Part 3: Best Decade for Best Picture Winners?

 

Part One: https://cccmovies.blogspot.com/2025/02/what-is-best-decade-for-best-picture.html

Part Two: https://cccmovies.blogspot.com/2025/02/part-2-best-decade-for-best-picture.html

 

In this penultimate piece to solving the mystery of what decade has the greatest number of Best Picture winners, I will be covering the 1990s, 2000s, and 2010s, before evaluating the shortlist of candidates (the nominees, if you will!) and figuring out the winner. 

1990s Winners: 

 

Dances with Wolves (1990): D

The Silence of the Lambs (1991): D, H

Unforgiven (1992): D, H

Schindler’s List (1993): D, H

Forrest Gump (1994): F

Braveheart (1995): D, H

The English Patient (1996): F 

Titanic (1997): D, H

Shakespeare in Love (1998): F

American Beauty (1999): D

 

I’ve hit another decade I don’t need to do any research for! I’ll go through each year individually this time.

 

1990: I don’t think Dances with Wolves was undeserving of Best Picture, even though Goodfellas also deserved it, and in retrospect maybe the latter was more deserving, but I wouldn’t say Dances with Wolves holds up particularly well. It was important to changing the way Indigenous stories were told in film, but it also demonstrates the persisting issues, what with it all being from Kevin Costner’s perspective (in front of and behind the camera), perpetuating the white saviour trope that is now beyond outdated—scratch that, it was never in-dated.

1991: This is a super easy one. No other film deserved it more, no other Best Picture winner is as squarely in the horror/thriller genre, and you can ignore those who claim it’s outdated and problematic, because it’s not. Silence of the Lambs is easily one of the best of the Best Picture winners from this decade.

1992: I enjoyed Al Pacino in Scent of a Woman, but as a whole movie, it definitely isn’t better than Unforgiven, and no other nominee was that year, either. Unforgiven is the best western to win Best Picture, hands down.

1993: The Piano is a wonderful, beautiful film, and The Fugitive is a relentless thriller, but neither are even close to the level of Schindler’s List. Steven Spielberg’s Jurassic Park came out the same year, making this the greatest year of his entire career.

1994: This is one of the ultimate Oscars flubs—not just for the 90’s or for Best Picture, but across all years and all categories. Forrest Gump is not a bad movie. I still enjoy it, though it’s a bit schmaltzy, a bit self-indulgent, and a bit questionable in several regards. Does it hold up today? I suppose, but Best Picture? Had it been a year of middling entertainment, maybe, but it beat out Pulp Fiction and The Shawshank Redemption! Pulp Fiction remains one of Quentin Tarantino’s best movies, and Shawshank is simply one of the best movies…well, ever. Sometimes true greatness isn’t recognized until it’s in the rearview mirror, and that is clearly the case here.

1995: shoutouts to nominees Apollo 13 and Babe, but I can’t deny Braveheart is an epic historical drama that remains worthy of that Best Picture win.

1996: It is generally agreed that The English Patient is a very mid Best Picture winner—not bad, but not particularly memorable or unique. Fargo, on the other hand, from the Coen Brothers, is everything The English Patient is not. Even fellow nominee Jerry Maguire seemed more deserving of a win, but it probably should’ve gone to Fargo.

1997: After making strictly sci-fi/action/horror/adventure films for over fifteen years, James Cameron made a three-hour melodrama/disaster epic to secure his first Oscar win, and say what you will about Titanic, but it is epic, and unlike any other Best Picture winners from the 90’s. I could’ve seen Good Will Hunting winning in a different year, but I can’t disagree with Titanic being crowned the king.

1998: Oh dear…this is the year everyone asked the Academy what they were thinking. For some, this was the beginning of the end in terms of thinking the Oscars had any credibility, because how the hell did Shakespeare in Love, an okay historical romantic comedy at best, beat one of the greatest war films ever made? Saving Private Ryan is one of the most unflinching, hard-hitting WWII dramas ever conceived, and for Steven Spielberg to make something that good after already having made so many other great films? Even Elizabeth was more deserving of a win than Shakespeare in Love: a movie I do not like and would never watch again.

