If "Wings" was good enough to win the first ever Oscar for Best Picture...

[Walloon]

Thirty years later, I still would still pick Annie Hall over the kiddie movie Star Wars.

[Sir_Rhosis]

^^Agree. I like “Star Wars” just fine, but “Annie Hall” is the (far) better film. End of my participation in hijack.

Sir Rhosis

[Siam_Sam]

I vote for Annie Hall.

[Wendell_Wagner]

In any article a few years ago, the film critic Stephen Hunter at The Washington Post listed thirty-some films made in 1939 that he considered to be better than Gone with the Wind.

[vivalostwages]

It’s silent. I like it very much, though.

[Yookeroo]

@Wendell Wagner

Spectre of Pithecanthropus writes:

> If “Wings” was good enough to win the first ever Oscar for Best Picture…
> then how come it’s so little remembered or shown today?

The fact that a film wins Best Picture at the Oscars hardly shows that it was the best movie made that year. Indeed, fairly consistently, it seems to me that the winner for Best Picture in most years is not what most people consider to be the best movie from that year when they look back on that year’s films a couple decades later. My rule of thumb is that the Best Picture winner is probably about the fourth or fifth best film of the year. Occasionally I’ve been surprised to find that it’s actually the best film, but I’ve also thought on occasion that there were a couple dozen better films from that year. The Best Picture winners are chosen for all sorts of extraneous reasons. For instance, they generally have to be middle-brow. If they’re too high-brow, the Academy members tend to think of the film as too hard. If they’re too low-brow, the members think of the film as too populist.

True enough. But he didn’t say it was the best. Fourth or fifth best still should be “good enough”.

[bonzer]

It must be nearly twenty years since I’ve seen Wings - on British TV, back in the days when Channel 4 would bankroll an annual Thames Silents restoration by Kevin Brownlow with a Carl Davis score - so my memories of it are now only pretty impressionistic, though I recall it as still being entertaining.

But no Sunrise, certainly.

[Wendell_Wagner]

Here’s one poll on the best silent films:

http://www.silentera.com/info/top100.html

(Yeah, you disagree with some of the choices. Of course you would. Get off my back.)

Given that Wings is only the 29th best silent film according to this poll and given how few silent films are shown on classic movie channels or in revival movie theaters, it’s probably shown about as often as you might expect.

[Johnny_L.A]

Whoops. I accidentally got two copies of Wings on DVD. :smack: Oh, well. I guess I could give the extra one to someone as a Christmas present.

[lissener]

@Wendell Wagner

Here’s one poll on the best silent films:

Silent Era : Information

(Yeah, you disagree with some of the choices. Of course you would. Get off my back.)

Given that Wings is only the 29th best silent film according to this poll and given how few silent films are shown on classic movie channels or in revival movie theaters, it’s probably shown about as often as you might expect.

Wow. That’s a great list. I got to #36 before I found one I hadn’t seen, and I agree with all top 35 to some extent or another. I’d put them in a different order, but overall, a good list.

I just watched the early Capra film Flight, 1929: a very early talkie; the sound is very amateurishly recorded. Some amazing flying sequences in this one too; *Wings *fans should track it down.