’s the same reason that various thinkpieces and betting odds abound annually on this one prize alone. It’s also the same reason Michael Rondello and I obsessively rewrote history two years ago to reward our personal favorite films. One of the unfortunate effects of the circuit is that by the time we get to Academy Awards, most major categories, this one included, lack any real suspense like the kind we get at the Grammys and Golden Globes, but it doesn’t make the final announcement of the night any less drumroll-worthy. Plus, though I admit to a heavy dose of recency bias here, it certainly seems like this past decade has seen the gamut of winner types, from unwelcome surprise, to sadly predictable, to expected-but -still-pleasing, to the occasional very pleasant surprise.

So let’s get to that 2010s decade in review, shall we? Here are my rankings of the decade’s winners for Best Picture:

10. The Shape of Water (2017)

I’ll readily admit that maybe I’m too much of a simpleton to appreciate this work. It was, after all, my introduction to Guillermo del Toro. (I’ll pause for a second so you can finish gasping.) And I certainly wouldn’t call The Shape of Water a bad film- it was nothing if not engaging. It was often beautiful to look at, and the acting of Sally Hawkins and Richard Jenkins as well as the physical work of Doug Jones deserved all the plaudits they got.

But a movie about a woman falling in love with an amphibious creature, with a vague message of “everyone deserves love” and a formulaic ‘bad guy’ character just isn’t one I’m interested in seeing again. And this win was especially difficult to be happy about considering some of the modern classics it beat out, like Dunkirk, Get Out, and Lady Bird.

9. Green Book (2018)

The 2000s had Crash. The 2010s had Green Book. Two films whose... shall we say... simplistic view on race and mixed critical reviews contributed to an extremely divisive Oscar triumph. In the case of both, too, it was a surprise victory; where the former’s win elicited a gasp of horror as presenter Jack Nicholson mouthed “Wow!” to the audience, the latter elicited a hilariously bemused reaction from presenter Julia Roberts.

Look, I’d be lying if I said I didn’t enjoy Green Book. It’s an easy film to digest, it’s humorous and heartfelt, and in my opinion does not have nearly the level of problematic “white savior” content that has so often been ascribed to it. The real problem is that it had no business being nominated for Best Picture, particularly amidst such groundbreaking films as Black Panther, The Favourite, and Roma. It’s a fine movie, but it’s not an Academy Award movie. Yet, then it won! So you can perhaps understand the outrage this win elicited.

8. 12 Years A Slave (2013)

12 Years A Slave was a bit of an enigmatic movie, in my opinion. On the one hand, it told an important and brutal true story in unflinching fashion, and was centered around acting performances by Chiwetel Ejiofor, Lupita Nyong'o, and Michael Fassbender that were nothing short of marvelous. On the other hand, it seemed at times more interested in educating the audience by depicting the horrible reality of slavery in the most graphic way possible rather than keeping the focus on the story and characters at hand. Furthermore, there were some confounding directorial choices, and some random instances of, frankly, bad acting. Brad Pitt's cameo was one of the most terrible, meaningless forays into a movie I've ever seen in an otherwise good film.

I try to not be overly skeptical of films or their creators, and so this is not directed at director Steve McQueen in any way, but the movie's universal critical acclaim and relative sweep on the awards circuit hints to me that voters and viewers alike were a bit timid about criticizing a movie that told a heartbreaking story about America's greatest sin. But to me, its shortcomings, while not plentiful, were obvious, and that was enough to make me unhappy with its victory in a year in cinema that might have been the single-best of the decade. (Some of the other films of 2013: Captain Phillips, Her, Gravity, Fruitvale Station, Nebraska, The Wolf Of Wall Street, Frozen, Philomena, The Great Gatsby, Dallas Buyers Club, andThe Butler.)

7. Birdman (2015)

Let me start by saying I owe Birdman a rewatch. I haven't seen it since the year it came out, and not only has my film appreciation evolved since then, but my exposure to dark comedies and Alejandro Gonzalez Iñárritu both have increased. I have little doubt that I might hold it in higher esteem this time around.

But, as I haven't had the chance to watch it again, I can only go based off of what I remember about it. One thing I remember is actually being very happy that it won Best Picture, because it became clear throughout the awards circuit that the winner was only going to be Birdman or the favored Boyhood, and (UNPOPULAR TAKE ALERT) I thought Boyhood was massively overrated. I also remember being swept up in the nonstop single-take style, as well as the magnificent work of Michael Keaton, Emma Stone, and Edward Norton. However, for all its strong attributes, I also remember a distinct feeling of "...what was the point of that?"

6. Argo (2012)

Argo, the (mostly) true story of how a fake Hollywood movie helped extract American hostages from Iran, was favored to win the Best Picture, which is somewhat surprising given it was the rare winner that did not have any nominees for Best Director, Actor or Actress. But when you watch the movie, that 'feat' somewhat makes sense. The acting is solid across the board, but there's no one performance to really write home about; rather, it's a good sum of all its parts.

