In discussing the whole Dark Knight paradigm, or any potential Best Picture contender the question always comes up: What should make up the five Best Picture nominees by the Academy at year’s end?
I was quite sick of hearing my own self think, so I reached out to others who might have a better idea. Some of the answers are short and to the point, others are more in depth. I think you’ll find the discussion interesting. The answers after the jump.
Anthony Breznican, USA Today
This is a good question: What is “Best” supposed to mean? To me, the best (that word again) way to describe it is by acknowledging how hard it is to define. The best runner is the one who crosses the finish line first. The best PICTURE? … Far more subjective and slippery. So the best film must be the one that makes the question irrelevant; it’s the one that makes you sit up in your seat and say, “This is the best picture I’ve seen this year!” without the need for hand-wringing, politicking, or for-your-consideration ads. It’s the movie that surprises, takes risks, tries to say something from the heart, and walks out of the theater with you and, ideally, stays by your side a long time. The best picture is the one you can have the longest conversation about at dinner afterward. The best picture is the one that you could watch again right away as soon as the credits end. The best picture is the one that makes you say “Wow” the loudest.
Damien Bona, author of Inside Oscar and Inside Oscar II:
The Best Picture race should be about my five favorite movies of the year so right now the frontrunners would be “Paranoid Park,” “Flight of the Red Balloon” and “Les Chansons d’amour.”
But, seriously, I think the finalists for Best Picture should not be necessarily the most critically acclaimed films of the year, nor the most popular. Instead, they should be those that people who work in the Hollywood film industry honestly consider the foremost films of the year. These are the people who make up the bulk of the Academy membership and I want voters to be true to themselves – and their instincts for liberal humanism.
Thus, when the nominees include movies generally dismissed films by critics or cineastes there shouldn’t be wailing and the gnashing of teeth. Whether the Academy’s choices intersect those of film critics or exist in parallel universes is irrelevant. Victories by a “Gladiator” or a “Crash” and nominations for the likes of “Finding Neverland” and “The Green Mile” – films which weren’t exactly critical favorites – provide a mirror to the mind-set of those in the industry. And that’s a good thing, and as it should be. For instance, “The Greatest Show On Earth” is generally disparaged as the worst Best Picture winner ever, but I love how its Oscar success encapsulates the political, cultural and social milieu of Hollywood in early 1953.
What I find disheartening is when buzz indicates that a film is probably not all that well-liked in the industry, but scores a nomination because of an aggressive Oscar push (eg, “Gangs Of New York”) or because it has a certain snob cachet due to intense aggrandizement by some strident film reviewers (eg, “There Will Be Blood”).
In short, the Best Picture race should be about the five movies a plurality of the Academy truly thinks are the year’s finest.
David Carr, NY Times, The Carpetbagger, author of The Night of the Gun
Best picture should embody the magic of the craft, with everyone involved, most especially the director at the height of his or her powers. It should be the kind of movie that is so good that it brings both civilians and the critical vanguard together.
Scott Foundas, LA Weekly
Your question, I fear, is no more answerable than a Zen koan, because, of course, the very idea of a “best” (which you quite appropriately put in quotes) picture is so subjective/negotiable, while even the “ideal” notion a “best” picture depends entirely on who you’re asking. I suppose an agent or manager–and probably many a studio executive–would tell you that the “best” picture of any given year is, if not the single highest-grossing (because, surely, few would be crass enough to think that SHREK 3, PIRATES 3 or SPIDER-MAN 3 should take home the Oscar), one of the more profitable films that can be deemed at least partly respectable. On rare occasions, the obvious “best” picture from the industry standpoint–TITANIC, LORD OF THE RINGS–is also the year’s monster grosser. But even in other years, the movie that goes home with Oscar is almost always the highest-grossing of the five that get nominated.
