Saw All Quiet On the Western Front and while it was impressive technically I didn’t think it had much new to say as an anti-war drama. The story was pretty much naive youth eagerly joins the war and quickly discovers ‘war is hell’ and gives you a front row seat to the atrocities.
Even though it was a slightly more romanticized version of WW1 I found 1917 to be a much better experience story telling wise and was more attached to the characters.
So has anyone also watched the 1930 edition?
Yes. It’s still my favorite adaptation, but I don’t think any of the films have done complete justice to the book. That might be impossible.
Apologies for the drive by here…but having seen The Banshees of Inisherin, I really hope it gets shut out. This movie, while not terrible, is the worst kind of Oscarbait. It’s a giant pile of nothing. And to be frank, I don’t think there’s much in the way of skillful filmmaking going on here. The pretty vistas of coastal Ireland are doing most of the heavy lifting, that and Colin Ferrell’s eyebrows. I’m sure a lot of actors would get off on having the opportunity to lead a movie with only 4 actors getting any real screen time, filmed on location with no special effects, so I suspect it’ll get votes from that bloc. It’s a cute quirkly little film…it’s not “Best Picture” and it sure as shit isn’t Best Director.
Top Gun: Maverick and Avatar: The Way of Water probably had the highest degree of difficulty and are probably the biggest accomplishments of the films I’ve seen, but they are definitely not “original” in the most trite sense. There are valid criticisms of those movies, they are tropey and the made for the lowest common denominator, but they do what they set out to do masterfully. I don’t expect the Academy really values that much.
I haven’t seen Everything Everywhere All at Once and I really need to. You couldn’t pay me to sit through The Fabelmans.
I don’t normally pay attention to the film editing (which is as it should be), but if EEAAO doesn’t win the category, something is very wrong.
I would have to respectfully disagree entirely. I thought it was absolutely brilliant and I feel these sort of well written and interesting (and hilarious to boot) films should be ones recognized by the Academy for Best Picture. It’s about damn time, basically.
Lol, this is the type of movie that ALWAYS wins. Totally bizarre take.
When has a movie like this won Best Picture?! Maaaybe Birdman is slight similar? Annie Hall?
While I don’t like to defend statements that contain “always wins”, there have been a number of recent winners(last 10-15 years) that fit into the broad category of emotionally resonant acting in a quirky or unusual story well told (versus a solid, but well known narrative approach with excellent acting in service of propelling the story forward). For example, I’d put Banshees in the same broadly defined category as: CODA, Nomadland, Birdman, and No Country for Old Men
But I’d also put Tár, Triangle of Sadness, and maybe Women Talking in this same “category”.
For the record, I think Banshees is ultimately a flawed attempt at quirky that piles up too much despair to be offset by the dark humor in the film. But I recognize why it ended up as a nominee and don’t think it is out of place on the list.
Ultimately, the Best Picture winner is going to be determined by those in the industry (which everyone seems to ignore in discussions of what’s the “right” winner) not the critics or the general movie-going public, whether that turns out to be deep, emotional journeys (Banshees, Tár, Women Talking, All Quiet on the Western Front), wildly innovative and “new” (Everything Everywhere All At Once, Triangle of Sadness), or the epitome of the best commercial product the industry is capable of turning out (Avatar, Top Gun, Elvis, Fabelmans).
I don’t really consider it be on a similar footing as most of those, tbh. You’ve already noted that the description of the genre as “emotionally resonant acting in a quirky or unusual story well told” is pretty broad.
I see Banshees as a dark comedy (perhaps even better called a tragicomedy) and those tend to not really be all the successful in winning the big prize (though as of late, they seem to be a doing a bit better in being nominated). So not very much like Nomadland - a straight drama, or No Country for Old Men - a neo-noir crime thriller, with yes comedic elements. Birdman though may come closest. (I haven’t seen CODA).
