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[PR_rambo]

Agreed OP, The French Connection. It's not a popular opinion to have, but it's mine.
Crash is good, the formula got copied, and outplayed with many other films but I enjoyed Crash .

Some people aren't over it beating brokeback mountain

 

[Zen_Arcade]

Titanic. It's not bad, but I remember it being pretty mediocre.

Do keep in mind that virtually every other BP nominee that year, with the possible exception of The Tree of Life, was pretty unremarkable:

Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close
The Descendants
The Help
Hugo
Midnight in Paris
Moneyball
War Horse

I love Moneyball. It totally should have won over The Artist.

 

[neurosisxeno]

Shakespeare In Love. How the hell did that win Best Picture over Saving Private Ryan, Thin Red Line, and Life is Beautiful?

Then there's a whole slew of movies that barely got any awards from that year including; Dark City, Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas, The Truman Show, Pi, American History X, and quite a few others.

 

[Kenai]

I really don't hate Titanic, but there had to have been a better movie released that year, right? I fell asleep at least 3 separate times trying to watch it, it's just so incredibly by-the-book boring to me.

 

[The Beard]

I can't believe all the Gump hate in here. Shame on you.

 

[nullref]

There are plenty that are mediocre, but I feel like Crash is the only one I disliked immediately, my first time watching it.

 

[Jigorath]

Do keep in mind that virtually every other BP nominee that year, with the possible exception of The Tree of Life, was pretty unremarkable:

Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close
The Descendants
The Help
Hugo
Midnight in Paris
Moneyball
War Horse

I wouldn't call Hugo unremarkable.

 

[Hero_of_the_Day]

Return of the King won best picture? That's fucking crazy. What else was nominated that year?

 

[Nairume]

Return of the King won best picture? That's fucking crazy. What else was nominated that year?

Lost in Translation, Mystic River, Master & Commander, and Seabiscuit.

 

[ST2K]

My List:

Casablanca
Ben-Hur
Lawrence of Arabia
The Sound of Music
The Godfather
The Sting
The Godfather Part II
Rocky
Chariots of Fire
Gandhi
Unforgiven
Forrest Gump
Braveheart
Titanic
Gladiator
A Beautiful Mind
The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King
Million Dollar Baby
Crash
The Departed
No Country for Old Men
Slumdog Millionaire
12 Years a Slave


The worst I saw was Crash probably, though there are some stinkers in there.

Return of the King won best picture? That's fucking crazy. What else was nominated that year?

It should be noted that the Academy pretty much blew off the first two films and held off until the trilogy was done to award the films. That's why it got like 40 Oscars that year.

 

[neurosisxeno]

Return of the King won best picture? That's fucking crazy. What else was nominated that year?

Yea that was the one that surprised me the most. It wasn't even the best film of the series imo, but for some reason the Academy felt they owed it to Peter Jackson to give him some Oscars...

 

[Damaniel]

I can't believe all the Gump hate in here. Shame on you.

It's not that it's bad, it's very 'meh', and that's not suitable criteria for Best Picture. I'd argue that every other movie up for the honor that year was better than Forrest Gump (though arguably Four Weddings and a Funeral wasn't quite to the same level as the other three). Pulp Fiction much more so, and Shawshank even more than that. Hell, even Quiz Show was decent.

For the record, I've seen every movie up for Best Picture that year at least twice (and Pulp Fiction more times than I'd like to admit). I've seen Forrest Gump exactly once, and have had no interest in seeing it since.

 

[C4Lukins]

Driving Miss Daisy, Crash, Argo and Shakespeare in Love.

 

[Voysa Reezun]

Wings might be offered as a candidate. It's on YouTube, which is where I saw it. It's not very good, but it's lovely to look at Clara Bow. She makes things a lot easier.

 

[weekev]

12 years a slave. I ... just don't know, maybe someone can help me understand why I should find it good or profound or whatever it was supposed to be.

I found it mediocre, but then I have found most recent winners to be mediocre at best. Crash is ridiculous, that movie did not deserve to be nominated, however when you look at the trash it was up against, its clear that was just a bad year for movies.

My worst would have to be Shakespeare in love, it was just pretentious wank IMO, but then Im not a big fan of chick flicks.

Edit just looked at what Shakespeare in Love was up against......what the actual fuck? Life is beautiful and Saving Private Ryan piss all over it massively, especially Life is Beautiful, what on earth were they thinking?