Ask a critic what the “best” picture of the year was and you’re likely to hear the name of some obscure experimental film or a five-hour, black-and-white political drama from Poland. That, of course, always leads to grousing from some pundits (albeit nobody even remotely connected with Awards Daily) that critics are elitists terminally removed from the taste of “ordinary moviegoers.” To which I can only say: Guilty as charged! The notion that the opinions of a critic–who, if he or she is doing his job properly, sees a few hundred movies a year–should align with those of a moviegoer who may see no more than a couple of dozen movies a year is so preposterous that one wonders how it ever came about in the first place. Of course, you might also ask a critic what the best picture of the year is and hear THE DARK KNIGHT, which might in turn send some of those very same pundits into a tailspin.
If we’re talking specifically about the Oscars (as I assume we are), it’s that old Hollywood conundrum: Most of the suits–and a great many of the filmmakers who work at the studio level–view movies primarily as a business from which they hope to make heaps of money. But because they also feel guilty about the heaps of money they make (which has lead to the creation of an entire sub-genre of Hollywood movies about people of great wealth who, by some act of divine intervention, learn how the other half lives and, in turn, how empty/meaningless their lives really are), these same people like to talk about the “art of cinema” and, every once in a while, to make a movie that isn’t targeted entirely at hormonal teenagers with wads of disposable income. As the critic David Thomson points out in the introduction to his very fine new book, HAVE YOU SEEN…? (an excerpt of which appears in this week’s L.A. Weekly), this exact dilemma was present right at the founding of the Academy, which, in its first year (1928) gave two different Best Picture awards–one for “outstanding picture” to the WWI aviation drama WINGS, and one for “unique and artistic picture” to F.W. Murnau’s SUNRISE. The first was a popular hit that stayed in theaters for over a year–call it the TITANIC of its day. The second has endured as one of the masterpieces of the cinema, even managing to land a place in the coveted IMDB top 250, no matter that it lags a couple hundred places behind the likes of THE MATRIX and THE SHAWSHANK REDEMPTION.
But already by 1930, the Academy decided that “best” picture should be a monolithic entity, and the results since then have, simply put, tilted in the direction of the “outstanding” rather than the “unique and artistic.” “Unique and artistic” may get you a nomination (for recent examples, see THE PIANO, LEAVING LAS VEGAS, THE THIN RED LINE and THERE WILL BE BLOOD), but those are the cases for which the phrase “great just to be nominated” seems to have been invented. So, to divine the “best,” you end up with this unholy algorithm of box-office success added to critical plaudits, multiplied by some vague sense of sociopolitical relevancy, and divided by that mysterious “x” factor also known as career appreciation. I’m not going to list here all of the cases in which some cinematic landmark has been bested for Best Picture by a movie that, even at the time, seemed less than classic but which somehow jibed with the cultural moment or allowed the Academy to recognize some long-overdue Oscar bridesmaid. And who knows? Maybe there is someone out there who really does think IN THE HEAT OF THE NIGHT is a better movie than BONNIE AND CLYDE, much as I suspect he would hesitate to raise his voice in a crowded room.
Funny enough, just a few hours before I received your email, I was having a conversation with a publicist from a prominent mini-major distributor, who was trying to convince me that the Academy was getting hipper to the times, because “a decade ago, a movie like NO COUNTRY FOR OLD MEN would never have won Best Picture.” “A movie like NO COUNTRY” was this publicist’s euphemism for a bleak, violent movie with an unresolved ending. And that’s the kind of conventional wisdom that, before you know it, gets turned into a Sunday Arts feature by a newspaper editor who knows less about movies than the average publicist. Of course, you can look back a lot further than a decade to find bleak, violent, morally ambiguous movies like UNFORGIVEN, THE SILENCE OF THE LAMBS, PLATOON, THE DEER HUNTER, et al., all of which, to some extent, took home Best Picture because their time had come. Some were even, arguably, the “best” pictures of their respective years, but as with so much about the Oscars, that seems almost irrelevant. Awarding UNFORGIVEN was a way of telling Clint Eastwood that the industry took him seriously as a filmmaker, while lauding SILENCE sent a memo to horror filmmakers that they were no longer the Elijahs at the Academy’s table. The Oscar for Platoon said that we had finally come to terms with Vietnam as it was experienced by the soldiers on the ground, just as THE DEER HUNTER had acknowledged the war’s impact on the homefront. I’m sure nobody knows better than the movie-mad Martin Scorsese that his Best Picture (and Best Director) Oscar came for one of his most proficient but least interesting films, because one more snub and he’d have turned into the Academy’s own Susan Lucci. And while I may think NO COUNTRY FOR OLD MEN is one of the Coen brothers’ best films, I’m also of the mind that they would have won last year even if they had directed THE DEPARTED (but not BURN AFTER READING). After getting invited to the dance for BARTON FINK and almost but not quite making it into the winner’s circle with FARGO, their number was up, lest they become the new Martin Scorsese.
