My Top Ten Best Picture Oscar Winners (And Bottom Five!)

I’m continuing my Oscar-themed week with this list of my favorite (and least-favorite!) Best Picture Oscar winners.

The Academy does quite often get things very wrong (especially in recent years) but when looking at a list of all the winners, there are indeed a lot of true classics here that I’d highly recommend to everyone.

I have my little IMDB project where I’m trying to watch all the IMDB Top 250 Films so I’m not about to start attempting to watch all the Best Picture Winners. However, when making this list, I discovered that I’ve already seen 47 so I guess that isn’t too bad! So I ranked them ALL (because I’m sad like that). But I’ll of course focus on the top ten.

So now, counting down to My Top Ten Best Picture Oscar Winners, these are all of them that I’ve seen ranked from least favorite to favorite. My Bottom Five list will follow this one…

Chicago
Birdman
The King’s Speech
Oliver!
Out Of Africa
On The Waterfront
Driving Miss Daisy
Chariots Of Fire
Dances With Wolves
Unforgiven
A Beautiful Mind
Spotlight
Moonlight
Argo
Braveheart
My Fair Lady
All About Eve
The Best Years Of Our Lives
The Silence Of The Lambs
Rebecca
The French Connection
West Side Story
Gladiator
Amadeus
Forrest Gump
Ben-Hur
The Shape Of Water
Rain Man
In The Heat Of The Night
Casablanca
Gone With The Wind
The Sting
Terms Of Endearment

We’re getting there… 😉

15. Platoon
14. The Deer Hunter
13. The Departed
12. Million Dollar Baby
11. Titanic

My Top Ten Best Picture Winners:

10. TIE: American Beauty & Schindler’s List

9. Midnight Cowboy

8. The Apartment

7. The Lord Of The Rings: The Return Of The King

6. Rocky

5. The Artist

4. TIE: The Godfather & The Godfather Part II (it made more sense to keep them together but I slightly prefer the first film)

3. The Bridge On The River Kwai

2. The Sound Of Music

1. One Flew Over The Cuckoo’s Nest

I absolutely love Cuckoo’s Nest – it’s very easily my number one favorite. 🙂

And now is when I’m going to be a bitch! Here are My Bottom Five Best Picture Oscar Winners (Counting down to the very worst):

5. Crash
4. Ordinary People (it beat Raging Bull & The Elephant Man!)
3. Shakespeare In Love (it famously beat Saving Private Ryan)
2. Slumdog Millionaire
1. The English Patient


*yawn!*

It was fun making this list! I really should try to watch more Oscar winners – I seem to especially have not seen many of the winners from the past decade or so. I’d love to hear all of your favorite & least favorite Best Pictures in the comments now! 🙂

**List updated 2/7/17 to add Spotlight, Million Dollar Baby & Rocky

**List updated 25/11/17 to add Moonlight

**List updated 28/1/18 to add The French Connection

**List updated December 2018 to add The King’s Speech & The Shape Of Water

**List updated February 2019 to add In The Heat Of The Night

My Top Disney Princess Movies

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1. Sleeping Beauty
2. Beauty And The Beast
3. Cinderella
4. Snow White And The Seven Dwarfs
5. Tangled
6. The Princess And The Frog
7. Brave
8. Aladdin
9. The Little Mermaid
10. Mulan
11. Pocahontas

In order starting with my favorite. These are ranked according to how much I like the movie overall, not according to the best princess. That list may differ slightly but I’m a grown woman and not sad enough to do another list. (Belle would be first!). 😉 These are all the “official” princesses including Merida, who will soon also be officially added. Thanks to whoever photoshopped her into the picture I found online!

My 2012 Movie Round-Up

I’m only including the ones I went to in the cinema in 2012, not ones watched on DVD. In order from my favorite to least favorite:

1. The Artist – 9/10

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This counts as I saw it in the cinema in January 2012. I’m in the UK so we’re usually a little behind on movies (much to my annoyance). 😉 Excellent, beautiful, moving movie without a bunch of unnecessary noise and with really cool shoes & clothing. I wanted to somehow crawl into the screen and live in this movie.

2. The Perks Of Being A Wallflower – 8.5/10

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Can’t fully put my finger on it but really loved this movie. Already reviewed it on here so won’t go into it much again but I think it’s just because I really felt I could identify with the characters and wished they’d been MY group of friends in 1991, when the movie takes place (and when I was actually the same age as them!). Reading the book now.

3. Ted – 8.5/10

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I’m not much of a “comedy movie” person. Not because I don’t have a sense of humor but because NOTHING is funny these days! Maybe I’m just too old and out of touch since I haven’t found anything funny since Wayne’s World, The Princess Bride & This Is Spinal Tap. But, holy crap -Ted was freaking hilarious! Thank you god! A funny movie! Finally! Or… Thank you Seth MacFarlane. Whatever. 🙂

4. The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey – 8/10

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I saw this four days ago and still need to do a review of it. I’m still trying to decide exactly what I think of it, though. I’m a big fan of the book and of course The Lord of the Rings books & movies. Is it as good as any of The Lord of the Rings movies? Unfortunately, no. But did I enjoy it like I was a small child opening Christmas presents? Hell yeah. 🙂

5. The Dark Knight Rises – 8/10

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I’m pretty geeky (for a girl) and should be more into the Batman films than I am. Maybe it’s because I don’t like Christian Bale. Or because I just really couldn’t get into Batman Begins. The Dark Knight, however, was brilliant. All because of Heath Ledger for me (and many people, of course). So The Dark Knight Rises was never going to live up to that one but I still enjoyed it thoroughly and thought it was a good conclusion.

