First Place - 1990 – Dances With Wolves (Goodfellas)
Second Place - 1997 – Titanic (L.A. Confidential, Good Will Hunting)
Third Place - 1994 – Forrest Gump (Pulp Fiction, The Shawshank Redemption, Quiz Show)
Tough decision on 1/2. Goodfellas is a GREAT film, deserving of an Oscar in any year. But godDAMN, Titanic stunk it up something fierce.
Is the worse travesty that Goodfellas lost in 1990, or that Titanic was nominated AT ALL in 1997?
Joe
Easily the most undeserving. Not that good, and Fellowship was a clear choice.
AKA we should have given Fellowship best picture, so let’s give it to the massively inferior sequel instead. This movie is pretty much a mess. Maybe a weak year, but Lost in Translation was more deserving, and honestly I would go with Finding Nemo ahead of this.
Fargo was fantastic. English Patient, not so much.
L.A. Confidential, Good Will Hunting, and Princess Mononoke were all much more deserving.
Miller’s Crossing is vastly superior. Failing that, Goodfellas is also better.
Seven, The Usual Suspects, 12 Monkeys, Before Sunrise, City of Lost Children… there is no shortage of movies from this year that put Braveheart to shame.
I’m only listing movies that were not very good, and were up against much better movies.
Notable for not being listed:
Forrest Gump: Yes, Pulp Fiction should have won. But in many other years I could see Forrest winning, so I don’t consider it the most undeserving.
Shakespeare in Love: Very good romantic comedy. Not a clear winner, but hardly an all time worst.
Last score update before i go to bed:
Year Movie Score Mentions
1984 Amadeus 0 0
1985 Out of Africa 9 4
1986 Platoon 0 0
1987 The Last Emperor 2 1
1988 Rain Man 9 4
1989 Driving Miss Daisy 3 3
1990 Dances With Wolves 24 12
1991 The Silence of the Lambs 3 1
1992 Unforgiven 0 0
1993 Schindler's List 0 0
1994 Forrest Gump 60 28
1995 Braveheart 17 8
1996 The English Patient 28 14
1997 Titanic 25 12
1998 Shakespeare in Love 19 12
1999 American Beauty 15 6
2000 Gladiator 28 16
2001 A Beautiful Mind 14 8
2002 Chicago 11 7
2003 The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King 5 2
2004 Million Dollar Baby 6 2
2005 Crash 62 27
2006 The Departed 2 1
2007 No Country For Old Men 1 1
2008 Slumdog Millionare 1 1
The tussle is now very close between Crash and Forrest Gump, with the former leading in total score, but the latter just ahead on mentions. The English Patient has moved into equal third place in Score, tied with Gladiator, but the latter still has the edge in Mentions. The battle for first seems to be a two-horse race, though.
Titanic
Forrest Gump
Chicago
If I was alowed a fourth I’d say Gladiator. I liked it - but I can’t believe it was the best movie of the year.
1989 – Driving Miss Daisy. Field of Dreams should have had it.
1995 – Braveheart. Apollo 13 should have had it.
1998 – Shakespeare in Love. Saving Private Ryan should have had it, even with the shaky-cam issues.
Can we have ties? Because if we can, I’m tied for third with
1999 – American Beauty over The Sixth Sense
If not, never mind.
Hmm I am having a lot of trouble deciding. I really hate the vast majority of movies on that list.
Unforgiven was a great movie. LOTR was a damn good movie. Amadeus was a good movie. and Braveheart was okay as was Shindlers and last Emporer. I havn’t seen the last 4.
So all the other movies get 1/15th of a last place vote.
Crash, because it shouldn’t have even been nominated, and it was really Brokeback’s year to win.
Out of Africa, just because The Color Purple was so excellent.
The Departed, because it was a pale imitation of the original, and obviously pandering to the critics, but not actually very good other than a few excellent individual scenes that failed to tie together to make a coherent or cohesive whole.
(Dis?)honorable mention to Crash, which had its moments but also a lot of moments that didn’t work.
I’m surprised at all the hate for Gladiator.
[list=1}[li]The English Patient over Fargo? No.[/li][li]Forrest Gump over Pulp Fiction? Also no. [/li][li]Million Dollar Baby over The Incredibles - See 1 and 2 above.[/list][/li]
Regards,
Shodan
Braveheart, Gladiator, and The Return of the King. Neither of these are very good story telling wise, IMHO, though they might be entertaining any Sunday afternoon.
Well, It’s been awhile, but wasn’t the climax that the emperor (or similar)…
…got so annoyed with Russell Crowe’s incredible success as a gladiator, that he decided to get in the ring and fight Russell himself.
Yeah, right.
Before that came an unjust betrayal and then Russell getting powerful again by winning lots of fights.
So… by the numbers plot with an absurd resolution.
Braveheart had a similar set-up, but more interesting history, better script, direction, characters, visuals… and a less ridiculous ending.
Worst:
I agree that Forrest Gump and Braveheart weren’t great either. Shakespeare in Love was a good movie and should have won almost any other year, but Saving Private Ryan was better.
I have a bias against Braveheart and Dances With Wolves, because both were basically first-time efforts of big-name Hollywood stars who produced and directed these films to Best Picture/Best Director wins when longtime, respected directors like Kubrick, Altman, Scorsese and Hitchcock had never won Best Director (although Scorsese since won). It may be unfair, but it seems wrong.
Nitpick: Braveheart was the second film Gibson directed (The Man Without a Face was the first).
I had originally put ROTK, but pulled back because I think it was an award for the trilogy of sorts. But I think it is the weakest of the three movies in the trilogy.
Actually, I agree about the honroabel mention, except I would put There Will Be Blood as better. Just watched it again the other day and it is a pretty stunning piece of filmmaking, storytelling and acting.