Best Picture at the Oscars also comes with another important caveat: The award really ought to be called “Best American Picture,” because despite the handful of foreign-language films that have managed to eke out nominations over the years, the Oscars in general and Best Picture in particular are mainly a way for the American film industry to pat itself on the back for a job well done. Foreign films are no more present for the average Oscar voter than they are for the average American moviegoer, and so it’s only fitting that those few foreign pictures that have captured the Academy’s heart–CROUCHING TIGER, LIFE IS BEAUTIFUL, IL POSTINO–are the ones made in such a recognizable Hollywood idiom that they scarcely need subtitles. This wouldn’t be relevant were it not for the fact that the Academy fancies itself a global institution, with its token (and reliably short-sighted) foreign-language award and its much-ballyhooed global broadcast in some triple-digit number of countries. Take, for comparison purposes, the annual European Film Awards, an event that would very much like to be considered the Oscars of Europe. When I attended that ceremony for the first time last winter, I found it in some ways just as absurd as its transatlantic counterpart, and yet the differences between the two ceremonies were striking: At the EFAs, the winners really did represent a diverse cross-section of contemporary world cinema. (The big winner that night was the Oscar-ignored 4 MONTHS, 3 WEEKS AND 2 DAYS.) The acceptance speeches were pithy, concise and generally lacking in tawdry emotion and gratuitous self-indulgence. The badly scripted comic banter of the hosts, while not completely eradicated, was kept to bare minimum. And instead of splashy, overproduced production numbers, the musical entertainment was provided by the pompadoured Finnish rock band known as the Leningrad Cowboys. As one well-known European filmmaker said to me that night with a mixture of envy and disgust, “To put on a show like the Oscars, you have to be convinced that you’re living in the center of the world.” Fair enough, but the fact remains that, just as Hollywood movies dominate the local box office in most foreign markets, the Oscars are watched by a great many more television viewers around the world than the European Film Awards.
All of which, I suppose, begs the question: Why spend so much time thinking and talking about the Oscars if they’re just one elaborate parlor game? The answer is that, frustratingly, the Oscars do occasionally get things (Best Picture included) right. And even when they don’t, they still matter in the sense that an Oscar win–even a nomination–can bring so many more viewers to a movie than might have seen it otherwise. It can also do marvelous things for a filmmaker’s career. The Best Picture nomination last year for THERE WILL BE BLOOD in some way legitimized a movie that, up to that point, was hovering precariously between being the pet enthusiasm of those darn obscurantist critics and a bonafide new American classic. When Mike Leigh’s SECRETS & LIES was nominated in 1996, it put Leigh (who had already been making movies for 25 years at that time) on the radar of American audiences in a way he had never been before, and the movie itself went on to become the highest-grossing, worldwide, of his entire career. Whether the Academy deserves to wield such power is another question entirely–one that could just as soon be asked of the American Film Institute, the IMDB, or any of the other sacrosanct organizations whose lists of “best” films are accepted by so many as statements of fact. And I think you know that I speak as someone who believes the Oscars are nothing to spend weeks and months soothsaying about. But the point is that the Academy’s power is real, and even if it has seen its TV ratings slipping as of late, it will not soon be abdicating its throne. So we watch–even if from a careful remove–and wonder and hope that, every once in a while, the stars will perfectly align.
