ONTD Original - Best Picture Deservers Since 1987
Inspired by "ONTD Decides Best Picture of the 2000s", OP has looked back on their life and wondered, "what were the best movies for every year they were alive?" Through extensive Wikipedia-searching for each year's nominees and "films of [insert year here]", OP has come up with 33 years of movies that should've gotten or deserved its Best Picture Oscar and the rationale why.
(Note: you might not agree with OP's choices and that's perfectly fine, OP won't judge but my picks are obviously the correct ones)
So without further ado - 33 Years of Best Picture Deservers!
The Last Emperor is a perfectly solid movie but when I think of movies from the year I was born, it begins and ends with Fatal Attraction. While it unhelpfully created the "psycho ex desperate to tear their love from his stable life", it's undeniable that the thriller is a wild superbly-acted ride and goddamn if it isn't compelling.
Yes, OP is saying Zemeckis' live-action/animated comic noir as a Best Picture Desever. Why? It's the best blend of animation and live action since Mary Poppins and is about how Los Angeles' freeways destroyed minority neighborhoods. It's a smarter movie than it lets on, and anyone who knows OP as a disability advocate knows that OP thinks Rain Man can go fuck itself.
How this movie wasn't nominated for Best Picture eludes OP. And do we even need to say anything about Driving Miss Daisy?
Martin Scorsese has made about 78634917649613 movies about gangsters but this is his best one by far. And honestly, OP likes it better than the Godfather movies because it's more entertaining and dares to say "yes we're family but when the chips are down it's every man for himself." Better than White Savior with Native Americans.
Disney's animated Beauty and the Beast is one of OP's fave movies of all time but come on, Silence of the Lambs fucking takes the cake for Best Picture. And autistic king Anthony Hopkins is to die for.
OP has admittedly seen few movies from this year and given that OP hasn't seen Unforgiven, the most Oscar-worthy movie by OP's estimations that year is Malcolm X. Also Denzel should've gotten his Best Actor for this.
This is the only Holocaust movie that matters. Everyone else can GTFO.
Tarantino is a well-known asshole but when he makes a good movie, he makes a goddamn great movie. Everyone know she steals his motifs but he puts them together so well that OP can't exactly hate on it. And Sam Jackson is the GOAT in this. The last time OP saw Forrest Gump was in her AP US History class where everyone laughed at all the gratuitous American history self-inserts.
Il Postino is a sweet movie that everyone should watch and Emma Thompson somehow made OP's least favorite Jane Austen book into something worth watching so that's not nothing. Fuck Mel Gibson.
Did anyone actually watch The English Patient? Anyone? Anyway, Fargo is the best of the Cohen Brothers and Frances McDormand is a national treasure in this.
OP knows this movie has been through the wringer of ZOMGITSTHEBEST to ZOMGITSTHEWORST but looking back, Titanic holds up. #sorrynotsorry
Real talk - OP got bored with this one real quick after the landing at Normandy sequence. But that Normandy sequence made this movie deserving of Best Picture over the basic bitch that is Shakespeare in Love. Harvey Weinstein can go fuck himself.
Before you all call OP insane for this one, hear OP out. OP believes that movies that push the art of filmmaking in story, visuals, and effects should be as worthy of Best Picture noms/wins as the standard srs bsns drama that dominates the Oscars. The Matrix has undoubtedly changed the landscape of what film could do in stuntwork, visual effects, and communicating philosophy through unexpected mediums. Sequels be damned, the Matrix absolutely deserves accolades for it. And of all the thought-provoking dramas that came out that year, Magnolia is the best one (and the Aimee Mann soundtrack slaps).
Gladiator and Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon are beautiful great action movies, but OP also wants to make the case for Almost Famous as a really beautifully coming-of-age movie that has helped define OP as a person. Plus Penny Lane. That's all.
Before you dismiss OP as just another LOTR stan (which OP is and does yearly rewatches of the extended trilogy because it fucking holds up), like the Matrix LOTR has changed the filmscape in film technique and is a beyond spectacular telling of a very simple story of good vs evil. And of all the LOTR movies, Fellowship is the best and strongest of them all. OP also would have accepted the brilliant beautiful chaos known as Moulin Rouge over the beige schlock of A Beautiful Mind.
OP was about two years into watching the Oscars by this point and was pulling for The Two Towers (which is good but admittedly the weakest of the LOTR trilogy) but Chicago has grown on OP over the years and the musical numbers are goddamn brilliant. The Cell Block Tango alone - stunning!
Although OP likes Lost in Translation too, everything nominated in 2003 was weaksauce next to Return of the King. It deserves all the Oscars it got. Seethe.