 

[elostyle]

Argo

 

[Maengun1]

I've seen:

1939 - Gone With The Wind
1943 - Casablanca
1961 - West Side Story
1965 - The Sound Of Music
1970 - Patton
1972 - The Godfather
1974 - The Godfather Part II
1976 - Rocky
1978 - The Deer Hunter
1979 - Kramer Vs. Kramer
1980 - Ordinary People
1986 - Platoon
1987 - The Last Emperor
1988 - Rain Man
1989 - Driving Ms. Daisy
1990 - Dances With Wolves
1991 - The Silence Of The Lambs
1992 - Unforgiven
1993 - Schindler's List
1994 - Forrest Gump
1995 - Braveheart

And everything from 1997 (Titanic) on. I really, really need to catch up on more classic film, but I honestly don't even get time to see all the new movies I want to. I go through periods where I make it more of a focus to see older movies.

Anyway, this is probably unconventional, but I think Slumdog Millionaire is my least favorite of the winners I've seen? I wouldn't argue that it's objectively worse than Crash (Crash is awwwfffulll), but I honestly find Crash really entertaining in a trainwrecky way, whereas I think Slumdog is equally dumb/hamfisted but also just not that interesting to watch. I've actually seen it 3 times because I kept expecting it to finally click with me, but I DISliked it more each time.

I also feel like adding, because I knew Titanic would get a fair share of mentions here, that I think Titanic is genuinely one of the best movies ever made and most of the hate it still gets is leftover from it being the first big "backlash" movie of the internet age. It's also cheesy, but in a great way and it's still probably the most stunning technical achievement on film. Everything from the iceberg on is soooooo good. And the historical details are virtually perfect. IMO anyway. I will concede that the "present day" scenes are a misfire but it's like 10% of the movie.

 

[rickyson1]

probably no country for old men,just didn't click with me for whatever reason

although I feel like a lot of it might have just been my mood the day I watched it and if I watch it again someday I might like it more

 

[NysGAF]

I've seen:

Ben-Hur
The Apartment
West Side Story
My Fair Lady
The Sound of Music
The Godfather
The Godfather Part II
Rocky
Chariots of Fire
Gandhi
Amadeus
Platoon
The Last Emperor
Rain Man
Dances with Wolves
Silence of the Lambs
Unforgiven
Schindler's List
Forrest Gump
Braveheart
The English Patient
Titanic
Shakespeare in Love
American Beauty
Gladiator
A Beautiful Mind
Chicago
The Lord of the Rings: Return of the King
Million Dollar Baby
Crash
The Departed
No Country for Old Men
Slumdog Millionaire
The Hurt Locker
The King's Speech
The Artist
Argo
12 Years a Slave

The ones I've started and couldn't finish were:

Platoon
Chicago
The Artist

The Artist was easily the one that got shut off the quickest. It wasn't just me, my wife wanted nothing to do with it either.

 

[BigDug13]

I really don't hate Titanic, but there had to have been a better movie released that year, right? I fell asleep at least 3 separate times trying to watch it, it's just so incredibly by-the-book boring to me.

That level of realism was the stuff of dreams at the time. The combination of model work augmented by the new CGI technology created a perfect storm of special effects that really had never before been seen. Were you trying to watch it back when it released or more recently? Sometimes a movie's wow factors cannot be replicated when watching it decades later.

 

[The Beard]

It's not that it's bad, it's very 'meh', and that's not suitable criteria for Best Picture. I'd argue that every other movie up for the honor that year was better than Forrest Gump (though arguably Four Weddings and a Funeral wasn't quite to the same level as the other three). Pulp Fiction much more so, and Shawshank even more than that. Hell, even Quiz Show was decent.

For the record, I've seen every movie up for Best Picture that year at least twice (and Pulp Fiction more times than I'd like to admit). I've seen Forrest Gump exactly once, and have had no interest in seeing it since.

I love it, I've seen it at least 6 times. I've probably seen Pulp Fiction more times than that though.

That level of realism was the stuff of dreams at the time. The combination of model work augmented by the new CGI technology created a perfect storm of special effects that really had never before been seen. Were you trying to watch it back when it released or more recently? Sometimes a movie's wow factors cannot be replicated when watching it decades later.

This has a lot to do with it. I saw Titanic in theaters as an 12 year old and it blew my mind. I loved that movie then, and I still do. I might have had a completely different opinion if I never saw it, and tried watching it today. I still would've liked it, but it wouldn't have had the same effect on me. CGI just doesn't impress me anymore, no matter how good it is.

 

[Skiptastic]

I've seen, in chronological order...

My Fair Lady (pretty sure...)
The Sound of Music
In the Heat of the Night
Oliver!
The French Connection
The Godfather
The Godfather Part II
One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest
Rocky
Annie Hall
The Deer Hunter
Terms of Endearment
Amadeus
Platoon
Driving Miss Daisy
Silence of the Lambs
Unforgiven
Schindler's List
Forrest Gump
Braveheart
Titanic
Shakespeare in Love
American Beauty
Gladiator
A Beautiful Mind
LOTR: Return of the King
Million Dollar Baby
Crash
The Departed
No Country for Old Men
Slumdog Millionaire
The King's Speech
The Artist
Argo

Top Five Least Favorites
Crash - just so sappy, but there were a couple of the storylines I did enjoy

Gladiator - I just don't know why people like this derivative story so much. Maximus is a boring protagonist, the incest stuff is stupid, just lame all around.

