Poll: The best and worst Best Movie of the last 40 years
posted at 9:12 am on March 15, 2009 by Ed Morrissey
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A few weeks back, we had a lot of fun choosing the worst of Hollywood’s major releases in conjunction with their annual orgy of self-congratulations, the Oscars. When I posted that poll, many Hot Air readers criticized the Academy Awards as politically driven in both national politics and industry politics, and that the awards in recent years honor the wrong films for the wrong reasons. To me, that sounds like a great topic for a poll, especially since I’ll be attending the Little Scribe’s baptism and celebrations today.
What was the worst movie to win Best Picture in the last 40 years? The list below contains some real snoozers, movies that have definitely not stood the test of time. Some of them had pretty disappointing competition; after all, picking Platoon from as opposed to The Mission, Hannah and Her Sisters, Children of a Lesser God, and A Room with a View could almost be justified as having been the only nominated movie that kept audiences awake. Others, like Kramer vs Kramer, are practically footnotes to artistic masterpieces it beat like All That Jazz and Apocalypse Now. Who loves the smell of custody hearings in the morning, after all?
I’ve listed a few nominees myself, but unlike our earlier polls, you can add your own suggestions from the list below. Be sure to copy and paste to get the title exact:
To be fair, this list contains masterpieces of its own. The Lord of the Rings is one of my favorite movies of all time, and I know Braveheart is favored by many Hot Air readers. Patton may be the best war movie of all time, and one of the best depictions of the thin line between genius and madness. Unforgiven haunts, as does Schindler’s List, for very different reasons.
Again, you’re not just stuck with my Magnificent Seven. If you like another on the list, add it and it will become part of the poll. Be sure to cut and paste the title from below in order to make sure it gets counted properly.
On Thursday, Betty Jo Tucker of Movie Addict Headquarters and Jazz Shaw will appear on The Ed Morrissey Show to discuss the results of both polls. Have fun!
The Academy Award database lists these as the nominees:
- 1968 – Oliver!
- 1969 – Midnight Cowboy
- 1970 – Patton
- 1971 – The French Connection
- 1972 – The Godfather
- 1973 – The Sting
- 1974 – The Godfather Part II
- 1975 – One Flew over the Cuckoo’s Nest
- 1976 – Rocky
- 1977 – Annie Hall
- 1978 – The Deer Hunter
- 1979 – Kramer vs. Kramer
- 1980 – Ordinary People
- 1981 – Chariots of Fire
- 1982 – Gandhi
- 1983 – Terms of Endearment
- 1984 – Amadeus
- 1985 – Out of Africa
- 1986 – Platoon
- 1987 – The Last Emperor
- 1988 – Rain Man
- 1989 – Driving Miss Daisy
- 1990 – Dances With Wolves
- 1991 – The Silence of the Lambs
- 1992 – Unforgiven
- 1993 – Schindler’s List
- 1994 – Forrest Gump
- 1995 – Braveheart
- 1996 – The English Patient
- 1997 – Titanic
- 1998 – Shakespeare in Love
- 1999 – American Beauty
- 2000 – Gladiator
- 2001 – A Beautiful Mind
- 2002 – Chicago
- 2003 – The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King
- 2004 – Million Dollar Baby
- 2005 – Crash
- 2006 – The Departed
- 2007 – No Country for Old Men
- 2008 – Slumdog Millionaire
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Scariest movie ever. There simply isn’t any competition. The Exorcist for me has always been the scariest movie I have ever seen! I first saw it when I was home from college. My best friend and I went on a Sat. afternoon and I was staying at my parents home that night alone and I was terrified. Tough guy indeed! It still scares me to watch it!!!
sabbott on March 16, 2009 at 5:05 AM
Braveheart: Truly bad history, but a great movie.
Out of Africa: Absolutely the worst. I don’t care about your farm in Africa and please go ahead and die so this torture will end. My wife dragged me to this thing and I was almost in a coma by the time it ended. I needed electric shock to get my heart going again. This movie redefined the word boring, taking it to a whole new level reached again only recently by listening to Al Gore.
SoonerMarine on March 16, 2009 at 10:06 AM
Worst movie evah: Barbarella
Best movie evah: Wizard of Oz
right2bright on March 16, 2009 at 10:06 AM
You must be a lot of fun at party’s…
right2bright on March 16, 2009 at 10:13 AM
Vastly underrated: Rocky. It’s really a tremendous film (more of a love story than anything) and it wonderfully captures the America (the state of the American Dream) of the mid-1970s.
Best Film on your list: Godfather II. Yes it’s better than Godfather I. Both are the closest anyone has come to film-making perfection.
The single best acting performance in all of these movies is George C. Scott’s ‘Patton’, although there is strong competition from Pacino’s Michael Corleone, Hackman’s Popeye Doyle, Kingsley’s Gandhi, and Bardem’s Anton Chigurgh.
Worst film to win best picture in the last 40 years: Gladiator. It’s not a terrible movie or anything, it just is much more run-of-the-mill than the Best Picture award would imply.
Robert_Paulson on March 16, 2009 at 10:20 AM
Worst movie ever – Soapbox – I physically got up and left my wife and friends in the theater. What an awful attempt at movie making!
sabbott on March 16, 2009 at 10:27 AM
Crash shouldn’t have won. I’m a movie freak and without a doubt, Brokeback should’ve won that year. Oh well.
jtorres138 on March 16, 2009 at 10:40 AM
Weird. I was just thinking about a horrendous actress in a horrendous movie on my walk to work this morning…Gwyneth Paltrow’s Oscar-winning performance in Shakespeare in Love.
misslizzi on March 16, 2009 at 10:50 AM
I could go for this…
For example, I’d pick Saving Private Ryan over Shakespeare In Love, Midnight Express over Deer Hunter, LA Confidential over Titanic, etc.