1999: One of the best years for film, and of the nominees that year, yeah, I think the best film won at the time. The Sixth Sense is great, The Green Mile is excellent, and the other two nominees I don’t know anything about, but American Beauty really did deserve it…except, does it hold up? Some say yes, others say no. I haven’t seen it since Kevin Spacey got the hook, but even before all that, many cited it as overrated, and given the subject matter, I do wonder if I could sit through it all again on a rewatch. I’m not calling it a flub, but in retrospect, maybe one of the other movies should’ve won instead...

 

Even with some controversies and some flubs, the 1990s are still going on the shortlist. There are some exceptional winners from this decade, but I don’t know if it will be able to stand against the 1970s in the final round of judgement.

 

2000s Winners: 

 

Gladiator (2000): D, H

A Beautiful Mind (2001): D, H

Chicago (2002): ?

The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King (2003): D, H

Million Dollar Baby (2004): ?

Crash (2005): F

The Departed (2006): D, H

No Country for Old Men (2007): D, H

Slumdog Millionaire (2008): ?

The Hurt Locker (2009): D, H

 

My Research: 

 

• I’ve already established I’m not a musical guy, but I learned Chicago is credited as one of the films to revitalize the genre in the 21^st century. I would’ve preferred seeing Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers or Gangs of New York take the trophy, but I won’t issue a flub

• Every movie nominated for the 77^th Academy Awards just looks like generic mid-2000s award bait, which I know is downplaying the true quality of some of them, but let’s just say Million Dollar Baby probably deserved the win that year and move on

• I know most feel Slumdog Millionaire deserved to win, but I haven’t seen the whole film, so couldn't just check it off the list, and I know very little about the other nominees that year, apart from The Curious Case of Benjamin Button
  

2000 was a pretty stacked year for films, and I don’t know if most would agree that Gladiator not only deserved to win but also holds up quite well today, however, if someone were to argue that another nominee deserved it more, like Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon or one of the two Steven Soderberg films (Traffic and Erin Brockovich—how the hell did he get two movies nominated in the same year? He’s only the third person ever to do so) I wouldn’t be that inclined to debate. I merely like Gladiator; I wouldn’t say I love it—and I would say the same about A Beautiful Mind, which I won’t call a flub because the finale to Peter Jackson’s Lord of the Rings trilogy won Best Picture only two years later, and nothing else that year was more deserving other than Fellowship of the Ring.

Even though it’s not my favourite movie from him, it was nice to see Martin Scorsese finally have one of his movies win Best Picture with The Departed, and the same can be said for the Coen Brothers with No Country for Old Men. At the time, I was peeved Avatar didn’t beat The Hurt Locker for Best Picture, and while I still wouldn’t say The Hurt Locker was overwhelmingly deserving of it, I don’t think it was an upset by any means. That was the weird year when there were ten nominees, so there were more than a few others that could be argued as more deserving—District 9, Up, or even Inglourious Basterds.

Many have said they will not forgive Crash beating Brokeback Mountain for Best Picture. I don’t like Crash—I think it’s very overrated, and I don’t blame anyone for thinking it’s one of the worst Best Picture winners in history. This debacle was the Shakespeare in Love of the 2000s. Even Steven Spielberg’s Munich winning instead of Brokeback Mountain would have been less controversial. I remember a funny video a few years back spoofing films that are obvious award bait. They could have just remade scenes from Crash and it would’ve been the same video.

This is another decade for the shortlist. There are a couple heavy hitters, to be sure, and only one definite undeserving winner.

 

2010s Winners: 

 

The King’s Speech (2010): F 

The Artist (2011): ?