Terms of Endearment - I just disliked the two main characters. Debra Winger's husband is a bad guy for sleeping around with college students, but then she goes and sleeps around with someone who is married. The fuck? I don't know, it clearly wasn't a movie for me.

The Deer Hunter - Watched this a year or two ago, just boring compared to the other great Vietnam movies (Apocalypse, Platoon, hell even The Killing Fields). By the time I got to the Vietnam stuff, I was just kind of over it.

And my Worst Winner:

Oliver! - I don't even really remember this movie all that well. I just remember hating it. I didn't like the songs, didn't like the acting, found it all very poor.

I remember hearing it won Best Picture and it was my first early look into "Wait, Best Picture movies can be bad?!?" I get the feeling I would probably not have it be my worst if I saw it recently and saw many more of the winners, but right now, it sticks out because of that.


I should say I'm not that shocked at the Forrest Gump hate, but I am at the Driving Miss Daisy hate. It's such a well acted, simple movie that is enjoyable for every walk of life and earns the emotions it has at the end. Such a wonderful movie that could have been so bad.

 

[Skellig Gra]

I don't understand the hate for Chicago in this thread, can you guys explain it to me? First of all its a competent adaptation of a good Broadway show. Are you guys hating it for its subject matter? Or the moral behind it? Or film cast?

Adapting Broadway to movie is hard, IMO in recent year only Mamma Mia had a good adaptation. Both Les Miserables and Into the Woods were just ok.

I've always felt that putting a broadway musical on the big screen is one of least ambitious things you can do. For something as small scale as Chicago it's like shooting fish in a barrel.

 

[Lego Boss]

GAF Groupthink in overdrive with Crash.

Crash was a good film. I think it addressed its topic in a relatively mature way. it suggested that racism was institutionalised within cerain organisations (police) and wasn't limited to white/black binaries (Cheadle is as racist towards hispanics as Dillon is towards blacks, but Dillon uses it in an abhorrent manner).

It asks the question at the end if a good person can do bad things (and vice versa) and whether or not this is enough to forgive their actions, which even if they weren't handled THAT subtley here, are still univewrsal questions that art has struggled with for thousands of years.

I saw it at the cinema and have watched it several times since. It's far more profound than a lot of Oscar winners and carries the kind of self-justifying tone which is close to the liberal-white town of Hollywood. This is not a good thing, but it played its politics as well as it carried the theme through. Yes, it was Oscar-bait, but if that's where it was pitched, then who are we to argue at decsions made by film studios? Personally I'm sick of all the try-hard films coming out a this time of year, but that's the industry and schtick and self-promotion and PR is what they do.

It may not be the best Oscar winner of all time, but tell me that films like Titanic and Forrest Gump deserve it more? I don't think they do, but feel free to tank my point of view!

 

[andythinkpad]

...
Edit just looked at what Shakespeare in Love was up against......what the actual fuck? Life is beautiful and Saving Private Ryan piss all over it massively, especially Life is Beautiful, what on earth were they thinking?

They didn't want Roberto Benigni go nuts on the acceptance speech...

....
I also feel like adding, because I knew Titanic would get a fair share of mentions here, that I think Titanic is genuinely one of the best movies ever made and most of the hate it still gets is leftover from it being the first big "backlash" movie of the internet age. It's also cheesy, but in a great way and it's still probably the most stunning technical achievement on film. Everything from the iceberg on is soooooo good. And the historical details are virtually perfect. IMO anyway. I will concede that the "present day" scenes are a misfire but it's like 10% of the movie.

I love Titanic (I also love Forest Gump, so fuck the haters). People who dislike Titanic should talk to people outside of the US, especially in the 3rd world. Titanic had incredible far reaching cultural influence outside of the Western world.

 

[JimiNutz]

I thought Argo was incredibly average.
Wouldn't go so far as to call it bad but didn't really think anything about that movie really stood out. No idea why it won.

 

[Kill3r7]

Crash is AWESOME near the boringness of

Even Gandhi has more happening and gandhi is a movie about a pacifist that has almost an hour more of duration than this shit

This man knows what's up.

 

[GorillaJu]

CRASH. Mediocrity distilled into film form.

 

[firehawk12]

Crash is definitely the worst Oscar winner of the last 30 years.

GAF Groupthink in overdrive with Crash.

Crash was a good film. I think it addressed its topic in a relatively mature way. it suggested that racism was institutionalised within cerain organisations (police) and wasn't limited to white/black binaries (Cheadle is as racist towards hispanics as Dillon is towards blacks, but Dillon uses it in an abhorrent manner).

