My Top Ten Best Picture Oscar Winners (Including Full Ranked List Of All Seen)

The Oscar nominees are being announced today (I think?), so I thought I’d start my new project to watch all the Best Picture Oscar Winners.

I’ll post about the project & the 31 that I have left to watch soon. First I thought it would be fun to rank the 62 that I’ve already seen.

I do have to say that I haven’t enjoyed the Oscars as much for the last decade or so. When you look at winners from the past, there are some truly fantastic & epic films. But maybe the problem is just that movies aren’t actually as good nowadays… Either way, I don’t expect much from this year’s nominees since I didn’t see anything great in 2020. We’ll see – there are still plenty of 2020 films not yet available in the U.K. so maybe I’ve missed out on a masterpiece (but I doubt it). And although there are loads of great movies that I really liked in the list below, only the top 2 are personal all-time favorites of mine.

For now, here’s my full ranked list of all the Best Picture Oscar Winners I’ve seen so far, counting down to my top ten:

62-61 (hated these)

62. The English Patient
61. Slumdog Millionaire

60-51: (some of these really shouldn’t be winners)

60. Crash (ugh)
59. Shakespeare In Love
58. The Hurt Locker
57. All Quiet On The Western Front (don’t really remember this – watched it in school)
56. Ordinary People
55. Birdman
54. Chicago
53. Oliver!
52. The King’s Speech
51. Out Of Africa (don’t remember this well either)

Top 50:

50. On The Waterfront
49. Chariots Of Fire (should rewatch this too)
48. Driving Miss Daisy
47. Green Book
46. Dances With Wolves
45. Kramer vs. Kramer
44. A Beautiful Mind
43. Spotlight
42. No Country For Old Men
41. Unforgiven

Top Forty:

40. Moonlight
39. Argo
38. Braveheart
37. The Silence Of The Lambs
36. My Fair Lady
35. All About Eve
34. The Best Years Of Our Lives
33. Rebecca
‪32. The French Connection
31. Gladiator

Top Thirty:

30. Forrest Gump
29. Ben-Hur
28. West Side Story
27. Amadeus
26. In The Heat Of The Night
25. The Shape Of Water
24. Casablanca (in all honesty, need to rewatch this as well)
23. Gone With The Wind
22. The Sting (also need to rewatch – just remember liking it a lot as a kid)
21. Platoon

Top Twenty:

20. Terms Of Endearment
19. Rain Man
18. The Deer Hunter
17. It Happened One Night
16. Parasite
15. The Departed
14. Million Dollar Baby
13. Schindler’s List
12. American Beauty
11. Midnight Cowboy

****Top Ten:****

My Top Ten Best Picture Winners:

10. The Artist

9. Titanic

8. The Apartment

7. Rocky

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

5. The Godfather Part II

4. The Godfather

3. The Bridge On The River Kwai

2. The Sound Of Music

1. One Flew Over The Cuckoo’s Nest

The 31 Still To Be Seen:

2014 12 Years a Slave
1988 The Last Emperor
1983 Gandhi
1978 Annie Hall
1971 Patton
1967 A Man for All Seasons
1964 Tom Jones
1963 Lawrence of Arabia
1959 Gigi
1957 Around the World in 80 Days
1956 Marty
1954 From Here to Eternity
1953 The Greatest Show on Earth
1952 An American in Paris
1950 All the Kings Men
1949 Hamlet
1948 Gentleman’s Agreement
1946 The Lost Weekend
1945 Going My Way
1943 Mrs. Miniver
1942 How Green Was My Valley
1939 You Can’t Take It with You
1938 The Life of Emile Zola
1937 The Great Ziegfeld
1936 Mutiny on the Bounty
1934 Cavalcade
1933 Grand Hotel
1932 Cimarron
1930 The Broadway Melody
1929 Wings (and Sunrise: A Song of Two Humans) (plan to watch both as they both actually won the top prizes that year – Wings was later declared the official winner but Sunrise sounds better…)

I’ll still be working on my IMDb Top 250 Challenge as well. Last week I ranked the those I’ve watched so far HERE and listed those I still need to watch HERE.

My Top Ten Bill Paxton Movies

I was sad to hear of the death of Bill Paxton over the weekend. He has such an impressive movie resume! It’s funny how, even though he was only in very small roles at first, he still managed to be in so many beloved, kick-ass classics. Especially numbers one & two on my list… AWESOME films! It’s great that he ended up in bigger roles in things such as Twister & Apollo 13 but I’ll always first think of him as the lovably annoying Hudson in Aliens and as the hilarious asshole brother Chet in Weird Science.

