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Accessibility statementSkip to main content Democracy Dies in Darkness SubscribeSign in Advertisement Close MoviesAnn Hornaday Michael O'Sullivan MoviesAnn Hornaday Michael O'Sullivan Arts and Entertainment THE OSCARS ALWAYS GET IT WRONG. HERE ARE THE REAL BEST PICTURES OF THE PAST 50 YEARS. WITH THE PERSPECTIVE OF TIME, WE CAN NOW DISCERN WHAT MOVIE WAS ACTUALLY THE BEST Perspective by Dan Zak and Amy Argetsinger Updated March 7, 2024 at 9:28 a.m. EST|Published March 22, 2022 at 6:00 a.m. EDT (Video: Lucy Naland/The Washington Post; Miramax Films/Everett Collection; Gramercy Pictures/Everett Collection; Justin Lubin/Universal Pictures/Everett Collection; Focus Features/Everett Collection; MCA/Universal Pictures/Everett Collection; David Bornfriend/A24/Everett Collection; iStock) Skip to main content 1. 1974 2. 1975 3. 1976 4. 1977 5. 1978 6. 1979 7. 1980 8. 1981 9. 1982 10. 1983 11. 1984 12. 1985 13. 1986 14. 1987 15. 1988 16. 1989 17. 1990 18. 1991 19. 1992 20. 1993 21. 1994 22. 1995 23. 1996 24. 1997 25. 1998 26. 1999 27. 2000 28. 2001 29. 2002 30. 2003 31. 2004 32. 2005 33. 2006 34. 2007 35. 2008 36. 2009 37. 2010 38. 2011 39. 2012 40. 2013 41. 2014 42. 2015 43. 2016 44. 2017 45. 2018 46. 2019 47. 2020 48. 2021 49. 2022 50. 2023 Listen 31 min Share Comment on this storyComment Add to your saved stories Save UPDATED on March 7, 2024: We published this fine quarrel in 2016, but they just keep on handing out Oscars to the wrong movies, so we have updated it for your further education — and reassessed some earlier years as well. WpGet the full experience.Choose your planArrowRight Let’s take a walk through the past five decades of best picture winners of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences. It’s an almost unbroken chain of incorrect decisions! But with the perspective lent to us by the passage of time, we can now confidently look back and discern what was actually the best. Doing our best to set the record straight here, but don’t hesitate to argue with us in the comments section. 1974 Return to menu * Nominees: Chinatown, The Conversation, Lenny, The Godfather Part II, The Towering Inferno * Best picture winner: The Godfather Part II * The actual best picture: Chinatown “Chinatown” is a Top 10 film of all time: tight yet sumptuous, with a crackerjack script and legendary performances. (We will never recover from some of John Huston’s creepier line readings.) The movie’s central theme — good intentions humiliated by graft and turpitude — is timeless, and the movie stings no matter when (or how many times) you watch it. 1975 Return to menu * Nominees: Barry Lyndon, Dog Day Afternoon, Jaws, Nashville, One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest * Best picture winner: One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest * The actual best picture: Jaws The first summer blockbuster remade the way Hollywood does business, and not for the better. And yet “Jaws” itself remains a startlingly pure cinematic experience, a psychological study of fear and survival. Even now, Spielberg’s lumbering vintage mechanical shark is far more believable (and scarier) than most of today’s CGI effects. But the film’s power lies in the simple human dynamic of three men in a boat, trying to save a community and their own lives. 1976 Return to menu * Nominees: All the President’s Men, Bound for Glory, Network, Rocky, Taxi Driver * Best picture winner: Rocky * The actual best picture: Network Tough year! And “Rocky” was actually a moody, refined piece of filmmaking, in addition to great popular entertainment … but “Network” transcended entertainment and became prophecy in perpetuity (Howard Beale’s latest incarnation is, of course, Donald Trump). The ambition of its writing, the wickedness of its cast, the firm hand of director Sidney Lumet — “Rocky” may go the distance, but “Network” wins by decision. 1977 Return to menu * Nominees: Annie Hall, The Goodbye Girl, Julia, Star Wars, The Turning Point * Best picture winner: Annie Hall * The actual best picture: Annie Hall Surprise! “Star Wars” is frequently considered one of Oscar’s great misses, but wow, “Annie Hall?” The academy got it right this time. Woody Allen’s film reinvented the rom-com in ways that are still being ripped off to this day, and it changed the way we talk about our own relationships. 