6. Untouchable – 8.5/10

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It’s the French Shawshank Redemption. But not set in a prison. And one guy is in a wheelchair. And there’s comedy unlike in Shawshank. And it’s a true story. And, you know – they speak French. But, otherwise, it’s Shawshank! And considering that The Shawshank Redemption is the best film of ALL TIME, it means this movie is pretty damn good as well. Seriously, though, this is a very touching true story about male friendship between two people who are very different. It should probably be above The Hobbit and The Dark Knight Rises, to be honest. Not above the vulgar teddy bear but, still, I highly recommend this!

7. The Hunger Games – 8/10

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Love love love the books. (Well, the first two at least). They did a decent job adapting the book. Of course things had to be left out and there wasn’t near as much character development but that’s to be expected (unless it’s done by Peter Jackson who would manage to make a short book 20 hours long). At least they didn’t change TOO much. And I think Jennifer Lawrence is perfect for the role.

8. Skyfall – 8/10

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I should start by saying I’m not a Bond fan AT ALL. I’ve only seen maybe five Bond films and not one of those was even a Sean Connery one (Seriously! I’m so ashamed). So, as a non-Bond fan just enjoying a film where I’m not fully up on all I should know about the main character, I thought this was a great movie. I loved the emotion and serious nature of it and don’t think I’d go for the older, more light-hearted ones anyway. They’re more light-hearted, right? I should probably just shut up and watch some of them as I don’t know what I’m talking about. 🙂

9. The Avengers – 7.5/10

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Superheroes! Lots of them! Yay! Chris Hemsworth! BIG yay! Fun popcorn movie! Yay! Oscar worthy? No, but who cares! I’d have to say I probably prefer the Iron Man movies so far. But Chris Hemsworth isn’t in those…

10. Looper – 7.5/10

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This movie is very ME. I love sci-fi. I love time travel. I love Joseph Gordon-Levitt since 500 Days Of Summer (in a little brother kind of way). I had very high expectations so that probably didn’t help me being slightly disappointed. Plot holes (but when aren’t there in time travel movies?) and… something else that was missing from this movie (don’t know what!) brings this much further down the 2012 list than I was hoping it would be. :-/ It started out with almost Blade Runner-type potential. But, damn – it ended up being nowhere near the classic that is. My fault for wanting another Blade Runner masterpiece, probably! It was still a fun movie, though.

11. Prometheus – 7/10

Argh! I’m so upset! This was meant to be number ONE this year! This was meant to be a CLASSIC like the absolutely brilliant Alien & Aliens! Dammit! Dammit! Dammit!!! But I can’t put it any further down the list or give it a lower rating than this because… Well, because of Alien & Aliens! Argh! Damn you, Prometheus! Damn you! (But, really, people were a BIT hard on Prometheus, don’t you think?) :-p

12. The Muppets – 7/10

The Muppets! And Amy Adams. Good enough for me! 🙂

13. Chronicle – 7/10

Getting a little bored with the “super powers” thing but felt this was a pretty good and fairly original take on it. And sick of found footage! But it worked well with this movie.

14. Brave – 7/10

Pixar! I worship Pixar!!! Was therefore really hoping that Brave would be much higher than this. :-/ Still a much better animated movie than anything not done by Pixar, though! (Except Despicable Me) 🙂 And still much better than the Cars movies, the only Pixar movies I don’t love. And Merida is a good addition to the Disney Princess merchandising mania.

15. Argo – 7/10

Probably deserves a higher rating but it all felt a little “flat” to me. For an extremely interesting and emotional true story, I wasn’t feeling the emotion for some reason. Plus, I think I have a thing against Ben Affleck. Love the story, though.

16. The Cabin in the Woods – 6/10

It’s definitely a love it or hate it. Saying that, though, I’d say I just found it average so I’m full of shit. But, hey – Chris Hemsworth again! He’s worth at least one additional point on the rating scale.

17. Snow White & The Huntsman – 6/10

This was better than I was expecting and I think it could have been even better if it hadn’t been for one HUGE mistake. Kristen Stewart! SO SO SO wrong for this role! Know who WAS perfect in this movie, though? That’s right – Chris Hemsworth! Oh yeah.

18. The Amazing Spider-Man – 6/10

Not actually that bad, but… What’s the point?? Do prefer Andrew Garfield to Tobey Maguire, though.

19. Frankenweenie – 6/10

Tim Burton – I’ve fallen out of love with him in recent years. This was better than some of his recent stuff. But it worked better as a short.

20. The Pirates! In An Adventure With Scientists! – 5.5/10

Meh

21. The Woman in Black – 5.5/10

Boo! *yawn*

22. The Descendants – 5.5/10

Why all the hype? Sideways was much better.

23. Red Lights – 5/10

My friend chose this. I’m never letting her choose the movie again.

24. Tinker Bell & the Secret of the Wings – 4.5/10

I SO didn’t choose this. And I already spent WAY too much time reviewing this in a separate post.

25. Sinister – 4/10

WTF?

26. Ice Age 4 – 4/10

The first three aren’t TOO bad (for non-Pixar movies!). They should have stopped at three.