Mark Harris, NY Times, author of Pictures at a Revolution
What should the best picture race be about? The most popular movie of the year? No. If you believe that, go stand in the corner. Or go sit in the press room of the People’s Choice Awards, where you can complain that the Academy robbed “Spider-Man 3″ and “Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man’s Chest” of the top prize. (Although this year, I would be very happy to see “The Dark Knight” in the final five.) The most critically acclaimed? About 856 different film critics’ circles seem to have that covered–and I don’t think their track records are all that much better than the Academy’s. The most successful at meeting the goals it sets for itself? No, because what if those goals are mediocre? Execution counts for more than anything, but I don’t think you can ignore ambition, degree of difficulty, originality of approach, or deeper cultural resonance. If I were a voter looking at the final five, I’d ask myself which movie I was most held by while I was watching it, which movie stayed with me the longest, and which movie I most wanted to see again. And if I came up with three different answers, I’d probably allow the movie that stayed with me the longest to break the tie.
Dave Karger, EW:
I like to think of the Best Picture nominees as the five movies that would go in a time capsule to be unearthed 100 years from now. They should be the five movies that define the year. Not necessarily the movies that the most people saw, but the ones the most people will remember.
Tom O’Neil, Gold Derby, author of Movie Awards
Ideally, the best picture race should NOT be about the most critically acclaimed pic because we can’t trust the critics. That group is too heavily male (more than 80 percent) and too often blinded by testosterone rushes, damning great sentimental flicks as gooey chick flicks, etc.. When they form mysterious gangs, they can go trotting off in bizarre directions like the year they all picked “Mulholland Drive” for best picture. Jeeez, even its director David Lynch admitted he didn’t know what the hell that movie was all about. We can’t let the box office decide what’s best picture either or else we’ll end up next February with “Beverly Hills Chihuahua” being top dog at the Kodak Theater. So can’t we all just agree to leave the decision to Sasha? That’s fine by me. Then “Dark Knight” will slay all rivals, including, hallelujah, that winy lil Chihuahua.
All of our Oscar bloggers are fools because we’re chasing something that doesn’t exist. We know, really, deep down, that there’s no such thing as a best picture. Only once in the history of showbiz awards have all of the major industry awards — the Oscars, Globes, guilds and critics kudos — agreed that, yes, this is the best picture of the year. It was 1993: “Schindler’s List.” However, that same year the People’s Choice Award — which was still decided by national Gallop Poll back then — went to a different Spielberg flick, “Jurassic Park.” So just when all Hollywood finally made up its damn mind and said, yes, a best picture does exist and this is it, the rest of America piped in and said, “Wrong!”
So it’s all up to you from now on, Sasha. That means we can finally shut down all these Oscar websites and I can stop blogging and go back to what’s really important: watching my “Sweeney Todd” and “Dreamgirls” DVDs.
David Poland, Movie City News:
“Ideal” doesn’t exist in a popularity contest. I think there is a percentage of Academy members who think of “best” the way a film critic does, but even critics prioritize based on things like popularity and ambition. But it is different things to each person, as in any conversation. These 6000 people give an award, a snapshot in time that even
they would often change a year or more later. There is no “best,” except for each of us.
Kris Tapley, In Contention
I think ideally, Best Picture is exactly what it says. But that’s really utopian. Subjectivity is a real issue that will always get in the way of defining a “best” film in a given year. What we’re left with is an opportunity to showcase milestone achievements or, in the right circumstances, time capsule representations of the season. I definitely don’t think that “best” should ever translate to most critically acclaimed or even most popular, but in the case of the Academy, it should be the honest majority “winner” of some 6,000+ opinions that are, themselves (and again, ideally), taken seriously. As if, right? But ideally, the Academy takes its role seriously and leaves politics and buzz at the door in favor of the easy task: picking the film that was the most expertly crafted achievement of the year throughout they various films the AMPAS chooses to recognize.
But that’s like Halley’s Comet.
No Response for "How Do You Define Best Picture?"