1978 Return to menu * Nominees: Coming Home, The Deer Hunter, Heaven Can Wait, Midnight Express, An Unmarried Woman * Best picture winner: The Deer Hunter * The actual best picture: An Unmarried Woman “The Deer Hunter” launched Christopher Walken and Meryl Streep, and it has some lovely, haunting sequences, but the Vietnam scenes feel dated now. Meanwhile, “An Unmarried Woman” is so lovely, down to its whimsical jazzy score by Bill Conti. And when Alan Bates gives Jill Clayburgh a giant painting at the end … bliss. 1979 Return to menu * Nominees: All That Jazz, Apocalypse Now, Breaking Away, Kramer vs. Kramer, Norma Rae * Best picture winner: Kramer vs. Kramer * The actual best picture: Apocalypse Now What a bonkers roster. “Kramer vs. Kramer” is a gorgeously spare, simple movie about divorce and parenting — can you believe that 105 minutes of talking without CGI or explosions was not only the Oscar winner but the box-office champ for 1979? But it’s hard not to love every shot of “Apocalypse Now,” which routinely makes Top-10 lists of the best films ever. If this lineup were voted on today, “Apocalypse” would win in a landslide. 1980 Return to menu * Nominees: Coal Miner’s Daughter, The Elephant Man, Ordinary People, Raging Bull, Tess * Best picture winner: Ordinary People * The actual best picture: A split decision! Dan Zak: 1980 came to epitomize Oscar injustice, when Robert Redford’s predictable tale of suburban angst won over Martin Scorsese’s gorgeous boxing epic. “Ordinary People” is no dud, but here I bow to the sweep of “Raging Bull,” instead of intimacy. (And how did “Tess” even get into this conversation?) Advertisement Story continues below advertisement Amy Argetsinger: Wrong! “The Shining” reinvented the horror film (what if the monster is inside your head?), holds up to endless analysis and still scares the hell out of me. A frighteningly gorgeous film, every shot laden with meaning, but it wasn’t even nominated. 1981 Return to menu * Nominees: Atlantic City, Chariots of Fire, On Golden Pond, Raiders of the Lost Ark, Reds * Best picture winner: Chariots of Fire * The actual best picture: Raiders of the Lost Ark And so the Oscars began its hopeless love affair with “prestige” pics — posh British accents, period costumes and vaguely noble-seeming themes. And thus it missed the chance to reward the movie that raised the bar for action-adventure and special effects, launched Harrison Ford as the most important star of the 1980s, and remains an absolutely thrilling film to this day. 1982 Return to menu * Nominees: E.T. the Extraterrestrial, Gandhi, Missing, Tootsie, The Verdict * Best picture winner: Gandhi * The actual best picture: Tootsie Raise your hand if you’ve seen “Gandhi.” Anyone? It’s hard to think of a movie that had a shorter shelf-life after the Oscars. (But hang in there, we will.) “Tootsie” and “The Verdict” are two of the tightest screenplays ever written, and feature two beloved actors (Dustin Hoffman, Paul Newman) in career-best performances. “Tootsie,” with its deft handling of comedy and romance, is the greater feat. Watch it now: It’s still laugh-out-loud hilarious. The Oscar for best original song is a garbage category 1983 Return to menu * Nominees: The Big Chill, The Dresser, The Right Stuff, Tender Mercies, Terms of Endearment * Best picture winner: Terms of Endearment * The actual best picture: Terms of Endearment Eminently watchable — good luck trying to flip away from it if you stumble upon it on cable some night — and exquisitely tear-jerking still. (“The Big Chill” is almost unwatchable today — no, really, try it — and took a nomination slot that should have gone to a little movie called “Testament,” starring Jane Alexander as a mother struggling to keep her family alive after a nuclear attack.) 1984 Return to menu * Nominees: Amadeus, The Killing Fields, A Passage to India, Places in the Heart, A Soldier’s Story * Best picture winner: Amadeus * The actual best picture: Amadeus Surprise! Yes, “Amadeus” was awash in posh accents and wigs. But with Tom Hulce, it brought a dusty historic icon like Mozart to giggling life, while tapping into our own feelings of inadequacy in the person of F. Murray Abraham’s Salieri — the man just brilliant enough to recognize he wasn’t brilliant enough. And it connected thrillingly to the music. It probably truly was the best, even in a year that included “Ghostbusters.” 