Director Ben Affleck really did a good job staying largely true to the historical events while making this a nail-biting, edge-of-your-seat ride. Given how many parts are there for an iconic movie (historical event, political thriller, great cast), it's hard not to feel like Argo wasn't quite as great as it should have been. But in a fairly underwhelming year for movies, it was certainly good enough to deserve top honors.

5. The King's Speech (2010)

Before Green Book-gate, the Best Picture winner from this decade that drew the most ire was probably The King's Speech. To this day, many film nuts scoff at Tom Hooper's work as being blatant Oscar bait, and hold a deep grudge against it for beating out two films that instantly became modern classics, Inception and The Social Network. That's to say nothing of Black Swan, True Grit, and Toy Story 3...2010 was another loaded year. And neither of those criticisms are invalid! It is a formulaic, arguably unimpressive film, and I think Inception is the greatest movie of the 21st century, so you won't see me disagreeing with the decriers.

But decry the quality of The King's Speech at your own risk. Because while the external and contextual gripes might be warranted, it's hard to really find anything wrong with the film itself. It's a classic British movie: simple and unassuming, yes, but simply well-made, through and through. Colin Firth turned in perhaps the best acting performance of his storied filmography, and Geoffrey Rush was not too far behind him. For a story so naturally filled with sentimentality, too, it steers away from indulging in schmaltz, a testament to writer and director, both.

4. The Artist (2011)

Like its successor, 2011 was also a fairly unimpressive year in movies. There was a cluster of about 5 great films (some of them not even nominated for Best Picture #justiceforASeparation), then a pretty steep drop-off from the rest. So if there ever was a year where a low-budget, black-and-white silent film to win Oscars in the modern era, this was probably it.

If you haven't seen The Artist, you're likely skeptical of how good or enjoyable a silent movie can truly be. If so, you're in for a pleasant surprise. The delightful acting draws you in from moment one, and like The King's Speech, the story may be simple, but is incredibly well-executed. There's not a single misstep; it's a surprise success from start to finish.

3. Spotlight (2015)

Birdman was a mild surprise, but the first bona fide upset Best Picture winner of the decade came the following year, in the form of Spotlight. The story of the Pulitzer Prize-winning Boston Globe team whose investigative journalism revealed years of sexual abuse in the Catholic church was easily the most critically-acclaimed movie of 2015, but other than a win at the Critics Choice Awards, had largely struck out on the awards circuit. So despite its plaudits, its Best Picture triumph was a real surprise.

But what a sweet surprise it was. It was with good reason that Spotlight came with so much acclaim: quite simply, it's a marvelous film. The screenplay is airtight (of note: the only other win for Spotlight on Oscar night was Best Original Screenplay), the entire ensemble of actors terrific, and most importantly, it dealt with its serious subject matter delicately and without cynicism. In the year of big-budget visual spectacles (Mad Max: Fury Road, The Martian, The Big Short, The Revenant), this was a profound victory for the understated. While I'm sad that movies like All The President's Men, The Insider and Good Night And Good Luck didn't get the honors they deserved, I have zero qualms with Spotlight being able to carry the banner for integritous journalism movies.

2. Moonlight (2016)

In my opinion, the great tragedy of Moonlight's legacy isn't that it will forever be inextricably linked with La La Land. The two films, while wildly different from each other, were kings and queens of 2016 In Film, two brilliant, original masterpieces of cinema that stood head and neck above contenders in their own year, but truthfully most films this decade.

No, the real tragedy is the fact of that link being because of an announcement snafu that in an instant rendered Moonlight "that movie that won the Oscar after the presenters screwed up" instead of "that movie that was a masterclass in character development, that told a necessary and under-represented story of identity, race and masculinity, and featured simply note-perfect acting across the board." Or, you know, something like that. Moonlight deserved an unperturbed time in the sun, and here's hoping that in future decades, film buffs remember it because of the tremendous film it was, and nothing else.

1. Parasite (2019)

So, in case you're wondering what 'Daniel's Key to a Great Best Picture Winner' is: be a one-word titled film, whose one-word title ends with the "-ight" sound, and oh, also pull off a stunning upset at the Oscars. Yes, like Spotlight and Moonlight before it, the reigning Best Picture winner was an enormous surprise, but a wholly welcome one, a triumph for quality and creativity over 'Oscar bait.'

Last year was the best slate of Best Picture nominees in recent memory; I truly liked all nominated films, and a few I would consider among the best of the decade, not just the year. That Parasite's win sent shockwaves through the Dolby Theatre crowd and got me jumping out of bed screaming "Yes!!!" speaks to just how good this movie is, and just how significant of a cultural moment its victory was. The first foreign-language film to ever win Best Picture came from a country not exactly known for its burgeoning film industry, and yet, South Korea could not be more deserving of the honor. Bong Joon-ho's film is nothing short of a masterpiece, an incredibly layered story of class strife, with themes of greed, oppression, ambition and family ties, all with equal doses of horror, humor, suspense and emotion.