In its 80 year history (5 Best picture nominees every year & add the few years in the 30’s that had 10 or 2 years that even had 12 nominees) you get about 450 films nominated for Best Picture.
In the same 80 year span if you take the 5 Best films from each year by consensus what those films might be if conducted through a wide-range poll, film history, criticism, etc. you will get a very different list from the film’s that got nominated for Best Picture.
More or less it’s safe to say that at least one Best Picture nominee from every year of the Academy’s history is either a classic, a loved film on some scale, a film that enjoyed success one way or another.
With the politics of the Oscars it’s nearly impossible to get the 5 Best films to be nominated in a very lucky year you’ll get 3. Last year for example in my opinion and mapping out the consensus amongst film reviewers, IMDB votes: No Country for Old Men, There will be Blood, The Bourne Ultimatum, The Diving Bell & the Butterfly, & Into the Wild. 2 out of 5 Best Picture nominees with Juno fitting not too far behind the above mentioned films as being widely appreciated by audiences, great reviews, high imdb rating.
the academy usually likes to have at least 1 uplifting film in the best picture category..another can be a british fil, an epic..a biography…but in general..all 5 films are critically acclaimed more so than being big money makers..this year..diversity is evident in the choices..2 broadway plays brought to the screen..2 novels..an original epic.and a biography…6 films in contention…doubt, frost/ nixon..revolutionary road. the curious case of benjamin button, australia, and milk…outside chances include..avante garde..the wrestler, slumdog millionaire..rachel getting married..and for popular entertainment..the dark knight may get a nod……it will all fall into place soon..as the releases come out….i actually think that the 5 best picture contenders havent been released as of yet..
“Leaving Las Vegas” wasn’t nominated for Best Picture, Scott Foundas.
I like Damien Bona’s answer the best. It doesn’t matter which films made the most money, were most popular or were best loved by the critics. They should vote on whatever the hell they liked the best. Art is subjective, and besides, I’m used to my favorite films of the year being ignored by the Academy (last year, with Blood and No Country, was an aberration). We can never know which films will be cherished in the future so all we can do now is support what we love and hope for the best.
The rather tattered concept of Best Picture is about as quaint as referring to movies as “pictures.” Clearly the idea of a definitive “Best” is constantly evolving and easily dismantled, especially when measured against populist attitudes like “I don’t know art but I know what I like,” and “I know art when I see it.” (Or am I thinking of porn?)
In a niche culture of iPod cocooning, we can each find justification for our own personal definition of best, and it’s hard to argue otherwise. (er, yeah… does somebody smell BS? This is like an essay question on a test I forgot to study for.) I guess my point is, there are plenty of respected lists and prizes now honoring a multitude of Bests to affirm and reassure every demographic – from louts to elites – and I’m happy with that arrangement.
But since the Oscars have come to represent American taste to the world, now more than ever I hope that we put our best face forward. Or at least our best façade. So my only request for “the best” is that it can stand proudly alongside the best of the best that Oscar has already recognized in its distinguished past. When AMPAS votes for Best Picture I hope they consider which films belong on pedestals next to All About Eve, The Godfather, Casablanca and Lawrence of Arabia. All I ask is that the Academy please try to keep the standards higher than the bar set by Dancing Wolves and The Greatest Gump on Earth.
(As an alternative to EW’s Oscar recall vote, some of the lesser Best Picture winners should be required to mud wrestle to see who gets to stay. Rocky vs. Marty. Mrs. Miniver vs. Miss Daisy. Gladiator vs. Braveheart. Gandhi vs. Gigi.)
The respect that Oscar voters expect can only be earned by the consistent quality of the choices they make. Over the past few years they’ve been doing a fairly spectacular job — but maybe that’s just because they’ve had a spectacular array of films to choose from.
Scanning down 81 years of Oscar’s highs and lows, I can say assuredly that whatever “best” used to be, thank god it’s not the same thing now. And whatever it is now, I look forward to seeing what it becomes in the future.
The best picture nominees need to play with contrast, 5 ideas reflecting mood of the year from different locations, visual agents contributing film history and most important trying new things.
So the 5 spots should belong for
A story for the masses. That flick that everybody knows and likes
A revolutionary. The fitter of tomorrow trends (narrative-technical)
A stylish expression. In charge of give pleasure by contemplation
A statement. Maybe rebel, maybe brave. Freedom expression
A story for the soul. 2 hour experience (aprox) full feeling situation.
In regards to Tom O Neil’s comments, regarding how Jurassic Park won the People’s Choice awards the year Hollywood made up its mind that Schindler’s List was the best damn movie of the year, I have to take the rare position of defending it.
Now, I’m not an idiot. I wouldn’t figuratively stand here and say that Jurassic Park is a better movie than Schindler’s List. Schindler’s List is a more important film, a more technically adept film, and ultimately,a worthier story to be told. A story that needed telling, by a director who finally found the bravery to tell it. (Although I think it makes for an interesting discussion that, in fact, both films had the same director). But in regards to Jurassic Park, that movie was pure cinematic magic. I was a child when I first saw it-young as can be-and before you dismiss my opinion because of that, I have an important point to make. Jurassic Park is the first movie I can remember seeing. And I do remember it-vividly. I remember seeing the dinosaurs brought to screen, and suddenly being given the belief that if a movie can do that, it can do anything. But I also remember being gripped, held tight, and never let go by the story.
So, while Tom O Neil made a sort of ironic point how the one time Hollywood agreed on the “best” film of the year, the “people” didn’t, I think Jurassic Park is worthy. Its up there. No, its not about the Holocaust, nor is it Spielberg at his best or bravest. But it IS a damn good movie, in the sense that it takes unflinching advantage of the medium of film in telling a damn good story.
Obviously, there is no such thing as a Best Picture. But in terms of the awards giving body that comes closest- in my view- to annually naming the film that truly stands the test of time, nothing holds a candle to the NEW YORK FILM CRITICS CIRCLE (NYFCC). Their longevity is nearly that of the Oscars and nearly every film honored by the NYFCC is capsule worthy. You can’t say that of the AMPAS.
Just look at the list of the NYFCC’s Best Picture winners from the past two decades:
1990: GoodFellas*
1991: The Silence of the Lambs*
1992: The Player
1993: Schindler’s List*
1994: Quiz Show
1995: Leaving Las Vegas
1996: Fargo*
1997: L.A. Confidential
1998: Saving Private Ryan*
1999: Topsey- Turvey
2000: Traffic*
2001: Mulholland Dr.
2002: Far from Heaven
2003: The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King*
2004: Sideways
2005: Brokeback Mountain*
2006: United 93*
2007: No Country for Old Men
With the exceptions of ’94 and ’99- popular consensus has come to favor “Pulp Fiction”/”Shawshank” and “American Beauty”/“Being John Malkovich”- that’s a highly respectable list. Far better then the Academy’s in my opinion in terms of reflecting soon-to-be-classics.
I’ve placed a star next to the films that- through the combo of friends, word-of-mouth, critical reviews, internet posts, those studied in college curriculums, overhearing strangers in the video store- seem to be regarded as the definitive films of their respective years.
It comes down to this, in 1941 AMPAS picked “How Green was By Valley” for Best Picture… the NYFCC picked “Citizen Kane”.
Interesting discussion. I think of it a lot like Karger, sort of a forward-looking historical perspective. At least, I think that’s how I’d vote, though hopefully, I’d end up with five nominees that match Carr’s description. I’ve always wondered if the lineup would be different if the category was Picture of the Year, more concretely rooting it in its time, ala the Grammys.
Boy, Foundas had a case of logorrhea, didn’t he? Just kidding, it was all interesting!
rms, not only does your list make an overall classier and more prestigious collection than the one AMPAS decided to assemble, it seems that most of the films you chose fulfill another aspect of what we might demand from our “best” — each of your movies is a really excellent representation of the mood and attitude prevalent the year it was made. Perfectly mirrors its era. The same way On the Waterfront crystallizes the 1950’s, and Annie Hall captures the 70’s.
The best of the Best Pictures all do this. Patton reverberates with Vietnam. Midnight Cowboy vibes with the sexual revolution. Rebecca reflects the uneasy confrontation of malevolent threats in 1940. No Country for Old Men faces an even more sociopathic threat decades later — and concludes with an Epic Fail.
Cinefanatic, I completely agree with you. To me, Spielberg hit a goldmine with Schindler’s List & Jurassic Park that year. Is Schindler the BETTER movie (intellectually/more important) … sure, and I think it was pretty darn amazing. Worthy of many nominations & awards.
But Jurassic Park shook me to my core. The magic, the scope, the story, the special effects, the set designs, sound, the incredible musical score, the action, the suspense, the likeable characters, it all encapsulated … for me … the ULTIMATE movie-going experience. I mean, we are talking movies here, right? To me, the best picture that year, by a margin, was Jurassic Park.
So no, I don’t think that every Indie flick or important film (Schindler) deserves an AUTOMATIC spot in the Top 5. If they are THAT good, then you can’t ignore it. But there have been some pretty awesome, non-intellectual movies over the years that should have made the cut, and didn’t (because they weren’t echelon movies).
Critical aclaim has everything to do with Academy success year after year.
Generally the 5 nominees are among the most critically acclaimed films of the year….. as determined by film critics year end top 10 lists and NOT by Metacritic or RT scores.
The years end top 10 compilations are very reliable early precursors.
Crash is an excellent example – scored 69 metacritic, but when the year end lists were compiled it was ranked #6 or #8 best, depending on the list.
The year-end lists are when the people who write about films look back at the year and pick out the films that, on reflection, meant most
to them and best represent their values – very similar to the Academy’s choice.
Every Oscar season the films in the top five and the top 10 of the top ten compilations dominate the list of BP nominees – and their dominace becomes even more striking when animated films, foreign language films and documentaries (or obvious non-starters) are dropped from the numerical order.
The assertion that critical respect is irrelevant to Oscar success is false – the opposite is demonstrably true.
However, I will readily concede that, when it comes to picking winners (not nominees) films that are relatively less critically acclaimed often beat out films that have a higher ranking (Crash and BBM).
Best Picture should be 33% Filmmakers, 33% Critics, and 33% Public Opinion. I believe that last years Best Picture should have gone to The Bourne Ultimatum, because it was loved by critics, filmmakers, and the general public. The Dark Knight looks like it will be that film this year. Hopefully, the Academy doesn’t snub it.
However, films like No Country and Juno should be considered as well because they also had General favor of critics, the public, and filmmakers too.
As voted by the AMPAS majority.
Because Oscars is the only thing that count whether you like it or not.
If not what are you doing in this website?
Unclear who you’re addressing, RichardA. We might have to live with a majority decision but that doesn’t mean we all have to agree with it, or abide by their definitions. I’d hate to think America was defined by the majority vote these past 8 years. (just as I’m sure many others will hate the new definition in the 8 years ahead of us.)
The Best Picture should be awarded to the film with excellence is in every component including the overall composite.
What really pisses me off about 2005’s Oscars is that Brokeback Mountain had everything well crafted. Crash had so much going wrong with it. Urgh.
I look at both Wall-E and The Dark Knight. They have the writing, the acting, the editing, the sound, the direction, the cinematography, the music, etc. dead on. They are damn near perfect films for what they are. I hope they both nominated.
Rob
P.S. Crash still sucks.
I honestly can’t stand these awards shows anymore but I enjoy sites like this because its not only about awards. All this back and forth gibberish like “this should have won” and “that was a s*** movie” is just garbage. Makes me want to puke. Whoever who invented the concept of awards ought to rot in hell because it completely robs great movies of what they ought to be: artistic and entertaining. And these studio schmucks trying to release their movies for the “awards season”, its pathetic. And then you have actors saying they really want an oscar like its going to mean anything? I still love movies, I just loathe the awards culture.
So Dave, just out of curiosity, if you loathe the awards culture, why are you on an awards blog?
Rob Y: Its because he says this site is not only about awards. Gotta say kinda agree with Dave.
Wall-E for President!
[...] • Setting out to define what “best” picture means. [Awards Daily] [...]
Love these comments, and it’s interesting to see how people define the honor. The number of Dark Knight references says a lot I think. Oh, and by the way, while I do own and love Bonnie & Clyde, In the Heat of the Night was my choice for that year. I’m the guy.
Best Picture, not to mean “the best film of the year according to one’s own perspective”, but the strongest work of objective art, really should be a critical consensus. That is, the film that most critics seem to like. I usually find that the universal acclaim from film critics doesn’t tend to be subjective at all and really speaks to the universal power of a films art. I think individual acclaim (meaning a rogue attraction from a particular critic) generally speaks to the pretensions and strange nuances of said critic. I think that one of the most deserving Best Picture winners was last year’s “No Country for Old Men”, and if you look at the general consensus (detailed on such sites as RottenTomatoes and Metacritic) you would see its comparatively high rating compared to past winners.
I wish you could say it’s about taste. I never like the movie that wins the most…I didn’t even want Brokeback Mountain to win over Crash…I wanted Capote to win that year. I think it should just be some sort of Top 5 Deal list them, give em a certificate and then they’re all set. Like the National Board of Review! How smart!…but then I would have kicked Juno or There Will Be Blood out of the mix last year. Overrated.
It never makes “sense”. There’s no formula. Only marketing and politics and it’s out of our hands.
Let’s hope with all this moving around and pushing of films to 2009 RACHEL GETTING MARRIED will get it’s due and an Indie will rise above the fray. I know people who’ve seen screenings of CHANGELING and I hear the acting’s good but the picture…well I’ll just say not so much.
I enjoyed the answers of all the pundits — except that of Scott Foundas, who labored for an eternity but never answered the question.
Among the ideas presented, I appreciate Karger’s time-capsule reference, but I also want to mention Poland’s “snapshot in time” notion. For example, while many may criticize — in retrospect — the choice of Mrs. Miniver as best of its year, that film says an awful lot about that year, when the fate of the world was very much in doubt. That film provided to audiences something that was very much needed at the time. Now that we know how things turned out, it’s too easy to go back and clinically probe the film’s flaws.
Maybe the “best” answer — besides O’Neil’s shout-out for Sasha, which would be a fine choice in my book — comes from Breznican: “So the best film must be the one that makes the question irrelevant.”
Playing off of the “time capsule” theme,
Within the past 20 years the I see the following nominees/winners enduring the timecapsule theme (for whatever reason):
1988:
None
1989:
Field of Dreams
1990:
Goodfellas
1991:
Beauty and the Beast
The Silence of the Lambs
JFK
1992:
A Few Good Men
Unforgiven
Howard’s End
1993:
Schindler’s List
1994:
Forrest Gump
Shawshank Redemption
Pulp Fiction
1995:
Apollo 13
Braveheart
1996:
Fargo
1997:
Good Will Hunting
Titanic
LA Confidential
1998:
Saving Private Ryan
1999:
The Sixth Sense
American Beauty
2000:
Gladiator
Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon
2001:
The Lord of the Rings: Fellowship of the Ring
Moulin Rouge!
2002:
The Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers
2003:
The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King
2004:
Ray
2005:
Brokeback Mountain
2006:
None
2007:
None
For me, ‘Best Picture’ means most pleasureable movie-going experience. That means a quiet audience, no cell phones, no screaming babies, no old folks talking to each other in a near shout. Also, the picture must be perfectly in frame, never out-of-focus, etc. If the popcorn’s good, that’s a bonus.
Which is why I thought the Best Picture of 2007 was ‘Reign Over Me’. That was the finest movie-going experience I had all year. (Maybe because the theater was empty.)
Will Tom O’Neil EVER give up on Dreamgirls and Sweeney Todd?
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