1985 Return to menu * Nominees: The Color Purple, Kiss of the Spider Woman, Out of Africa, Prizzi’s Honor, Witness * Best picture winner: Out of Africa * The actual best picture: Back to the Future God bless Meryl, but “Out of Africa” was a pristine, color-by-numbers costume drama, elevated by some pretty scenery. Did anyone sit down in the past year and watch this again? Anyone in the entire world? Two of this year’s best screenplay nominees deserved to be in the best picture category: “Back to the Future” and “The Purple Rose of Cairo.” For its sheer cultural endurance, let’s pick B2TF. This would’ve been the appropriate time to honor director Robert Zemeckis, instead of in 1994, but we’ll get to that soon … 1986 Return to menu * Nominees: Children of a Lesser God, Hannah and Her Sisters, The Mission, Platoon, A Room with a View * Best picture winner: Platoon * The actual best picture: Hannah and Her Sisters Kids, would you believe us if we told you that there was once a best picture Oscar winner that starred Charlie Sheen? Yes, there was, and it was Oliver Stone’s pompous and bombastic Vietnam drama. Meanwhile, we can deal with our complicated feelings about Woody Allen elsewhere; “Hannah” proves itself to be his best movie. Advertisement Story continues below advertisement 1987 Return to menu * Nominees: Broadcast News, Fatal Attraction, Hope and Glory, The Last Emperor, Moonstruck * Best picture winner: The Last Emperor * The actual best picture: Moonstruck “The Last Emperor” was such a quintessential Oscar winner — a handsome but ponderous epic by a director (Bernardo Bertolucci) who is much better when sex is involved (“Last Tango in Paris,” “The Dreamers”). “Broadcast News” got so much so right about Washington journalism and dating-at-work, but James L. Brooks had just won big with “Terms” four years earlier; and “Fatal Attraction” was the apex of the era’s psychosexual-thriller craze but has not aged well. “Moonstruck,” on the other hand, is pure joy — a modern-day version of romantic comedies that won the top prize back in the Golden Era (“It Happened One Night,” “The Apartment”) but never do anymore. 1988 Return to menu * Nominees: The Accidental Tourist, Dangerous Liaisons, Mississippi Burning, Rain Man, Working Girl * Best picture winner: Rain Man * The actual best picture: Big You know what the best part of “Rain Man” is? Tom Cruise. Tom Cruise should’ve won best actor that year, instead of Dustin Hoffman. There. It’s been said. No way was “Rain Man” the best picture, not with the fizzy and delightful “Working Girl” in the running. Still, the actual best movie of 1988 did not even make it into the finals: “Big,” a deceptively simple fable about innocence and maturity disguised as fish-out-of-water romp. 1989 Return to menu * Nominees: Born on the Fourth of July, Dead Poets Society, Driving Miss Daisy, Field of Dreams, My Left Foot * Best picture winner: Driving Miss Daisy * The actual best picture: Field of Dreams There was so little enthusiasm for the polite little “Driving Miss Daisy” that director Bruce Beresford wasn’t even nominated; the day after the Oscars, the world forgot that this movie ever existed. Whereas the plaintive mysticism of Kevin Costner hearing the voices of dead White Sox … a movie so cornball-potent it sent legions of dads and lads on pilgrimages to a cornfield baseball diamond movie set in Dyersville, Iowa. (They do know it was just a movie set, right?) Plus, by rewarding a Kevin Costner film, we might have gotten it out of our system and thus avoided … 1990 Return to menu * Nominees: Awakenings, Dances With Wolves, Ghost, The Godfather Part III, Goodfellas * Best picture winner: Dances With Wolves * The actual best picture: Goodfellas “Dances With Wolves” was like an Oscar trap — a gorgeous, sweeping epic directed by a red-hot leading man (Costner), but empty at the center and barely remembered today. Whereas “Goodfellas” was Martin Scorsese’s masterpiece — a dark, funny, anthropological take on mob life that paved the way for the “Sopranos” and is still ripped off annually by some lesser filmmaker or another. And rewarding Scorsese then would have lifted the pressure to over-reward his perfectly acceptable but far from groundbreaking “The Departed” 16 years later. 1991 Return to menu * Nominees: Beauty and the Beast, Bugsy, JFK, The Prince of Tides, The Silence of the Lambs * Best picture winner: The Silence of the Lambs * The actual best picture: The Silence of the Lambs It’s still amazing that academy members made this pick. And oh what a pick. It was dead right. The culture has filed “Silence” in the horror-film category, but really it’s a feminist Western. And an artful, thrilling experience. (But how, at the same time, did they manage to deny a nomination to “Thelma and Louise”? #OscarsSoWrong.) 