# best and worst best pic (90's edition)

**URL:** <https://boards.straightdope.com/t/best-and-worst-best-pic-90s-edition/34066>\
**Category:** In My Humble Opinion\
**Created:** [September 21, 2000, 11:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/best-and-worst-best-pic-90s-edition/34066 "2000-09-21T23:27:59Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 2\
**Page:** 2

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**Author:** ![RickJay](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/bb73d2/32.png) [@RickJay](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RickJay)\
**Post date:** [September 25, 2000, 5:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/best-and-worst-best-pic-90s-edition/34066/21 "2000-09-25T17:08:29Z")

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> [@](#):
>
> \*Originally posted by spoke- \*  
> \*\*Oh yes, and some good 80’s films from Down Under:[ul][li]Breaker Morant (1980) - I cannot believe that Ordinary People beat this one out in 1980. Was Breaker Morant even nominated?[/li][li]Gallipoli (1981)[/li][li]The Year My Voice Broke (1987)[/li][/ul] \*\*

No, Breaker Morant wasn’t nominated. Its only nomination was for Adapted Screenplay (John Hardy, David Stevens and Bruce Beresford) but it lost to Ordinary People.

Here’s one for you:

1. How many people can remember what “Ordinary People” was about?

2. Going back five years to the 1975 Best Picture, how many people can remember what “One Flew Over The Cuckoo’s Nest” was about?

3. What does that tell you?  
The nominated pictures were:

Ordinary People (won)  
Raging Bull  
Coal Miner’s Daughter  
The Elephant Man  
Tess

Breaker Morant was awesome, but Raging Bull is one of the greatest movies ever made; I would argue, in fact, that except for possibly Citizen Kane, Raging Bull is the BEST movie to not win the Oscar. Incidentally, “Tess” is based on “Tess of the d’Urbervilles,” and is probably the best ever film adaptation of Thomas Hardy’s work.

Gallipoli was terrific, too, but my choice that year would have been Raiders of the Lost Ark. The winner was Chariots of Fire (yawn.)

After I posted my list of 1980 winners, I went back and looked at the 1970’s winners, and I thought they actually did a good job in that decade. I wonder what happened.

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**Author:** ![Spoke](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/a88e57/32.png) [@Spoke](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Spoke)\
**Post date:** [September 25, 2000, 6:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/best-and-worst-best-pic-90s-edition/34066/22 "2000-09-25T18:53:40Z")

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Looking at the nominees for 1980, both **Raging Bull** and **Coal Miner’s Daughter** are far superior to **Ordinary People**.

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