Argo (2012): D

12 Years a Slave (2013): D, H

Birdman or (The Unexpected Virtue of Ignorance) (2014): D, H

Spotlight (2015): F

Moonlight (2016): ?  

The Shape of Water (2017): D

Green Book (2018): ?

Parasite (2019): D, H

 

My Research:

 

• I remembered it was a pretty big deal when The Artist came out and won, but I didn’t really recall any of the other nominees that year. There were a few good ones (and a couple questionable ones—I’m looking at you, The Help and Extremely Loud & Incredibly Close) but did The Artist deserve it? Does it hold up? I haven’t seen it, but I would say since it’s a throwback to the black-and-white silent era, it probably does, if that’s your thing

• Remember when La La Land was the Best Picture winner at the 89^th Academy Awards for a hot minute, then it was handed over to Moonlight? I haven’t seen Moonlight, but I wasn’t mad La La Land didn’t win, because I thought it was overhyped. It would’ve been cool if Arrival had won, but I put a question mark on this year because I’m unsure if Moonlight remains significant as the real Best Picture that year. A quick look indicates that, yes, it was, and still is, very significant

• Oh man, so people really don’t like Green Book, hey? A quick solution to racism is sort of how it’s talked about online, and compared to Black Panther, probably isn’t as significant to black people. I would’ve been happy with A Star is Born winning (I think it holds up) but I’m glad Bohemian Rhapsody didn’t win, even though I do like it in spite of all its flaws

I was surprised to learn The King’s Speech is really not well liked for its Best Picture win. I’ve never seen it, but a good friend of mine saw it the year it won and enjoyed it for what it was. I do understand where the discord comes from, though, when I look at the other nominees from that year: Black Swan (an excellent psychological thriller with elements of horror), True Grit (a fantastic remake that’s arguably better than the original), Toy Story 3 (probably one of the best third films in a franchise), 127 Hours (a very intense thriller), and then two of the heaviest hitters, for me, being The Social Network and Inception. Inception is one of my favourite movies of the 2010s, but I think the point here is literally any of the other nominees seemed more deserving than The King’s Speech.

I didn’t identify Argo as holding up because I saw it just the one time and don’t know if I need to ever see it again, and I don’t think I’m necessarily in the minority feeling that way. Weird thing that year: it won Best Picture, but lost Best Director for Ben Affleck to Ang Lee for Life of Pi. While there were many great movies released the following year, I think 12 Years a Slave beating out the rest of the competition was more than justified. It isn’t a movie I feel compelled to watch again, but not for any of the same reasons as with Argo. It is powerful and heartbreaking and difficult to endure. Whiplash is the only other 2014 film I would’ve accepted Birdman losing to. I get why Spotlight won the next year, and I don’t think it’s a bad film, but I have to call this one a flub. Room, The Martian, and The Revenant were all better, but the one that would’ve really shaken things up by taking the win: Mad Max: Fury Road, which is still lauded as a filmmaking feat, although to be honest I don’t know if it truly deserved Best Picture over all those other films.

I don’t think The Shape of Water is Guillermo del Toro’s best movie, but I see it as more of an honorary win to acknowledge his body of work, kind of like Leo winning Best Actor for The Revenant. I’d say it deserved the win, but I have to say, I’ve had little desire to watch it again, unlike many of del Toro’s other films. Other nominees I think could have won it that year instead and would hold up as winners include Dunkirk, Get Out, and Lady Bird. For 2019, though, once I saw Parasite, I knew there was no other movie more deserving of Best Picture.

In spite of three pretty notable flubs, I’m still putting this most recent decade into consideration for best, just because the winners are really excellent films. I may be doing this with a bit of recency bias and personal bias seeing as I saw most of these films either in the years they were released or soon after, but I think the quality of the films supersedes these biases.

Tune in next time for the final installment in this Oscars miniseries, in which I evaluate the four decades that have made the shortlist and vote on the winner for Best Decade of Best Pictures!