1992 Return to menu * Nominees: The Crying Game, A Few Good Men, Howards End, Scent of a Woman, Unforgiven * Best picture winner: Unforgiven * The actual best picture: Unforgiven Once again, they got it right. “Unforgiven,” a beautifully contemplative Western whose hero grapples with what it means to kill someone, also had the meta-appeal of serving as an apology for Eastwood’s gleefully bloody “Dirty Harry” years. Still, this lineup of nominees doesn’t reflect how fun movies were that year — “A League of Their Own” and “Death Becomes Her” and “Sneakers.” Hey, how about “Sneakers” for best pic? The 37 living actors deprived of an Academy Award — and their performances that deserved one. 1993 Return to menu * Nominees: The Fugitive, In the Name of the Father, The Piano, The Remains of the Day, Schindler’s List * Best picture winner: Schindler’s List * The actual best picture: A split decision! Dan Zak: I have seen plenty of Spielberg movies, but I have never seen anything like “The Piano.” It isn’t a film. It’s a portal. Amy Argetsinger: Huh. I thought “Schindler’s List” was pretty darn undeniable. I’ll keep an open mind, though … 1994 Return to menu * Nominees: Forrest Gump, Four Weddings and a Funeral, Pulp Fiction, Quiz Show, The Shawshank Redemption * Best picture winner: Forrest Gump * The actual best picture: Pulp Fiction “Forrest Gump” was a mawkish piece of cheap tone-deaf manipulation that was embarrassing to watch even at the time, even while it crushed at the box office. Perhaps the worst Oscar travesty of all time — especially in the year of the exhilaratingly creative, mind-bending “Pulp Fiction,” which remains one of the best movies to come in on the middle of while cable-surfing at 11 p.m. 1995 Return to menu * Nominees: Apollo 13, Babe, Braveheart, Il Postino, Sense and Sensibility * Best picture winner: Braveheart * The actual best picture: Not that. Amy Argetsinger: The academy has a weakness for historical epics and doughty men and noble themes and actors-turned-directors — so why didn’t they just pick “Apollo 13,” which has all of that in spades and was a much, much better movie than the ambitious but mediocre Mel Gibson vehicle? Besides, rewarding Ron Howard properly this year would have kept them from overcompensating to him six years later … Advertisement Story continues below advertisement Dan Zak: Oh my God I’m picking “Babe.” Will that do? Will that do? Amy Argetsinger: That’ll do, pig. 1996 Return to menu * Nominees: The English Patient, Fargo, Jerry Maguire, Secrets & Lies, Shine * Best picture winner: The English Patient * The actual best picture: A split decision! Dan Zak: Any cinephile would pick “Fargo,” but I’ve never been able to forgive its all-too-coincidental climax, which crushes the movie’s delicateness with a deus ex machina the size of a tan Oldsmobile Ciera. “Seinfeld” made “The English Patient” into a punchline, but it’s a remarkable adaptation of the remote and interior Michael Ondaatje book. Amy Argetsinger: Seriously? When was the last time you watched it? “Fargo” was the best distillation of the Coen Brothers’ unique voice, and rewarding them this time would have kept the academy from overcompensating 11 years later … 1997 Return to menu * Nominees: As Good as It Gets, The Full Monty, Good Will Hunting, L.A. Confidential, Titanic * Best picture winner: Titanic * The actual best picture: Titanic Yeah, “L.A. Confidential” — whatever. “Titanic” is a freaking masterpiece. A sumptuous production, two of the planet’s most likable actors, a gripping story, and visual effects that still hold up. Deal with it. 1998 Return to menu * Nominees: Elizabeth, Life Is Beautiful, Saving Private Ryan, Shakespeare in Love, The Thin Red Line * Best picture winner: Shakespeare in Love * The actual best picture: Elizabeth Harvey Weinstein’s egomania eclipsed what is actually a fabulous movie: “Shakespeare” is brimming with wit but light as gossamer, and with a gorgeous end that’s satisfying even though it’s not technically a happy one. But “Elizabeth” is the real cinematic achievement: visceral, painterly, and it introduced us to the force that is Cate Blanchett. 1999 Return to menu * Nominees: American Beauty, The Cider House Rules, The Green Mile, The Insider, The Sixth Sense * Best picture winner: American Beauty * The actual best picture: The Sixth Sense Here’s another best picture that has not aged well. “American Beauty” feels very of-the-’90s. Its earnestness, its plastic bag as metaphor for the fleetingness of life — I mean, jeepers. “The Sixth Sense” was more than just its twist ending. We keep thinking about the teary car scene between Toni Collette and Haley Joel Osment. That alone would’ve won our vote. Share this articleShare 2000 Return to menu * Nominees: Chocolat, Crouching Tiger Hidden Dragon, Erin Brockovich, Gladiator, Traffic * Best picture winner: Gladiator * The actual best picture: None of the above. A perfectly fine revival of the old chariots-and-togas genre, “Gladiator” was still basically just a solid B+ of a movie. However, it employed a lot of technicians and B-list actors (while launching Russell Crowe to the A-list), and that’s something that academy voters tend to see as in their own economic self-interest. So, whatever. Advertisement Story continues below advertisement Dan Zak: “Almost Famous” or “Requiem for a Dream.” Amy Argetsinger: “Memento.” 