What it really reminded me of was another brilliant Brendan Gleeson film that didn’t even get nominated Calvary
Is that true? Looking back, Best Picture winners were always about evenly divided between small and big-budget films - for every Marty and Terms of Endearment, there was a Lawrence of Arabia and a Braveheart. It’s only in the past couple of decades that blockbusters have been excluded from the ranks of winners - as best as I can tell, the last “big” film to win Best Picture was The Return of the King, and that was 20 years ago.
Think about it: Titanic won 2 years after Braveheart, three years after Forest Gump, and six years after The Silence of the Lambs. There was nothing exceptional about it winning.
Well, it’s probably not a coincidence that the biggest blockbusters for the past couple decades have largely been comic book films.
In reality, Best Picture is the only award which is not based on artistic merit but, instead , focuses on the film as a business. Art has nothing to do with the award and never has.
Then how do you explain Coda?
We apparently have drastically different interpretations of what “artistic merit” means. I use it to distinguish from technical awards such as visual effects, cinematography, editing, etc. All of which could in a sense be considered “art”, but not on the same level as the (often) emotionally evocative power of the film as a whole.
If Best Picture “focuses on the film as a business”, then Best Picture winners would be solely based on their box office numbers. Needless to say, they never are, and if they happen to be box office hits, it’s generally coincidental. For instance, Parasite won Best Picture in 2020; of the movies released in 2019, Parasite was a distant #31 at the box office. And it wasn’t even a domestic production; it was Korean.
Here are some recent Best Picture winners. Are you going to tell me these are not based on artistic merit:
CODA
Green Book
The Shape of Water
Moonlight
Birdman
12 Years a Slave
American Beauty
The English Patient
That’s not to mention dozens and dozens of films that were nominated for Best Picture but didn’t win – Whiplash, Joker, Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri, and dozens of others – fine examples of the art of motion pictures, every one.
Coda is the perfect example of what I am saying. It’s a nice movie, but no one has claimed it was an artistic achievement. It’s a feel-good movie, the sort we are told tends to win Oscars, but feel-goodism isn’t enough for Best Picture.
You know what is?
Being a joint French-American production made during a global pandemic which, at the time, appeared to not just prove the validity of streaming as a business model it also showed that streaming could be a possible asset to theaters: CODA was released simultaneously on theaters and on streaming the very same day. And it took off.
And this is the sort of thing the people who vote for Best Picture, industry-insiders all, notice.
That is what… when it’s not lobbied to death by the likes of Harvey Weinstein, that is… the Best Picture award is about: Production. How difficult was it to put this product together? What deals had to be done to get this one made? Which influential industry players had their fingers on this film? How many people were hired and generated income? And, yes, many times: Was this film a success at the box office?
I’ll go into this a bit more in the next post…
That’s just ridiculous. CODA won Best Picture because it was primarily made for streaming??? Many movies contend for Best Picture despite being made by streaming enterprises and intended for that market. Due to AMPAS rules requiring theatrical release, they typically have a limited theatrical run, too. In the case of CODA, due to the pandemic the rules were suspended at the time. But that’s neither here nor there.
Here’s why CODA really won Best Picture. From Wikipedia … (bolding mine):
Review aggregator website Rotten Tomatoes reported that 94% of 292 reviews of the film were positive, with an average rating of 7.8/10. It won Oscars in three categories: : Best Picture, Best Supporting Actor, and Best Adapted Screenplay.
[Variety’s Owen Gilberman] claimed that the film “brings this all off with such sincerity and precision” and is so “enthrallingly well-acted, that you may come away feeling grateful that this kind of mainstream dramatic craftsmanship still exists”, and also praised Jones and Kotsur’s performances.
In short, it won because it was a great film, well crafted and emotionally evocative.
You and I have had this argument before.
This is an industry award which has no guidelines as to what is “Best”, the only rule is you have to vote for the nominees. And for most of the entire history of the Academy Awards, up until 2008, box office was the single biggest correlating factor as to what film would win Best Picture.
Most.
To your point, this correlation has slipped a bit. But to my point, Best Picture is most often an award about the production or the business of the winner.