It asks the question at the end if a good person can do bad things (and vice versa) and whether or not this is enough to forgive their actions, which even if they weren't handled THAT subtley here, are still univewrsal questions that art has struggled with for thousands of years.

I saw it at the cinema and have watched it several times since. It's far more profound than a lot of Oscar winners and carries the kind of self-justifying tone which is close to the liberal-white town of Hollywood. This is not a good thing, but it played its politics as well as it carried the theme through. Yes, it was Oscar-bait, but if that's where it was pitched, then who are we to argue at decsions made by film studios? Personally I'm sick of all the try-hard films coming out a this time of year, but that's the industry and schtick and self-promotion and PR is what they do.

It may not be the best Oscar winner of all time, but tell me that films like Titanic and Forrest Gump deserve it more? I don't think they do, but feel free to tank my point of view!

The problem is that it's a white Canadian perspective on race in America and it feels exactly like that. Tinged with racial stereotypes and appeasing to people with white guilt, it's perfect for the liberal audience to feel good about spending 2 hours watching a movie, but as a piece on race relations it's terrible and hamfisted. It makes the Hateful 8 and Django Unchained seem like subtle treatises on race.

 

[tolkir]

12 Years a Slave easily. Maybe if I was an american would be different.

I liked Crash a lot when I watched many years ago. I don't understand so much hate.

 

[AHA-Lambda]

Do keep in mind that virtually every other BP nominee that year, with the possible exception of The Tree of Life, was pretty unremarkable:

Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close
The Descendants
The Help
Hugo
Midnight in Paris
Moneyball
War Horse

I'd take half of those over the artist, especially Midnight in Paris, I really liked that

 

[GorillaJu]

A bunch of people having the same taste isn't groupthink. People shutting out outsiders and make shitty decisions in insular groups is groupthink.

 

[Gastone]

The Unforgiven, without a doubt. Bored me to tears

 

[MisterR]

I've always felt that putting a broadway musical on the big screen is one of least ambitious things you can do. For something as small scale as Chicago it's like shooting fish in a barrel.

This is my feeling as well. Chicago isn't a bad movie by any means. It's just unambitious, safe and unexceptional.

 

[MGrant]

I've seen:

Gone with the Wind
Casablanca
The Bridge on the River Kwai
West Side Story
My Fair Lady
The Sound of Music
Midnight Cowboy
Patton
The French Connection
The Godfather
The Sting
The Godfather Part II
One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest
Rocky
Annie Hall
Chariots of Fire
Gandhi
Amadeus
Rain Man
Driving Miss Daisy
Dances with Wolves
The Silence of the Lambs
Schindler's List
Forrest Gump
Braveheart
Titanic
Shakespeare in Love
American Beauty
Gladiator
A Beautiful Mind
Chicago
The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King
The Departed
No Country for Old Men
Slumdog Millionaire
The King's Speech
12 Years a Slave

Slumdog Millionaire is the worst. It was an okay way to pass the time as a movie, but I don't understand why it was as celebrated as it was, from a writing, acting, or photography standpoint. I thought Doubt, The Wrestler, Burn After Reading, Vicky Cristina Barcelona, and In Bruges were far more lasting and important films from that year.

 

[mclem]

I'm not much of a movie guy, and of the movies I do watch, not all that many are Oscar contenders.

Those I've seen:
Oliver!
Forrest Gump
Shakespeare in Love
Return of the King
The King's Speech


Of those, I'd say probably Shakespeare in Love is the weakest.

 

[gutter_trash]

Titanic, hands down

the characters in this movie are 1 dimensional cookie cutter character with zero depth

""uggggg I am the angry douche fiance, I am 1D aauuuggggg""

Titanic is crap

 

[gamz]

I really don't hate Titanic, but there had to have been a better movie released that year, right? I fell asleep at least 3 separate times trying to watch it, it's just so incredibly by-the-book boring to me.

Nah. Titanic is a stone cold classic. The only other movie that year was LA Confidential. It was between those two and they got it right. It was a return to the throwback epic and it was.

 

[bengraven]

Of the ones I've seen, The Departed is the one I will probably never see again.

Not a fan of Mark Wahlberg and the story just wasn't as good or compelling or FUN as a Scorcese film usually is.

 

[Eidan]

I honestly can't think of anything about 12 Years a Slave that I would call "mediocre". Direction, cinematography, acting, even the score, were all great. It was easily the best pick of the nominees that year, and honestly should have won more.

 

[Kill3r7]

The Unforgiven, without a doubt. Bored me to tears

Unforgiven when it came out in 1992 was the best west western in nearly 20 years. It is easily one of the best Westerns of all time. You might not like the genre but Unforgiven is an excellent film.