2001 Return to menu * Nominees: A Beautiful Mind, Gosford Park, In the Bedroom, The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring, Moulin Rouge! * Best picture winner: A Beautiful Mind * The actual best picture: In the Bedroom If only the academy had rewarded Ron Howard for his “Apollo 13” six years earlier, it wouldn’t have had to over-reward this middling star vehicle. (Though in fairness, Russell Crowe probably deserved the Oscar for “A Beautiful Mind” instead of “Gladiator.”) We might have gone for “Moulin Rouge!” at the time, but “In the Bedroom” has since risen in our estimation. It’s a fast pitch down the middle, whereas Baz Luhrmann is just swinging a baseball bat at anything that comes his way. 2002 Return to menu * Nominees: Chicago, Gangs of New York, The Hours, The Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers, The Pianist * Best picture winner: Chicago * The actual best picture: Chicago “Chicago” is still the standard-bearer for movie musicals in the post-Gene Kelly era. It’s a thrilling, seamless experience. (But Spike Jonze’s “Adaptation” was robbed of a nomination.) 2003 Return to menu * Nominees: The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King, Lost in Translation, Master and Commander: The Far Side of the World, Mystic River, Seabiscuit * Best picture winner: The Lord of the Rings * The actual best picture: Lost in Translation There was a desperate inevitability to 2003’s win — Peter Jackson had pulled off this sprawling trilogy on a brisk schedule and with blockbuster receipts, and here was the last chance to reward him, so … It’s only with a decade’s distance that we can say, the third LOTR wasn’t nearly as memorable as the first, and the first wasn’t really all that great. But that was how the academy missed its chance to recognize a sweet, sardonic film by a female director (Sofia Coppola) that launched a new era for national treasure Bill Murray and a superstar career for Scarlett Johansson. 2004 Return to menu * Nominees: The Aviator, Finding Neverland, Million Dollar Baby, Ray, Sideways * Best picture winner: Million Dollar Baby * The actual best picture: Million Dollar Baby As Roger Ebert said: “a masterpiece, pure and simple, deep and true.” (But pour out some of your pinot for “Sideways,” a dark, character-driven comedy that you can watch every time it comes on TV and still find a moment of resonance.) 2005 Return to menu * Nominees: Brokeback Mountain, Capote, Crash, Good Night and Good Luck, Munich * Best picture winner: Crash * The actual best picture: Brokeback Mountain Your tolerance for “Crash” may vary, but let’s face it: It won because it employed a dozen well-liked B-listers, and it was filmed in the neighborhoods where all the academy voters live. A sensitive and groundbreaking film whose catchphrase (“I wish I knew how to quit you”) still haunts, “Brokeback” was robbed. One positive about the “Crash” win: Jack Nicholson as presenter. He should present all best pictures. Note his cheeky gestures and “whoa,” directed toward the wings, after announcing the winner. 2006 Return to menu * Nominees: Babel, The Departed, Letters From Iwo Jima, Little Miss Sunshine, The Queen * Best picture winner: The Departed * The actual best picture: A split decision! Dan Zak: Was “The Queen” a comedy? It was to me. Scorsese had to go conventional to finally win, but I wouldn’t call it a compromise. “The Departed” is a sinfully fun movie. Amy Argetsinger: Sure, but it’s not even one of Scorsese’s five best; and again, if they had only gotten it right in 1990, we wouldn’t have been in this quandary today. The real problem is that the actual best picture of 2006 was robbed of a nomination — and that was the bravely over-the-top and hugely entertaining “Dreamgirls.” 2007 Return to menu * Nominees: Atonement, Juno, Michael Clayton, No Country for Old Men, There Will Be Blood * Best picture winner: No Country for Old Men * The actual best picture: Michael Clayton As our film critic Ann Hornaday said of “No Country”: Fine artists working at the height of their powers, “all to follow around a serial killer blowing people away with a cattle stun gun.” “Michael Clayton,” on the other hand, felt like it sprung straight from the 1970s, cinema’s second golden age. Plus, it had Tilda Swinton with one of the best best-supporting-actress performances ever. (Argetsinger adds: I will give you this one, Dan. “There Will Be Blood,” was the actual best picture, but I do not have the words to explain how it affected me.) 2008 Return to menu * Nominees: The Curious Case of Benjamin Button, Frost/Nixon, Milk, The Reader, Slumdog Millionaire * Best picture winner: Slumdog Millionaire * The actual best picture: None of the above. Amy Argetsinger: I’m going to say it. “Twilight” is the best movie of 2008. Catherine Hardwicke managed to bring gritty indie-film texture and Pacific Northwest moodiness into a blockbuster, one of the rare teen flicks where the teenagers actually look like teenagers and their inarticulate pauses linger poignantly in the multiplex. But also a subtly camp sense of humor woven throughout, anchored by Robert Pattinson, that had me laughing throughout. Okay, maybe I had had a few drinks, but … a surprisingly lovely film. Advertisement Story continues below advertisement Dan Zak: You are out of your mind. What about “The Dark Knight,” or “The Wrestler,” or “In Bruges”? Or even “Synecdoche, New York”? The 31 best dance scenes in movies 2009 Return to menu * Nominees: Avatar, The Blind Side, District 9, An Education, The Hurt Locker, Inglourious Basterds, Precious: Based on the Novel “Push” by Sapphire, A Serious Man, Up, Up in the Air * Best picture winner: The Hurt Locker * The actual best picture: The Hurt Locker There was much complaining that the Oscars had once again honored a prestigious indie film seen by few people instead of a popular multiplex hit — but the real complaint should have been, why wasn’t “The Hurt Locker” a popular multiplex hit? Yes, it was a psychological drama about a failed war — we get why you resisted popping it into the DVD player — but the action was superb, too. 2010 Return to menu * Nominees: Black Swan, The Fighter, Inception, The Kids Are All Right, The King’s Speech, 127 Hours, The Social Network, Toy Story 3, True Grit, Winter’s Bone * Best picture winner: The King’s Speech * The actual best picture: A split decision! Dan Zak: Another prestige pic, in the mold of “Chariots of Fire,” except instead of an exciting race we have … a speech impediment. I’m a sucker for boxing movies and “The Fighter” was an electric reinvention of the genre, with the added bonus of seeing Christian Bale and Amy Adams at the top of their games. Advertisement Story continues below advertisement Amy Argetsinger: Really? Come on. “The Social Network” wasn’t perfect, but name another movie that so expertly captured an era. I’m beginning to wonder if this was a good idea, you and me here. 2011 Return to menu * Nominees: The Artist, The Descendants, Extremely Loud & Incredibly Close, The Help, Hugo, Midnight in Paris, Moneyball, The Tree of Life, War Horse * Best picture winner: The Artist * The actual best picture: Moneyball The neo-silent film had its quirks and its charms, and amid so many bloated epics, it definitely deserves props for being the shortest best picture winner in a generation, at a brisk 100 minutes. But “Moneyball” is more than a baseball movie. It is a document of American masculinity at the turn of the millennium, when we began to inflict data on leisure in order to approximate the control of destiny. Sport convinces man that he is God, and this movie vibrates like a requiem for that hubris. 2012 Return to menu * Nominees: Amour, Argo, Beasts of the Southern Wild, Django Unchained, Les Misérables, Life of Pi, Lincoln, Silver Linings Playbook, Zero Dark Thirty * Best picture winner: Argo * The actual best picture: Skyfall Go big or go home. Listen, this was a tough year: “Argo” was delightful, but Spielberg was working at a much higher level of difficulty by making the weighty themes of “Lincoln” so human and relatable. But that’s beside the point: The academy had one chance to give a Bond movie the Oscar, and it was with the confident, thrilling, psyche-probing “Skyfall.” Bond may be the best franchise of all times, but its individual films rarely connect on all levels like this one did. Advertisement Story continues below advertisement (Note from Amy: Dan would surely veto this, but he’s walked away from the computer.) 2013 Return to menu * Nominees: American Hustle, Captain Phillips, Dallas Buyers Club, Gravity, Her, Nebraska, Philomena, 12 Years a Slave, The Wolf of Wall Street * Best picture winner: 12 Years a Slave * The actual best picture: 12 Years a Slave In the hands of an artist like Steve McQueen, a historical epic sidesteps stodginess and uplift to become an intimate, wrought-iron tragedy. 