OP is mad this didn't get a Best Picture nom because it's a brilliant visual and experimental telling of a story of a guy trying to erase his ex from his life. Michele Gondry is a master in his artistic style and the acting is superb. Million Dollar Baby who?
OP knows the popular (and probably correct) answer here is Brokeback Mountain, but if OP is to be honest to themselves Good Night and Good Luck was more compelling than Brokeback Mountain. The acting, the atmosphere, the tension of the story of Edward Murrow taking down McCarthyism is so gripping and deserves more love. And the less said about Crash the better.
This movie is often called Guillermo del Toro's magnum opus and it's true. It's so painstakingly gorgeous and horrifying and touching and gripping and OP has no choice but to stan. And OP already gave Scorsese his Oscar with Goodfellas, why bother with The Departed?
OP understands why No Country for Old Men won Best Pic and why people like it but OP was honestly bored with it outside of Anton Chigurh. And while OP can't say they liked There Will Be Blood, that movie haunts OP to this day with Daniel Day Lewis' powerhouse performance. It also spurred the "I drink your milkshake" meme, so that's worth something.
2008 was a weaksauce year for the Oscars (and no, OP wouldn't have nominated The Dark Knight either). Slumdog Millionaire was fine enough, but WALL-E is head and shoulders above everything else that came out that year. It's just stunning in storytelling, animation, and dragging Jeff Bezos as the Buy N Large CEO.
See 1994 for OP's rationale. Plus nothing is more satisfying to this Jew than watching Jews obliterate Nazis. Who remembers The Hurt Locker anyway?
The Social Network is not OP's favorite David Fincher endeavor (see Fight Club, Zodiac, Gone Girl), but OP can't argue it isn't a strong provocative movie about the depths of unfeeling asshatery as someone's dinky website becomes a monilith of the modern era. (And OP needs a sequel given all the shit Zuckerberg's been up to since 2010 NOW.) While OP liked Black Swan, Inception, and Toy Story 3 better, The Social Network deserved Best Picture more than The King's Speech (especially since Hooper turned out to be a hilarious flop.)
OP could be honest about their pick for this year and get cancelled or OP can acknowledge this was a weak as fuck year and pretend it didn't exist beyond the last Harry Potter movie, Thor, and X-Men First Class. OP chooses the latter.
Argo is a self-fellating nod to Hollywood affecting real world affairs and OP hates that it won to make up for Ben Affleck being left out of the Best Director pool. Zero Dark Thirty does murky American interference in international affairs better and the ending is a gut punch to end all gut punches. OP also would've preferred to see the visual masterpiece known as Beasts of the Southern Wild also possibly take Best Picture.
The Oscars made the right call with this one. This movie destroyed OP in the best possible way and should be mandated viewing in all American schools. And Chiwetel Ejiofor would like his Oscar back, Matthew McConaughey.
Unpopular opinion alert - OP fucking haaaaaated Boyhood. OP admires Linklatter's filmmaking technique and thinks he deserved Best Director but OP was bored shitless by the end result. And while OP didn't exactly hate Birdman, Whiplash, The Grand Budapest Hotel, and Selma were all better films deserving of acclaim. Whiplash is a thrill ride of stress (and OP got PTSD from their marching band days with JK Simmons), The Grand Budapest Hotel is a goddamn delightful romp, and Selma is one of the most powerful biopics OP has ever seen (and deserved more noms Academy AHEM).
The LOTR/Matrix of the 2010s and a goddamn masterpiece. Spotlight could never.
Looking through all the nominated films, OP was suprised to remember that the 2016 nominees were a pretty strong bunch. Lion, Arrival, Hell or High Water, and Hidden Figures were all good but Moonlight easily takes the cake here. One of the most deserving Best Picture wins of OP's life.
OP was really torn between Get Out and The Shape of Water for the 2017 win. OP loves Guillermo del Toro and his visuals are especially on point here and like Get Out doesn't give its characters an unambigiously happy ending. But OP would also love to live in a world where Get Out won Best Picture as the best horror thriller since Silence of the Lambs. You can't pull a Sophie's Choice on OP!
OP loved many of the best picture noms in 2018 (The Favourite, BlackKklansman, Black Panther) but OP will forever hate themselves for not seeing Roma in theaters when it was playing its limited release because Roma is STUNNING. It's so pretty and powerful it makes OP cry. And OP cries harder when they remember Roma lost to Green Book (aka Driving Miss Daisy 2: White Driving Boogaloo)
There's a difference between "like" and "love". Like, OP likes Jojo Rabbit, Little Women, and The Irishman, but OP LOVES Parasite. And if you loved the other movies, it's because you haven't seen Parasite yet. And Parasite getting Best Picture, Director, International Feature, and Screenplay was the last good thing to happen to 2020, so at least we have that.
I worked on this for the last three weeks so please be gentle to my tastes.