I honestly thought I’d already done a Bill Paxton Top Ten list in the past as he’s been in several of my favorite movies but it looks like I never did. As always, I’ve ranked these in order from my least favorite to favorite movie as opposed to character role. So, in his memory, here are My Top Ten Bill Paxton Movies (counting down from 16 to include everything I’ve seen):

16. True Lies
15. Mighty Joe Young
14. Nightcrawler
13. Frailty
12. The Last Supper (but need to re-watch & refresh my memory, really)
11. Near Dark (also need to re-watch)

TOP TEN:

10. Commando

9. Twister

8. Streets Of Fire

7. Apollo 13

6. Predator 2

5. Titanic

4. Edge Of Tomorrow

3. Weird Science

2. The Terminator

1. Aliens

Seen But Don’t Remember:
Stripes
Indian Summer
U-571

Never Saw:
Navy Seals (Can you believe that, with my Michael Biehn crush??)
Brain Dead (I like the sound of this one…)
Tombstone
Boxing Helena
The Evening Star
A Simple Plan
Haywire
2 Guns

Finally, I think most people my age know that Bill Paxton directed & starred in the bizarre Barnes And Barnes “short film” video for the song Fish Heads.

In looking up his film credits, I noticed he was also in two other music videos. Love the Pat Benatar video for Shadows Of The Night! I’d forgotten about that video. I miss the “story” videos of the Eighties. Anyway – watch out for Paxton in a small role as a WWII baddie in that video. Also, he starred in New Order’s Touched By The Hand Of God, which I must admit I’d never seen. What a great, eclectic career. Bill Paxton will be missed.

R.I.P. William “Bill” Paxton (May 17, 1955 – February 25, 2017)

My Top Ten Leonardo DiCaprio Movies

As it looks like Leo may soon *finally* get that Oscar he deserves, I figured it was time for me to do My Top Ten Leonardo DiCaprio Movies.

DiCaprio would also easily make a list of My Top Ten Actors but, although we’re the same sort of age & I’ve grown up with him since the days of Growing Pains, I never would have called him one of my favorite actors when we were younger. However, I’ve really respected his acting ever since What’s Eating Gilbert Grape.

Look at how cute he was in Growing Pains!

I often say that I don’t think Leo got the respect he deserved in the past because he was too much of a pretty boy but I think I was also guilty of feeling that way about him. I mean, look at that baby face he had! It also kept him looking much younger than he really was. And although I have his two big “romance” movies high on my list, I can’t say I ever crushed on him. It was Johnny Depp I had the hots for in things like Gilbert Grape, it was never ever Leo. I just didn’t see him in that way. I think I have a slight crush on him now as an adult, though, with his baby face gone & his starring in proper “grown-up” movies.

Even though I always liked him, I’m not sure when it was that I finally started taking him more seriously. I think it was possibly thanks to Catch Me If You Can & then The Departed. And then, of course, Django Unchained (he really should’ve been up for an Oscar for that role). But, as I ALWAYS say with these lists but will still get asked about it, I’m ranking these according to my favorite films, not Leo’s performances. That list would vary quite a bit, I think (number one would stay the same but I’d have others much higher). I just happen to care about liking a movie first and then I care about the performances. But Leo is great in everything. 

As I’ve already typed out absolutely everything of his that I’ve seen and as he’s been in so many damn good films and only one rather dodgy one, I figured I might as well just rank them all. (And, yes, I like number four. It’s good. I don’t see why some people have a problem with it). So here are My Top Ten Leonardo DiCaprio Movies (including the remaining films as honorable mentions):

Honorable Mentions:

16. Poison Ivy
15. Revolutionary Road
14. The Man In The Iron Mask
13. Shutter Island
12. The Great Gatsby
11. Inception

Top Ten:

10. The Aviator

9. The Revenant

8. TIE: The Basketball Diaries & The Beach

7. Django Unchained

6. The Departed

5. Romeo + Juliet

4. Titanic

3. What’s Eating Gilbert Grape

2. Catch Me If You Can

1. The Wolf Of Wall Street

**Aww – check out this interview where he talks about joining the cast of Growing Pains. He was so damn cute. 🙂 Why didn’t I have a crush on him? Just too pretty for my liking back then, I think.