2014 Return to menu * Nominees: American Sniper, Birdman or (The Unexpected Virtue of Ignorance), Boyhood, The Grand Budapest Hotel, The Imitation Game, Selma, The Theory of Everything, Whiplash * Best picture winner: Birdman * The actual best picture: A split decision! Amy Argetsinger: Sometimes I wake up in the middle of the night and think, “That was a dream, right? ‘Boyhood’ didn’t really lose the Oscar, did it?” And then I look it up on my phone and am reminded that, somehow, Richard Linklater’s 13-years-in-the-making masterwork did not win. It gets me every time. Dan Zak: Do you reward the time and effort it took, or do you reward the finished product? For me, it’s the latter. And thus it’s “Birdman.” 2015 Return to menu * Nominees: The Big Short, Bridge of Spies, Brooklyn, Mad Max: Fury Road, The Martian, The Revenant, Room, Spotlight * Best picture winner: Spotlight * The actual best picture: A split decision! Dan Zak: Of the nominees, “Spotlight” would be my choice, and not just because I’m contractually obligated to say so because my boss is played by Liev Schreiber in the movie. [Editor’s note: Marty Baron retired from The Post in February 2021.] Advertisement Story continues below advertisement Amy Argetsinger: “Spotlight” was an absorbing, intricate, slow-building masterpiece that is perhaps the most truthful movie ever about journalism — and definitely the best movie ever made in which a person who had the power to fire or promote me is a major character. It was also the rare Oscars upset that is truly satisfying — a rich payoff for all of us who’ve stayed up watching this show to the bitter, usually-anticlimactic end every year. But the fact that “Ex Machina” wasn’t even nominated in this category besmirches the credibility of the entire best picture race that year. The 10 best journalism movies of all time 2016 Return to menu * Nominees: La La Land, Moonlight, Manchester by the Sea, Arrival, Fences, Lion, Hidden Figures, Hacksaw Ridge, Hell or High Water * Best picture winner: La La — no, wait! MOONLIGHT! * The actual best picture: A split decision! Dan Zak: I’ve watched “Arrival” three times now. The first time I was overcome — and a bit deflated by the final two minutes. The second time I understood that its ending was a subversion of romantic conventions, rather than a surrender to them. The third time I just sat back and marveled at the sure hand of the director, the subtlety of Amy Adams, the ambition of the story structure. Amy Argetsinger: As a multilayered portrait of grief, there is little out there to rival “Manchester by the Sea.” But what stays with me a year later is the way it undermined the expectations of narrative resolution we bring to movies — and to our own lives. Some wounds can’t be salved, some relationships won’t be mended, some hurdles are never going to be overcome. Having said that, what actually happened at the Oscars was, as an Oscar-viewing experience, the best thing that’s ever happened at the Oscars and will never be topped. 2017 Return to menu * Nominees: Call Me By Your Name; Darkest Hour; Dunkirk; Get Out; Lady Bird; Phantom Thread; The Post; The Shape of Water; Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri * Best picture winner: The Shape of Water * The actual best picture: A split decision! Dan Zak: This was a good year for movies, but “Dunkirk,” Christopher Nolan’s ninth major feature, is a stunner, unfairly consigned to the “war movie” heap despite being a fleet reinvention of the genre. This is pure filmmaking: a technical masterpiece that invisibly raises the emotional stakes, so that the final 10 minutes surge with emotion and adrenaline that is both surprising and earned. Amy Argetsinger: Well, clearly “Get Out” should have won. It gets better with every viewing. Will anyone ever watch “The Shape of Water” a second time? 2018 Return to menu * Nominees: BlacKkKlansman, Black Panther, Bohemian Rhapsody, The Favourite, Green Book, Roma, A Star Is Born, Vice * Best picture winner: Green Book * The actual best picture: The Favourite Dan Zak: It’s hard to weigh the sour friskiness of “The Favourite” against the ambient tenderness of “Roma.” Which is the greater achievement? Which will endure in our collective imagination? They both rise to the level of art, but only one also rises to the level of pure entertainment … “The Favourite.” 