I have a list of over 8,700 films from 1927-2017 with their box office totals. I did a fair amount of work on the thing, isolating BP nominees and winners, to see how my hypothesis held up. And it does, suprisingly well… up until the past years:
| Year | Film | Producer | BO Rank | Amount (millions) | Source |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1927/28 | Wings | Paramount Famous Lasky | 2 | 4 | Wiki Film by Year |
| 1928/29 | The Broadway Melody | Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer | 1 | 4.4 | Wiki Film by Year |
| 1929/30 | All Quiet on the Western Front | Universal | 4 | 3 | Wiki Film by Year |
| 1930/31 | Cimarron | RKO Radio | 14 | 3.6 | Ultimate Movie Rankings |
| 1931/32 | Grand Hotel | Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer | 3 | 2.6 | Wiki Film by Year |
| 1932/33 | Cavalcade | Fox | 1 | 3.5 | Wiki Film by Year |
| 1934 | It Happened One Night | Columbia | 11 | 1.4 | Wiki Film by Year |
| 1935 | Mutiny on the Bounty | Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer | 1 | 4.5 | Wiki Film by Year |
| 1936 | The Great Ziegfeld | Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer | 2 | 4.7 | Wiki Film by Year |
| 1937 | The Life of Emile Zola | Warner Bros. | 8 | 7.7 | Ultimate Movie Rankings |
| 1938 | You Can’t Take It with You | Columbia | 6 | 8 | Ultimate Movie Rankings |
| 1939 | Gone with the Wind | Selznick International Pictures | 1 | 198 | Wiki Film by Year |
| 1940 | Rebecca | Selznick International Pictures | 2 | 8.6 | Ultimate Movie Rankings |
| 1941 | How Green Was My Valley | 20th Century-Fox | 2 | 9.7 | Ultimate Movie Rankings |
| 1942 | Mrs. Miniver | Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer | 2 | 15.31 | Ultimate Movie Rankings |
| 1943 | Casablanca | Warner Bros. | 5 | 11.84 | Ultimate Movie Rankings |
| 1944 | Going My Way | Paramount | 1 | Wiki Film by Year | |
| 1945 | The Lost Weekend | Paramount | 4 | Wiki Film by Year | |
| 1946 | The Best Years of Our Lives | Samuel Goldwyn Productions | 2 | 23.7 | Wiki Film by Year |
| 1947 | Gentleman’s Agreement | 20th Century-Fox | 8 | 4.1 | Wiki Film by Year |
| 1948 | Hamlet | J. Arthur Rank-Two Cities Films | 17 | 3.1 | Wiki Film by Year |
| 1949 | All the King’s Men | Robert Rossen Productions | 10 | 3.5 | Wiki Film by Year |
| 1950 | All About Eve | 20th Century-Fox | 2 | 8.4 | Wiki Film by Year |
| 1951 | An American in Paris | Arthur Freed | 6 | 4.5 | Wiki Film by Year |
| 1952 | The Greatest Show on Earth | Cecil B. DeMille | 1 | 14 | Wiki Film by Year |
| 1953 | From Here to Eternity | Buddy Adler | 2 | 12.5 | Wiki Film by Year |
| 1954 | On the Waterfront | Sam Spiegel | 20 | 12 | Wiki Film by Year |
| 1955 | Marty | Harold Hecht | 54 | 5.7 | Ultimate Movie Rankings |
| 1956 | Around the World in 80 Days | Michael Todd | 2 | 22 | Wiki Film by Year |
| 1957 | The Bridge on the River Kwai | Sam Spiegel | 1 | 15 | Wiki Film by Year |
| 1958 | Gigi | Arthur Freed | 5 | 6.8 | Wiki Film by Year |
| 1959 | Ben-Hur | Sam Zimbalist | 1 | 37 | Wiki Film by Year |
| 1960 | The Apartment | Billy Wilder | 6 | 6.7 | Wiki Film by Year |
| 1961 | West Side Story | Robert Wise | 1 | 43.7 | Wiki Film by Year |
