10 best pictures to second-guess
It’s an Oscar moment so crazy, everybody knows it by one word: Envelopegate. A year ago at the Academy Awards, the musical La La Land was named best picture — and then it wasn’t, when the correct envelope revealed indie drama Moonlight was the true winner. It was as if the gods of cinema inserted themselves to make sure the right movie was honored rather than the one with the guy trying to save jazz. This incident is unlikely to happen again in our lifetimes — it took 89 times to happen in the first place — but on the eve of another movie joining the ranks at the 90th Oscars (ABC, Sunday, 8 ET/5 PT), we’re rethinking past works declared best picture and the films that should have conquered them.
1942
Did win: How Green Was My Valley Should have won: Citizen Kane
Perhaps the most egregious mistake came relatively early in Oscars history, with John Ford’s coal-country drama — which took five Academy Awards to
Kane’s lone screenplay win — getting the nod over Orson Welles’ epic about an eccentric media mogul that is widely regarded as the best movie ever made.
1974
Did win: The Sting Should have won: The Exorcist Both were huge hits that came in with 10 nominations, and Robert Redford and Paul Newman’s ragtime-tinged conman caper was the safe choice. The Exorcist was the true standout, a frightfest masterpiece about faith and innocence that has scared the socks off folks for four decades.
1980
Did win: Kramer vs. Kramer Should have won: Apocalypse Now
Not to take anything away from the wrenching look at divorce with Dustin Hoffman and Meryl Streep, but Apoca
lypse Now was unlike any war film that came before it, an operatic and grandiose episode that delved into the horrors, physical and otherwise, inherent on the battlefield.
1982
Did win: Chariots of Fire Should have won: Raiders of the Lost Ark
One was a true-life story of Olympic athletes that we remember now mostly because of its catchy theme song. The other was a rip-roaring, two-fisted and hugely influential ode to the serial adventures of yesteryear — with an adventurous archaeologist on the hunt for the Ark of the Covenant — that took pop culture by storm. And a Raiders win would have been a game-changer for blockbusters.
1986
Did win: Out of Africa Should have won: The Color Purple
The epic romance with Robert Redford and Meryl Streep in colonial Kenya won over Oscar voters but not critics, who gave Africa mixed reviews. The motion picture academy whiffed by not honoring a film with Whoopi Goldberg’s Golden Globe-winning performance, Oprah Winfrey’s high-profile Hollywood debut and Steven Spielberg’s honest exploration of racism, sexism and domestic violence in the early 20th century.
1990
Did win: Driving Miss Daisy Should have won: Field of Dreams
The pairing of Jessica Tandy and Morgan Freeman in a heartwarming dramedy about an elderly white woman and her African-American driver took down Born on the Fourth of July, My Left
Foot and Dead Poets Society. Good movies all around, but none as excellent as the corn-fed Kevin Costner fantasy that captured the wonders of baseball and, yes, dreams.
1995
Did win: Forrest Gump Should have won: Pulp Fiction
Tom Hanks literally running through history in the overly earnest Gump is what the Oscars, at least back in the day, lived for. Not so much Quentin Tarantino’s genre mash-up Pulp Fiction, an ultraviolent, narratively complex cultural phenomenon that wasn’t just the best picture that year but arguably of the entire decade.
1997
Did win: The English Patient Should have won: Fargo
Anthony Minghella’s romantic World War II drama is a fine film, though it tests viewers’ patience over the course of three hours. On the other hand, Fargo spawned a TV series and fandom for the Coen brothers’ winningly quirky black comedy about murderous deeds and dimwits in snow-covered Minnesota.
2006
Did win: Crash Should have won: Brokeback Mountain
Paul Haggis’ interwoven all-star drama about racial tensions in L.A., plagued by mixed reviews and complaints of stereotyping, has caught flak for more than 10 years as an Oscar fail. And it is, especially considering Ang Lee’s timeless and resonant Brokeback was sitting right there, with Jake Gyllenhaal and the late Heath Ledger as cowboys in a forbidden love affair.
2011
Did win: T he King’s Speech Should have won: Black Swan
The consensus at the time was that period drama King’s Speech, with Colin Firth’s George VI working through a troublesome stutter, pulled an upset on David Fincher’s vaunted Facebook bio
The Social Network. Yet flying above both was the polarizing Swan, Darren Aronofsky and Natalie Portman’s weird and wonderful character study of an embattled ballerina.