2019 Return to menu * Nominees: Ford v Ferrari, The Irishman, Jojo Rabbit, Joker, Little Women, Marriage Story, 1917, Once Upon a Time … in Hollywood, Parasite * Best picture winner: Parasite * The actual best picture: Parasite Dan Zak: “Parasite” is pure entertainment with a high level of artistry and a wicked social comment. 2020 Return to menu * Nominees: The Father, Judas and the Black Messiah, Mank, Minari, Nomadland, Promising Young Woman, Sound of Metal, The Trial of the Chicago 7 * Best picture winner: Nomadland * The actual best picture: Minari Dan Zak: I loved “Nomadland” and “Sound of Metal” but can’t stop thinking about “Minari,” Lee Isaac Chung’s tender and tactile family drama set in 1983 Arkansas. To call it a story about Korean immigrants and the American Dream is to somehow both oversimplify and overspecify its magic. Through a combination of home-movie intimacy and gorgeous cinematography, “Minari” took up residence in my heart. (And Emile Mosseri’s spare but wondrous score is still in my ears.) 2021 Return to menu * Nominees: Belfast, CODA, Don’t Look Up, Drive My Car, Dune, King Richard, Licorice Pizza, Nightmare Alley, The Power of the Dog, West Side Story * Best picture winner: CODA * The actual best picture: Nightmare Alley Amy Argetsinger: “Licorice Pizza” won’t leave my head because of the trick Paul Thomas Anderson plays with our narrative expectations. We’re so primed to see a coming-of-age story about a teenage boy — because isn’t that who it’s always about? — but it turns out to be a coming-of-age story about a 20-something woman, and we need more girl antiheroes anyway. Dan Zak: “Nightmare Alley,” Guillermo del Toro’s cynical noir fantasy, is pure cinema: enveloping, evocative, epic but intimate, with a great, career-best performance by Bradley Cooper. 2022 Return to menu * Nominees: All Quiet on the Western Front, Avatar: The Way of Water, The Banshees of Inisherin, Elvis, Everything Everywhere All at Once, The Fabelmans, Tár, Top Gun: Maverick, Triangle of Sadness, Women Talking * Best picture winner: Everything Everywhere All at Once * The actual best picture: Top Gun: Maverick Dan Zak: I’m glad that “EEAAO” exists and I admire its ambitious style, but even after a second viewing I could not grasp its internal logic, and I found my head and my heart struggling with each other during its repetitive second half. I think the original “Top Gun” is trash, so I was surprised (and a little embarrassed) to be so thrilled and moved by “Maverick,” which is pure entertainment of the sleekest order. Amy Argetsinger: What even is a movie anymore? If it took you multiple days to watch from your couch, then maybe it was actually a Netflix limited series. We should once again reward grownup movies that put attractive, compelling faces on a big screen and get America talking, but for reasons that had nothing to do with who Harry Styles is sleeping with. 2023 Return to menu * Nominees: American Fiction, Anatomy of a Fall, Barbie, The Holdovers, Killers of the Flower Moon, Maestro, Oppenheimer, Past Lives, Poor Things, The Zone of Interest * Best picture winner: TBD * The actual best picture: A split decision! Dan Zak: I’ve actually seen all of these! It’s not a bad lineup, though I thought “Anatomy” was a snooze and “Killers” was actively bad. There were three nominees I bothered to see twice: “Barbie,” “Oppenheimer” and “Poor Things,” a boffo trio of bravura filmmaking. I’m going to side with “Poor Things” because it was a splendid comedy, and when is the last time a best picture made you guffaw multiple times? Amy Argetsinger: “Oppenheimer” gave all your favorite actors a job and lured grownups back to the multiplex — yes, clearing the low bar I set for “Top Gun: Maverick" in 2022, lol — but also tackled world-historic themes while redeeming the impossible biopic genre with an intricate, innovative structure. Am I giving it extra points for difficulty? Sure. The Oscars are a time to celebrate the craft. A short documentary that uncovers the hidden dangers of movie and TV production. (Video: Lindsey Sitz, Ross Godwin/The Washington Post) Share 4228 Comments More Style stories on movies HAND CURATED * Oscars 2024: Who’s hosting, favorites to win and how to watch Earlier today Oscars 2024: Who’s hosting, favorites to win and how to watch Earlier today * Da’Vine Joy Randolph isn’t so sure about this Oscars thing March 8, 2024 Da’Vine Joy Randolph isn’t so sure about this Oscars thing March 8, 2024 * He blows celebrities’ minds while impersonating them to their faces March 8, 2024 He blows celebrities’ minds while impersonating them to their faces March 8, 2024 View 3 more stories Loading... Subscribe to comment and get the full experience. 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