Most undeserving Best Picture winners of the past 25 years.

Cafe Society
101
  1. Chicago
  2. Braveheart
  3. Titanic
102

Good point, but it still seems like Gibson and Costner lucked out very early, while the other directors I named never got the Best Director award despite decades of work.

103
  1. Forrest Gump - disliked the movie personally, and also from a semi-objective sense feel that both Pulp Fiction and Shawshank were better done AND more important/influential
  2. Dances With Wolves - not a terrible movie but not on the same level as Goodfellas
  3. Million Dollar Baby - thoroughly underwhelming movie in a thoroughly underwhelming year, I actually would have gone with The Incredibles that year, probably my favorite of Pixar’s excellent catalogue

Dishonorable mentions to The English Patient and American Beauty, two movies I wasn’t particularly impressed by but couldn’t make the list above because their years were both very weak all around, so it is much more difficult to call them undeserving.

I love Shakespeare in Love and wholeheartedly agree with its win. I neither particularly loved nor hated Crash, but I was also generally less enamored of Brokeback than most, and honestly might have gone with Batman Begins that year. Actually, here’s a sentence for you: Batman Begins was a better movie than <blank>; it may not have had Ledger’s excellent performance, but it was the superior movie in most other aspects, especially pacing and plot. You can fill in <blank> with either Brokeback Mountain or The Dark Knight as you please - that’s why it’s a good sentence!

104
  1. American Beauty
  2. Crash
  3. Titanic

I liked The English Patient.

105

I’ve also been keeping a running total. So far, as I counted, and I could be wrong, the top ten vote getters are:

Crash
Forrest Gump
The English Patient
Gladiator
Titanic
Dances with Wolves
American Beauty
Braveheart
Shakespeare in Love
A Beautiful Mind

The above ten movies have 80% of the votes, with Crash at 74 and A Beautiful Mind at 17.

106

1 - Dances With Wolves
2 - Out of Africa
3 - Chicago

Dances With Wolves happened to be when Costner’s popularity was peaking. I gave it the top spot because Goodfellas was such a worthier alternative. Out of Africa and Chicago are two movies that I feel are forgettable. I put Out of Africa ahead because it’s older so I think the judgement on it is solidified. Chicago’s reputation might still turn around.

107
  1. Forrest Gump
  2. Crash
  3. Shakespeare in Love

1> An enjoyable movie- but how in the WORLD did it beat Pulp Fiction and The Shawshank Redemption. (I know Shawshank wasn’t commercially successful, but that can’t be said of Pulp Fiction.)

2> I don’t dislike this movie like a lot of people here, but really this is The Academy awarding itself for saying “something meaningful”.

3> This has been debated- but I still feel Saving Private Ryan as the superior movie.

108

These are the films which I think should win and only a few have won.
1984 – The Killing Fields
1985 – After Hours
1986 – Hannah and Her Sisters
1987 – Raising Arizona
1988 – Cinema Paradiso
1989 – When Harry Met Sally…
1990 – Edward Scissorhands
1991 – Raise the Red Lantern
1992 – The Player
1993 – The Piano
1994 – Pulp Fiction
1995 – Twelve Monkeys
1996 – Breaking the Waves
1997 – Deconstructing Harry
1998 – Happiness
1999 – Being John Malkovich
2000 – In the Mood for Love
2001 – Donnie Darko
2002 – Hero
2003 – Kill Bill vol. 1
2004 – Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind
2005 – Brokeback Mountain
2006 – V for Vendetta
2007 – No Country For Old Men
2008 – Slumdog Millionare

109

I did, too. Great performances by Ralph Fiennes, Juliette Binoche and Kristin Scott Thomas, among others.

And I’ve seen it more than once. :slight_smile: