And so we’ve reached the end of our nearly month long examination of all categories for the 82nd Annual Academy Awards. This is, of course, the big one, so we’ve saved it until last. We hope you’ve enjoyed our coverage and want you to stick around through the coming months as we add new articles highlighting our lists of winners that should have been, nominees that should have been and other events to keep things hopping throughout the year. We’ll still have all our regular articles, reviews and previews as well (previews will return at some point after Oscar season is complete). So, here are ten facts regarding Best Picture (with an expanded slate, I thought it appropriate to expand the trivia as well), our predictions for the winners and analysis to go along with it, and our favorite and least favorite Best Picture winners of all-time.
Trivia: Ten Facts
- Not surprisingly, this was one of the first categories ever offered and has been the pinnacle award every year since, even with its myriad name changes.
- Studios received the nominations early on in Oscar history. The first producer to receive the award was Arthur Freed in 1951 for An American in Paris.
- 93 Oscars have gone to producers since 1951. 23 Oscars went to the studios.
- The most nominated studio in those first 23 years was MGM with 38 nominations. Warner Bros. was next closest with 21 and then 20th Century-Fox with 16. The most honored studio was MGM again with 5 trophies followed by Fox with 3. On the producer side, Kathleen Kennedy, Stanley Kramer and Steven Spielberg are tied for most nominations with 6 each. Francis Ford Coppola and Frank Marshall have received 5 each. And several have received four. For most awards, Sam Spiegel and Saul Zaentz won three awards. Zaentz won for all of his nominations. Clint Eastwood, Arthur Freed, Branko Lustig, Albert S. Ruddy and Robert Wise each have two wins.
- William Wyler’s films have received more Best Picture nominations than any other. John Ford has the next highest with 9 followed by Mervyn LeRoy with 8. Below them, in a five-way tie, are Frank Capra, George Cukor, Henry King, Steven Spielberg and George Stevens with 7 each. William Wyler is the only director with three Best Picture Oscar winners while 11 other directors have 2 Best Picture winners on their resumes.
- The most honored film in history that didn’t manage to win Best picture was Cabaret with 8 awards in 1972 losing to The Godfather. A Place in the Sun and Star Wars rank second with 6 awards each losing to An American in Paris and Annie Hall respectively.
- The most honored Best Picture winners in history are Ben-Hur, Titanic and The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King with 11 awards each (LOTR was the only one of these films to win all of the awards it was nominated for). The most nominated Best Picture winners are All About Eve and Titanic with 14 nominations each.
- The Color Purple and The Turning Point hold the dubious distinction of being the biggest Oscar losers, each Best Picture nominees. Each film received 11 nominations without a single win. Gangs of New York is next on the list with 10 followed by The Little Foxes and Peyton Place with 9 each.
- At the first Academy Awards, another category called Unique and Artistic Quality of Production was given to a masterful silent film called Sunrise. Often cited as one of history’s greatest films, silent or otherwise, is often mistakenly referred to as a Best Picture winner. The only Best Picture winner that year, the category that would continue on for the last 81 years, was Wings. While the category was also a “production” award, it could be argued the category could be considered a second Best Picture winner for the 1927/28 awards. However, Academy records and their regular list of Best Picture winners doesn’t include Sunrise as one of the 81, and thus falls just outside of that range (and, had the film been eligible for our own selections below, I wouldn’t doubt that it would have appeared on each of them.
- Nominee facts: 44 women have been nominated for Best Picture producing awards; Only 6 have won. Five producers have received posthumous nominations: Sam Zimbalist (Ben-Hur), Robert Alan Arthur (All That Jazz), Mario Cecchi Gori (The Postman), and Anthony Minghelle and Sydney Pollack (The Reader); Zimbalist was the only one to win. 8 Foreign Language Films have been nominated for Best Picture (Grand Illusion, Z, The Emgirants, Cries and Whispers, The Postman, Life Is Beautiful, Crouching Tiger Hidden Dragon and Letters from Iwo Jima. None have won. Grand Hotel is the only Best Picture winner in history to receive no other awards…because it wasn’t nominated for any.
Predictions
- Avatar (Wesley, Peter, Tripp, Wes)
- The Blind Side
- District 9
- An Education
- The Hurt Locker (Wesley, Peter, Tripp, Wes)
- Inglourious Basterds
- Precious
- A Serious Man
- Up
- Up in the Air
KEY: (Winner Prediction) (Alternate Winner)
The Commentary
Wesley Lovell – When looking at this year’s Best Picture race, there are two factors to take into account: First is that this won’t be like your traditional up-or-down vote with each voter selecting one winner. Instead, they will be ranking them. Which means supporters of some films may purposely downrank opponents in order to make it less likely for them to triumph, which means anything could happen. However, The Hurt Locker has been steamrolling through Oscar season and with its still solid showing at the guilds, I still think it’s the most likely to win. Avatar could have a chance to beat it and could end up being the one to do so, but Inglourious Basterds has ardent admirers. Still, with all this hubbub, a thoroughly unexpected selection from the remaining seven could end up on top.
Start by tossing The Blind Side. Even if people could use it as a #2 finisher, most won’t because even they couldn’t stomach that kind of a win. While District 9 and A Serious Man could be solid second-place alternatives among voters as neither would be too objectionable, I think both will be running third or fourth on ballots if at all. An Education, Up in the Air, Up and Precious are also great second-place selections, but without the ability for voters to pick a common selection of these, each appealing to different demographics, none may be able to pick up enough alternative predictions. Thus, it ends up being a race between the three films that have the strongest support. It’s hard to really pick, but altruistically, I’m going to predict that while some will stack their ballot, many others may rebel against the idea and just decide to go all out for one picture, or another, or just vote their consciences. That’s why I think The Hurt Locker will end up benefiting most.
It’s not only going to be the film with the first female director Oscar winner, but denying the film a Best Picture win at the same time as awarding Kathryn Bigelow may be a symbol many Academy voters might not want. It’s ok to pick a legend like Roman Polanski over a crowd-pleaser with a first-time director like Chicago, but it would be another thing to recognize a first-time female director and then give the award to a film by a more accomplished male director (James Cameron or Quentin Tarantino). So, while I think Avatar could still eke out enough votes (perhaps sympathy ones over Hurt Locker producer Nicolas Chartier’s not-so-offensive letter to colleagues urging them to vote his film over Avatar), but in the end, this is The Hurt Locker’s to lose.
Peter J. Patrick – The Hurt Locker first saw the light of day at the Venice and Toronto Film Festivals in September, 2008, then showed up at various other film festivals before opening theatrically in the U.S. in limited engagements in June, 2009.
Although the film was generally well received by the critics, audiences were not intrigued. The Oscar race was expected to be between such highly anticipated year-end releases as Invictus, The Lovely Bones, Nine and maybe Avatar. By the time the year-end critics’ awards started coming in, Avatar was the only one still standing and The Hurt Locker easily beat it in just about every competition except the one at the Golden Globes.
Has The Hurt Locker won everything it has by default or is it something else? Is it that the critics and now the Academy, which has given it 9 nominations in all, wants to send the message that you don’t need to spend a lot of money or make a lot of money to recognize a good film? Is it the general feeling that it’s time a woman won the Best Director Oscar and with that prize should go the Best Picture prize as well? Or is it that the country is weary of the Iraq War but proud of the work being done by its soldiers and wants to honor a film that recognizes them? Whatever the reason, the film is on a roll and I, for one, would be very surprised to see it lose to any of its competition, of which only Avatar seems a possible threat.
Tripp Burton – Here is a case where I think the later date for the Oscars will benefit The Hurt Locker. By now, Avatar has in many ways become a thing of the past: it is no longer at the top of the box office, people have moved on from the phenomenon and the backlash is beginning. It is also the kind of film that weakens when you think back on it, which shouldn’t play into its favor. Add in that the new voting system should hurt Avatar, and you have its front runner status being stripped away pretty quickly. In the end, The Hurt Locker should become the biggest box office failure to ever win the prize.
Our Favorite Winners
KEY:
Appears on Two Lists
Appears on Three Lists
Appears on Four Lists
Appears on Opposing Lists
Wesley Lovell
- Schindler’s List (This is a gorgeous, heartbreaking, devastating film that exemplifies how the medium can be used to show history in new, meaningful ways.)
- The Godfather, Parts I & II (Had they been the only two films in The Godfather series, this could have been the greatest film series in history. Still, the first two parts, both deserving winners, are simply brilliant.)
- Casablanca (One of, if not the, best written film in history, it’s simply a classic.)
- All Quiet on the Western Front (There are war films today that wouldn’t have the chutzpah to create something so stark, moving and anti-war as this. It is still my favorite war film ever made.)
- All About Eve (Sharp dialogue, iconic performances, this is great cinema.)
And, although I only have five spots to use, I must mention some of my other favorite winners: The Lost Weekend, On the Waterfront, The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King, It Happened One Night and Driving Miss Daisy.
Peter J. Patrick
- How Green Was My Valley (John Ford’s richly textured, beautifully executed version of the first half of Richard Llewellyn’s novel is the work of masters operating at every level. It unjustly gets a bad rap for being the film that beat Citizen Kane, a masterwork in its own right, but not necessarily a better film. )
- Midnight Cowboy (It took an Englishman, John Schlesinger, to make a film about New York that captured the city at the heart of its late 20th Century cultural revolution. Brilliant performances from Dustin Hoffman and Jon Voight that remain the best of their lengthy careers.)
- All About Eve (Joseph L. Mankiewicz’ brilliantly witty script is matched by his brilliant direction of a cast ranging from Bette Davis, Anne Baxter and George Sanders to Celste Holm and Thelma Ritter to Marilyn Monroe in the best film about the theater ever made.)
- The Apartment (Billy Wilder’s brilliantly brittle seriocomedy about a late 20th Century schlemiel who wins the girl of his dreams when he wises up and tells his bosses to stick it. Marvelous performances from Jack Lemmon, Shirley MacLaine and Fred MacMurray at the top of their game. )
- All Quiet on the Western Front (Lewis Milestone’s film of Erich Maria Remarque’s anti-war novel was the first great film to win a Best Picture Oscar. It still retains its power, though one wonders if American audiences would have embraced it as heartily if the protagonists goaded into dying for their country had been Americans instead of Germans.)
Tripp Burton
- Annie Hall (The great romantic comedy remains the greatest winner in this category (as well as one of the most unexpected))
- Casablanca (It’s considered one of the greatest ever for a good reason–it is)
- How Green Was My Valley (It may not have been the best movie nominated that year–that would be Citizen Kane–but it is still one of the great winners in this category)
- Lawrence of Arabia (The greatest epic ever made, it shines above most of the many other epics to win this prize)
- All Quiet on the Western Front (Probably the first great sound film made in Hollywood, its power is still frightening today)
Wes Huizar
- Lawrence of Arabia
- Casablanca
- The Godfather
- The Bridge on the River Kwai
- The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King
Our Least Favorite Winners
KEY:
Appears on Two Lists
Appears on Three Lists
Appears on Four Lists
Appears on Opposing Lists
Wesley Lovell
- Braveheart (Dull as dishwater. Excessively violent. Painfully revisionistic. I can’t think of a single element of this film worth more than a passing glance.)
- Cavalcade (From one preposterous event to another, this film is a string of cinematic cliches that sticks out like a sore thumb when the cliches are from such a short span of pre-history.)
- A Beautiful Mind (Facile, inept and boring. Not only is it an oversimplification of mental illness, it ignores the real life subject’s actual condition in order to make something more cinematic and in doing so wastes a number of opportunities for compelling drama.)
- The Greatest Show on Earth (This glorified travelogue for the Ringling Bros. and Barnum & Bailey circus with a slew of unnecessary performances, plot hooks and cliches. The only saving grace is James Stewart.)
- The Broadway Melody (Sound was relatively new at the time and this was the first all-talking, all-singing Best Picture winner (the previous year’s winner, Wings, was silent). It not only ages poorly, it’s questionable what kind of comparable quality the film possessed even at the time of its release.)
Like with my best list, I can’t not call out some other egregious winners: Tom Jones, Cimarron, Crash, The Great Ziegfeld and Gladiator are all abysmal choices.
Peter J. Patrick
- Braveheart (Mel Gibson’s ego trip still makes my blood boil.)
- Dances With Wolves (Kevin Costner’s New Age Western has some nice set pieces but is at its heart just as phony as Braveheart.)
- Crash (Paul Haggis’ interconnecting melodrama about L.A. life features one or two great scenes surrounded by many mediocre ones. )
- Around the World in 80 Days (Michael Anderson is the credited director but producer Mike Todd’s imprint is all over this highly hyped extravaganza which inflates Jules Verne’s charming novel to the breaking point with cameos by long forgotten stars, many of whom were forgotten even then. )
- The Greatest Show on Earth (Cecil B. DeMille’s circus film features dreadful acting by leads Cornel Wilde and Betty Hutton who have done much better work elsewhere and almost laughable special effects including a (toy) train wreck.)
Tripp Burton
- A Beautiful Mind (An insulting, childish story of mental illness)
- Braveheart (An epic that is sloppy and boring)
- Cimarron (Just a ridiculous movie)
- Crash (Putting the surprise victory or the superior competition aside, the film is still not very good and unworthy of a win here)
- The Broadway Melody (I finally caught up with this on TCM last week, and it is just as dull and flat as everyone says it is)
Wes Huizar
- Crash
- The Greatest Show on Earth
- Around the World in 80 Days
- A Beautiful Mind
- Cimarron
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