SPR and LA Confidential both got robbed, IMHO, while Midnight Express over Deer Hunter is more of a personal preference.
(Michael Cimino needed a freakin’ story-editor to make Deer Hunter more watchable. His win for this lead to Heaven’s Gate, which helped destroy the “auteur” movement for US directors.)
While I haven’t seen Crash yet, it gets a *bit* of a pass from me because that year was a big example of why non-industry people *despise* Academy nominees. *Nothing* winning that year would have made me particularly happy, but Crash seemed the least offensive of the five to me.
The Best Picture nominees that year were Crash, Capote, Brokeback Mountain, Good Night And Good Luck, and Munich. That’s a liberal wish-list of the kinds of movies they want to nominate (The “OMG, racism~!” film, the pro-gay films, the “evil politician vs. virtuous journalist” film, and the “OMG, Israel is evil!” film.)
teke184 on March 16, 2009 at 11:05 AM
Flashback 1969: Winner: Midnight Cowboy featuring two great performances and a fairly unique character study, BUT,
given it to do all over again….Sam Peckinpaughh’s bloody great classic The Wild Bunch
1. Amazing cinematography
2. A true “anti western”, where the outlaws are the “heroes” possesing their own (twisted but its there) honor code.
3. Peckinpaugh’s quick cuts and cinematically amazing gun fights. I once read the average film has about 400 – 600 edits (sepeate shots). Bloody Sam’s masterpiece had 2,600.
4. The cast and the performances: William Holden, Ernest Borgnaine, Ben Johnon, Warren Oates, Robert Ryan and on and on….
5. One of the greatest GUY MOVIES of all time, speaking to that code that we men wish we could still live by:
* “When you side with a man, you stay with him…”
* The Bunch’s going back for their comrade and facing their certain death
* PIKE: “Let’s Go” TECTOR: “Why not?”
* PIKE: “He gave his word.” DUTCH: “Gave his word to a railroad!” PIKE: “Its HIS word!”
*
Teacher in Tejas on March 16, 2009 at 11:40 AM
I had, and still have, no desire to see about half of the films on the Worst list. I still, proudly, have not seen Titanic.
I had no choice but to vote for The English Patient. My wife brought it home when I was bedridden, recovering after nearly dying from carbon monoxide poisoning. I only sat thru it because I lacked the strength to get up and move or pry the remote from her hands. Viewing that disaster almost made me wish I hadn’t survived. She brought home Dumb and Dumber and that stupid Brad Pitt/Anthony Hopkins movie about the killer bear (the name escapes me and I lack the interest to look it up) the same night. All were horrible. But, given a choice between the three, I’d take Dumb and Dumber hands down.
Wingo on March 16, 2009 at 1:47 PM
I was surprised to find Chariots of Fire on teh “Worst” List. I actually liked it.
CynicalOptimist on March 16, 2009 at 2:15 PM
That would be The Edge.
teke184 on March 16, 2009 at 2:54 PM
As long as he doesn’t bring up the benefits of the Beetabaga, I’m ok with it.
BobMbx on March 16, 2009 at 3:58 PM
Shakespeare in Love, hands down. Not only because it was such a wet kiss to their own careers, but it took the rightfull award away from Saving Private Ryan.
bobeast on March 16, 2009 at 5:43 PM
“Weird. I was just thinking about a horrendous actress in a horrendous movie on my walk to work this morning…Gwyneth Paltrow’s Oscar-winning performance in Shakespeare in Love.”
God I hate that woman! That is one reason Seven is one of my favorite movies! Nothing like the idea of Gwyneth’s head in a box!
bobeast on March 16, 2009 at 6:15 PM
Worst Movie? Sargent Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band with the BeeGees. Went with a date. Wanted to leave 2 minutes after the opening credits. Took me longer to leave her. :)
itsspideyman on March 16, 2009 at 10:08 PM
Chariots of Fire definitely does not belong on the “Worst” list by a long shot. It may not be the best film of the last 40 years, but it’s a damn fine movie and, more importantly, gets extra points for beating Warren Beatty’s self-indulgent Bolshevik propaganda Reds.
Spiny Norman on March 16, 2009 at 10:31 PM
See Crash, it is certainly overrated but it is soooo much better than Capote, Brokeback Mountain, Good Night And Good Luck, and Munich. All were absolutely horrible but you forgot the other crap movie that year – Syriana.
The best movie of 2005 should have been either
Star Wars: Episode III
Cinderella Man
or Batman Begins
No it is Legends of the Fall which was not that bad a movie. The Edge was Baldwin/Hopkins which was bad.
Poptech on March 16, 2009 at 11:05 PM
I chose The English Patient but after looking at the complete list I probably would have chosen A Beautiful Mind. Not a terrible movie but not terribly memorable either and there’s no way it should have beaten out The Fellowship of the Ring.
I know it’s not fashionable in some quarters but I loved Titanic.
rsrobinson on March 17, 2009 at 8:17 PM
I also think that Shakespeare in Love has been unfairly maligned. Yes, Saving Private Ryan should have won but if you can get past that and watch it on its own merits it’s actually a very entertaining film.
rsrobinson on March 17, 2009 at 8:22 PM
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