The Best Decade for Best Picture Winners is...? (Part 4 - Conclusion)

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

Part Three: https://cccmovies.blogspot.com/2025/02/part-3-best-decade-for-best-picture.html

 

Since we’re only halfway through the 2020s, I’m not going to count the current years among the competing ones. But, just for fun, let’s have a quick peek before we get to the Best Decade nominees.

2020s winners (so far): Nomadland (2020), CODA (2021), Everything Everywhere All at Once (2022), Oppenheimer (2023)

In the year that saw more wide releases delayed than ever before, Nomadland came out on top, and even only a few years later, people look back at it with apathy…or, is it CODA from the following year that gets retroactive shrugs? The point I’m making is neither one will likely go down as an all-time Best Picture standout, and nothing else from either year seemed particularly more deserving. Everything Everywhere All at Once, however, certainly will be remembered as a unique winner. It may be the only time this decade when my favourite movie of the year is one of the oddest and most distinctive to be released and it also wins the top honour. Oppenheimer was a solid win, and I haven’t seen Killers of the Flower Moon yet, but I don’t think that many people were upset it lost.

Now it is time to determine a winner! The decades in running for best are: 

 

2010s

The King’s Speech (2010)

The Artist (2011)

Argo (2012)

12 Years a Slave (2013)

Birdman or (The Unexpected Virtue of Ignorance) (2014)

Spotlight (2015)

Moonlight (2016)

The Shape of Water (2017)

Green Book (2018)

Parasite (2019)

 

2000s 

Gladiator (2000)

A Beautiful Mind (2001)

Chicago (2002)

The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King (2003)

Million Dollar Baby (2004)

Crash (2005)

The Departed (2006)

No Country for Old Men (2007)

Slumdog Millionaire (2008)

The Hurt Locker (2009) 

 

1990s 

Dances with Wolves (1990)

The Silence of the Lambs (1991)

Unforgiven (1992)

Schindler’s List (1993)

Forrest Gump (1994)

Braveheart (1995)

The English Patient (1996)

Titanic (1997)

Shakespeare in Love (1998)

American Beauty (1999)

 

1970s 

Patton (1970)

The French Connection (1971)

The Godfather (1972)

The Sting (1973)

The Godfather Part II (1974)

One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest (1975)

Rocky (1976)

Annie Hall (1977)

The Deer Hunter (1978)

Kramer vs. Kramer (1979) 

 

Starting with the 1970s, I’m surprised there are still so many good winners even with how many equally great (or even better) films were snubbed. The Sting and Annie Hall are what keep this from being a clearcut winner, I feel. If The Exorcist and Star Wars had won instead, yeah, this could easily be the best decade, but let’s keep in mind it still has two Godfather films, plus an uplifting boxing drama, a couple of great war films, one of the best Jack Nicholson lead performances, and a revelatory crime thriller.

The 1990s has only a couple duds, with Shakespeare in Love and The English Patient, but the high level of quality combined with a variety of pictures does make it stand out. We have the one and only horror film in Oscars history to win, the only Clint Eastwood western to win, director Steven Spielberg’s only film to win top honors, and a few notable historical epics, as well. In retrospect, this was a pretty significant decade for Best Pictures.

I think the 2000s has even the 90’s beat for variety. First, a sword-and-sandals historical action drama, then a biographical drama, followed by a truly amazing conclusion to a trilogy of fantasy epics to end all fantasy epics, then a boxing drama, one major flub, a crime thriller that’s actually one of the best remakes of the decade, a neo-western thriller that almost feels like a precursor to Breaking Bad, a unique drama, and finally a war film that switches up the usual settings of Vietnam or the World Wars for Iraq. Does variety translate to the most widespread greatness, though?

The 2010s has variety, too, but it also has a few somewhat disposable winners, with The King’s Speech, Green Book, and even Spotlight. I liked Spotlight, I think it’s worth seeing, but it isn’t really something to be watched again and again and analyzed too deeply. What this decade has going for it is the impact each unique film has, whether it’s the unrelenting-looks-like-one-take Birdman or the first-ever foreign language winner, Parasite. 12 Years a Slave is a historical drama unlike any other winner from any of these decades, and The Shape of Water remains unique for being a dark fantasy that is also a period piece and a romance. Though these films are the most recent bunch, I think it’s still worth noting what each winner means to cinema, as a whole.

I’m going to evaluate these movies in three different ways: first, I’m going to give the Rotten Tomatoes score, which I don’t usually take that seriously anymore, but it’s still a valid form of evaluation. Then, I’m going to give the IMDB user rating, to give a sense of what non-critics think. Finally, I’m going to put in my own two cents (if I’ve seen it), and resort to the old Siskel and Ebert thumbs up or thumbs down. Then, we can finally determine what decade wins.

