I've finished watching all the available Academy Award for Best Picture nominees, the exceptions being "The Patriot" (1928), considered a lost film, and "East Lynne" (1931) and "The White Parade" (1934), which are only available to view in person at the UCLA film archive.
I've been debating about the best format to write about these films, since I'm honestly not too interested in analyzing most of them. My yearly posts on Best Picture nominees are done as Rank 'Em posts. Originally, I was planning to rank all 93+ Best Picture winners in one list, but that didn't seem quite fair. How on earth are you supposed to compare the merits of a silent film like "Wings" to modern films? Heck, some of these movies are so wildly outdated, I struggle to see them as anything more than historical curiosities. So, I've resolved to divide up the films by time period. I'm doing lists for each decade of Best Picture winners, and will talk about additional nominees, and who I think should have won various races in the individual write-ups. I could do year by year ranking lists and discuss every single film, but right now I want to do a shorter series. However, I'm leaving the door open for that in the future.
I'm going to start with the '20s and '30s and work my way up to the present day. I think it's best to combine the '20s and the '30s in a single post because there would only be two entries for the '20s. I'm also listing thirteen entries here, because awards buffs will remember that Best Picture was actually split into two different categories: "Outstanding Picture," won by "Wings," and "Best Unique and Artistic Picture," won by "Sunrise.
Here we go.
1. Gone With the Wind (1939) - 1939 is considered one of the greatest years for movies of all time. "Gone With the Wind" remains the clear winner, but other contenders included "The Wizard of Oz," "Ninotchka," "Love Affair," "Stagecoach," and "Mr. Smith Goes to Washington." "Gone With the Wind" tops this list because it's got such indelible characters and the epic filmmaking still wows to this day. It was such a cinematic touchstone for so long that I still hold tremendous affection for it, though it seems to have finally reached its cultural expiration date.
2. Sunrise: A Song of Two Humans (1927) - The only "Best Unique and Artistic Picture" winner is widely recognized as one of the greatest silent films ever made, and F.W. Murnau's masterpiece. It's a dreamy, impressionistic film about a couple's rift and eventual reconciliation. Leading lady Janet Gaynor won the first Best Actress trophy, and Charles Rosher and Karl Struss got Best Cinematography. "Sunrise" competed against "Chang: A Drama of the Wilderness," an ethnographic story of Thai farmers done in a similar style to "Nanook of the North," and King Vidor's classic, "The Crowd."
3. It Happened One Night (1934) - One of my favorite romantic comedies pairs Claudette Colbert and Clark Gable in a gleeful Pre-Code romp. The leads are fantastically charismatic and sexy throughout, and Frank Capra knows exactly how much to show (and how much not to show). It's legendary at the Oscars, as the first film to win all five major awards (for Picture, Director, Actor, Actress, and Writing). The other contenders for this year included rival screwball farce "The Thin Man," and another Claudette Colbert picture, the lavish Cecil B. DeMille version of "Cleopatra."
4. The Life of Emile Zola (1937) - This one surprised me, because it's such a typical biographical melodrama, about writer Emile Zola and his part in the famous Dreyfus affair. However, it tells a truly compelling story and Paul Muni is excellent in the lead. I also admire how screenwriters in the '30s were able to pack so much more story into films of the time. I think the right picture won here, but I'm also very fond of some of the other nominees: screwball comedy "The Awful Truth," Katherine Hepburn showbiz film "Stage Door," and the earliest version of "A Star is Born."
5. Wings (1927) - The other winner of the first Academy Awards is a silent film more impressive for its technical accomplishments than its artistry. However, it's also notable for being one of the first films to show nudity, for LGBT content, and for its ambitious staging of WWI aerial battles. However, "Wings" became such an obscurity over the years, it was considered a lost film until a print turned up in France in 1992. It remains very watchable today because it was designed to be an adventure spectacle. And it's Pre-Code sensibilities often make it feel more modern than later films.
Boy, this got long. Looks like I'll have to break this installment up into two parts.
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