| 1962 | Lawrence of Arabia | Sam Spiegel | 1 | 44.8 | Wiki Film by Year |
| 1963 | Tom Jones | Tony Richardson | 4 | 37.6 | Wiki Film by Year |
| 1964 | My Fair Lady | Jack L. Warner | 1 | 72 | Wiki Film by Year |
| 1965 | The Sound of Music | Robert Wise | 1 | 138.8 | Wiki Film by Year |
| 1966 | A Man for All Seasons | Fred Zinnemann | 5 | 28.4 | Wiki Film by Year |
| 1967 | In the Heat of the Night | Walter Mirisch | 11 | 24 | Ultimate Movie Rankings |
| 1968 | Oliver! | John Woolf | 7 | 37.4 | Wiki Film by Year |
| 1969 | Midnight Cowboy | Jerome Hellman | 2 | 44.8 | Wiki Film by Year |
| 1970 | Patton | Frank McCarthy | 4 | 61.8 | Wiki Film by Year |
| 1971 | The French Connection | Philip D’Antoni | 2 | 51.7 | Wiki Film by Year |
| 1972 | The Godfather | Albert S. Ruddy | 1 | 133.7 | Wiki Film by Year |
| 1973 | The Sting | Tony Bill, Michael Phillips, and Julia Phillips | 1 | 156 | Wiki Film by Year |
| 1974 | The Godfather Part II | Francis Ford Coppola, Gray Frederickson, and Fred Roos | 6 | 47.5 | Wiki Film by Year |
| 1975 | One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest | Michael Douglas and Saul Zaentz | 3 | 109 | Wiki Film by Year |
| 1976 | Rocky | Irwin Winkler and Robert Chartoff | 1 | 117 | Wiki Film by Year |
| 1977 | Annie Hall | Charles H. Joffe | 10 | 38.3 | Wiki Film by Year |
| 1978 | The Deer Hunter | Barry Spikings, Michael Deeley, Michael Cimino, and John Peverall | 9 | 49 | Wiki Film by Year |
| 1979 | Kramer vs. Kramer | Stanley R. Jaffe | 1 | 106.3 | Wiki Film by Year |
| 1980 | Ordinary People | Ronald L. Schwary | 11 | 54 | Box Office Mojo |
| 1981 | Chariots of Fire | David Puttnam | 7 | 58 | Box Office Mojo |
| 1982 | Gandhi | Richard Attenborough | 12 | 53 | Box Office Mojo |
| 1983 | Terms of Endearment | James L. Brooks | 2 | 108 | Box Office Mojo |
| 1984 | Amadeus | Saul Zaentz | 12 | 52 | Box Office Mojo |
| 1985 | Out of Africa | Sydney Pollack | 5 | 87 | Box Office Mojo |
| 1986 | Platoon | Arnold Kopelson | 3 | 139 | Box Office Mojo |
| 1987 | The Last Emperor | Jeremy Thomas | 25 | 44 | Box Office Mojo |
| 1988 | Rain Man | Mark Johnson | 1 | 173 | Box Office Mojo |
| 1989 | Driving Miss Daisy | Richard D. Zanuck and Lili Fini Zanuck | 8 | 107 | Box Office Mojo |
| 1990 | Dances with Wolves | Jim Wilson and Kevin Costner | 3 | 184 | Box Office Mojo |
| 1991 | The Silence of the Lambs | Edward Saxon, Kenneth Utt, and Ron Bozman | 4 | 131 | Box Office Mojo |
| 1992 | Unforgiven | Clint Eastwood | 11 | 101 | Box Office Mojo |
| 1993 | Schindler’s List | Steven Spielberg, Gerald R. Molen, and Branko Lustig | 9 | 96 | Box Office Mojo |
| 1994 | Forrest Gump | Wendy Finerman, Steve Tisch, and Steve Starkey | 1 | 330 | Box Office Mojo |
| 1995 | Braveheart | Mel Gibson, Alan Ladd Jr., and Bruce Davey | 18 | 76 | Box Office Mojo |
| 1996 | The English Patient | Saul Zaentz | 19 | 79 | Box Office Mojo |
| 1997 | Titanic | James Cameron and Jon Landau | 1 | 601 | Box Office Mojo |
| 1998 | Shakespeare in Love | David Parfitt, Donna Gigliotti, Harvey Weinstein, Edward Zwick, and Marc Norman | 18 | 100 | Box Office Mojo |
| 1999 | American Beauty | Bruce Cohen and Dan Jinks | 13 | 130 | Box Office Mojo |
| 2000 | Gladiator | Douglas Wick, David Franzoni, and Branko Lustig | 4 | 188 | Box Office Mojo |
| 2001 | A Beautiful Mind | Brian Grazer and Ron Howard | 11 | 171 | Box Office Mojo |
| 2002 | Chicago | Martin Richards | 10 | 171 | Box Office Mojo |
| 2003 | The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King | Barrie M. Osborne, Peter Jackson, and Fran Walsh | 1 | 377 | Box Office Mojo |
| 2004 | Million Dollar Baby | Clint Eastwood, Albert S. Ruddy, and Tom Rosenberg | 24 | 101 | Box Office Mojo |
| 2005 | Crash | Paul Haggis and Cathy Schulman | 49 | 55 | Box Office Mojo |
| 2006 | The Departed | Graham King | 15 | 132 | Box Office Mojo |
| 2007 | No Country for Old Men | Scott Rudin, Joel Coen, and Ethan Coen | 36 | 74 | Box Office Mojo |
| 2008 | Slumdog Millionaire | Christian Colson | 16 | 141 | Box Office Mojo |
| 2009 | The Hurt Locker | Kathryn Bigelow, Mark Boal, Nicolas Chartier, and Greg Shapiro | 116 | 17 | Box Office Mojo |
| 2010 | The King’s Speech | Iain Canning, Emile Sherman, and Gareth Unwin | 18 | 135 | Box Office Mojo |
| 2011 | The Artist | Thomas Langmann | 71 | 45 | Box Office Mojo |
| 2012 | Argo | Grant Heslov, Ben Affleck, and George Clooney | 22 | 136 | Box Office Mojo |
| 2013 | 12 Years a Slave | Brad Pitt, Dede Gardner, Jeremy Kleiner, Steve McQueen, and Anthony Katagas | 62 | 57 | Box Office Mojo |
| 2014 | Birdman or (The Unexpected Virtue of Ignorance) | Alejandro G. Iñárritu, John Lesher, and James W. Skotchdopole | 78 | 42 | Box Office Mojo |
| 2015 | Spotlight | Blye Pagon Faust, Steve Golin, Nicole Rocklin, and Michael Sugar | 62 | 45 | Box Office Mojo |
| 2016 | Moonlight | Adele Romanski, Dede Gardner, and Jeremy Kleiner | 92 | 28 | Box Office Mojo |
| 2017 | The Shape of Water | Guillermo del Toro and J. Miles Dale | 46 | 64 | Box Office Mojo |
I included the “Producer” column for a reason - this is who the award goes to. And look at the names of the films you listed (those which appear on this list) - Del Toro. Pitt. Kleiner (twice). Iñárritu. Saul Zaentz. Industry players all, powerful (and popular!) people who have hired lots of the voters who gave them this award.
I stand by my thesis: The Best Picture is the one award which goes to the moneymen, the people who put the business together which produced the movie, therefore the considerations for which films win BP rarely depend on artistic merit. Look at the producer list, look at the box office take, look at whether this film (and its players) are generating goodwill during voting time, don’t worry about whether one is a better film than others.
Sorry, CODA won because it (at the time) appeared to validate a streaming+theatrical release model and there were/are plenty of people who also want Apple to throw money at movies ala Netflix.
The BP award is given to the money guys, the people who hire the people to put the movie together. That fact is the single biggest consideration as to who gets your vote. Not the only one, hell, it might not be the over-riding one at the moment of voting. But it’s always there.
It’s like “Best Boss”, really.
Yes, CODA was a nice film. So were many other nice films. The producers didn’t win just because they made a nice film.
So in your opinion, what movies are artistic achievements?