 

1970s

 

Patton (1970) RT: 92 % IMDB: 7.9/10 CCC: N/A	One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest (1975) RT: 93 % IMDB: 8.7/10 CCC: 👍
The French Connection (1971) RT: 97 % IMDB: 7.7/10 CCC: 👍	Rocky (1976) RT: 93 % IMDB: 8.1/10 CCC: 👍
The Godfather (1972) RT: 97 % IMDB: 9.2/10 CCC: 👍	Annie Hall (1977) RT: 97 % IMDB: 7.9/10 CCC: 👎
The Sting (1973) RT: 93 % IMDB: 8.3/10 CCC: 👎	The Deer Hunter (1978) RT: 86 % IMDB: 8.1/10 CCC: N/A
The Godfather Part II (1974) RT: 96 % IMDB: 9.0/10 CCC: 👍	Kramer vs. Kramer (1979) RT: 90 % IMDB: 7.8/10 CCC: N/A

 

1990s

 

Dances with Wolves (1990) RT: 87 % IMDB: 8.0/10 CCC: 👍	Braveheart (1995) RT: 76 % IMDB: 8.3/10 CCC: 👍
The Silence of the Lambs (1991) RT: 95 % IMDB: 8.6/10 CCC: 👍	The English Patient (1996) RT: 86 % IMDB: 7.4/10 CCC: N/A
Unforgiven (1992) RT: 96 % IMDB: 8.2/10 CCC: 👍	Titanic (1997) RT: 88 % IMDB: 7.9/10 CCC: 👍
Schindler’s List (1993) RT: 98 % IMDB: 9/10 CCC: 👍	Shakespeare in Love (1998) RT: 92 % IMDB: 7.1/10 CCC: 👎
Forrest Gump (1994) RT: 75 % IMDB: 8.8/10 CCC: 👍	American Beauty (1999) RT: 8.7/10 IMDB: 8.3/10 CCC: 👎

 

2000s

 

Gladiator (2000) RT: 80 % IMDB: 8.5/10 CCC: 👍	Crash (2005) RT: 73 % IMDB: 7.7/10 CCC: 👎
A Beautiful Mind (2001) RT: 74 % IMDB: 8.2/10 CCC: 👍	The Departed (2006) RT: 91 % IMDB: 8.5/10 CCC: 👍
Chicago (2002) RT: 87 % IMDB: 7.2/10 CCC: N/A	No Country for Old Men (2007) RT: 93 % IMDB: 8.2/10 CCC: 👍
The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King (2003) RT: 94 % IMDB: 9.0/10 CCC: 👍	Slumdog Millionaire (2008) RT: 91 % IMDB: 8.0/10 CCC: N/A
Million Dollar Baby (2004) RT: 90 % IMDB: 8.1/10 CCC: N/A	The Hurt Locker (2009) RT: 96 % IMDB: 7.5/10 CCC: 👍

 

2010s 

 

The King’s Speech (2010) RT: 94 % IMDB: 8.0/10 CCC: N/A	Spotlight (2015) RT: 97 % IMDB: 8.1/10 CCC: 👍
The Artist (2011) RT: 95 % IMDB: 7.8/10 CCC: N/A	Moonlight (2016) RT: 98 % IMDB: 7.4/10 CCC: N/A
Argo (2012) RT: 96 % IMDB: 7.7/10 CCC: 👍	The Shape of Water (2017) RT: 92 % IMDB: 7.3/10 CCC: 👍
12 Years a Slave (2013) RT: 95 % IMDB: 8.1/10 CCC: 👍	Green Book (2018) RT: 77 % IMDB: 8.2/10 CCC: N/A
Birdman or (The Unexpected Virtue of Ignorance) (2014) RT: 91 % IMDB: 7.7/10 CCC: 👍	Parasite (2019) RT: 99 % IMDB: 8.5/10 CCC: 👍

 

1970s TOTAL SCORE: 180.1/207 = 87.0 %

 

1990s TOTAL SCORE: 175.6/209 = 84.0 %

 

2000s TOTAL SCORE: 156.3/207 = 75.5 %

 

2010s TOTAL SCORE: 178.2/205 = 86.9 %

 

I did not think it would come this close! Winning by only 0.1 %, the 1970s has come out on top as the definitive best decade for Best Picture winners! I know my formula wasn’t perfect, but I’m not that shocked by the results. I didn’t really think the 2000s had a shot, what with the generally lower scores for some of those flub wins, but I did think the 1990s would score a bit higher than it did. The 2010s had some seriously high individual scores, but collectively, the 1970s just could not be beaten. I think that’s what happens when you have the combined powers of two Godfather movies, plus the fact that every single winner, really, is a classic film in its own right.

It’s also telling that the winning decade is the only decade out of all of them with a sequel that won Best Picture. As great as The Godfather Part II is, its success really did send a message to Hollywood and set the tone for sequels and remakes to come—not that either were new ideas, but the idea of branding a movie that way (Part II) hadn’t really been done before, and I think that led to what we now see with the segregation of new movies each year: there are the big blockbusters, the sequels, remakes, reboots, and rehashes that make huge amounts of money, and then there are the “awards” films, which are smaller, standalone, and more back to the roots of great filmmaking, as far as how those kinds of films get branded, with intentions to play to what has become cliché for the Academy to pick as the year’s best. The lines are beginning to blur, because there are just too many new movies these days for something like the Academy Awards to really capture the greatest of them all, in my opinion. Maybe, as filmmaking has evolved in the 21^st century, it’s time for the Oscars to evolve, too. Otherwise, extinction seems like a real possibility…

So, what is your favourite decade for Best Picture winners? Is it the 1970s, or another set of 10 films? I’m still unsure if I would say the 70’s is my own personal pick here. I wouldn’t say it’s the 2000s or 2010s, even though I love so many of those films individually, but as a body of work that balances different genres and styles, I think the 90’s might be my favourite, because you get some historical stuff, some epic stuff, a horror movie, a western, and some comedy in certain winners, too. This was a fun project to research and think about, and maybe one day I will revisit and re-evaluate the decades of winners as I watch more Best Pictures and we have the entirety of the 2020s to consider, as well.