I actually really enjoyed Forrest Gump, and think it’s a great movie on many levels. Better than Pulp Fiction, though? Maybe… in the same sense that Thomas Kinkaid is better than Vincent van Gogh. (I’m still angry.)
Do you know if any non-English pictures ever won? I think Godfather II might be the closest.
Wow, I had forgotten that The Departed had won the award.
That is the worst Best Picture movie I’ve seen, but I have not seen Crash. I’d also agree that Shakespeare in Love is not that great.
Many, probably MOST of the movies people tend to name on lists like this are NOT bad movies. In general, when people name a “worst movie to win the Oscar,” they’re really saying, “the movie I loved most that year lost, and I’m still pissed off about it.”
That is, when people gripe about “How Green Was My Valley,” it has little to do with the merits or flaws of that film. The real problem with that film is, it wasn’t “Citizen Kane.”
In the same way, many people who gripe about “Dances With Wolves” wouldn’t hate it so much if it had won a year earlier or later. Instead, it won over “Goodfellas.”
Well, not me…the ones I hate I hate because of the film itself.
You can’t beat The Great Sebastian’s moniker, The Debonair King of the Air!
The Departed is a poor movie.
If the title was something distinctive and unique, perhaps, but come on. “Crash”?
Slumdog Millionaire has the most foreign language dialogue of any Best Picture winner
Yes, it is that great. You may not have been in the right mood, may not have had the right mindset, or may not have had the capacity to see and hear it (that amazing dialogue!) but it was, yes, that great. Sparkling, witty, dynamic, romantic, funny, sharp-witted, snide, sly…it’s a very, very, very good movie.
All in all, that’s a bad, bad list. I agree with everyone defending How Green Was My Valley. I don’t think it should have won over Citizen Kane, but damn, what a great movie. It was very progressive for its time. If Kane hadn’t been around, and something else had won, people now would be saying “I can’t believe that Valley didn’t win.”
I happen to like Chicago a lot. I was rooting for The Pianist, but that doesn’t make me hate Chicago. I also love Titanic, and saw it again in the theater last year. It absolutely does hold up in every way. I was rooting for LA Confidential and think it should have won, but I have no problem with Titanic winning all the awards it did.
Really though, until these types of lists get posted, who really remembers what and who wins, unless it happens to either be or win out over an OMG! favorite, which tends to stick in the mind more? I’m an awards whore and even I forget from year to year what and who wins, quite often. The nomination really is the important thing, no matter how snarky people are about it, calling it a cliche.
Or he just didn’t like it. There is no metric by which any of the pros you cite can be objectively measured.
Forrest Gump isn’t that bad a movie, but a lot of people absolutely despise it because it’s premise irritates them. To play devil’s advocate here, a movie about a moron whose success in life is due to being oblivious to the social upheavals going on around him? That’s gonna rankle a certain set.
I only agree with #6 The Departed. While it had some decent individual scenes, they didn’t add up to worthwhile or coherent total. I haven’t seen the original, but Im guessing it lost something in the translation.
I would put as my #1 Crash. That piece of drivel didn’t even deserve a nomination.
Crash and Million Dollar Baby were both written with a sledge hammer. Titanic had a terrible script but some neat effects and Kate Winslet (I love me some Kate.)
I haven’t seen all the movies from the 40s and 50s but presumably there are some Crash-like contenders in there.
Looking at the Wiki list for the 70s and 80s, all I can say is, wow, they used to make a lot more really good movies than they do now.
I’ll allow Departed because Martin Scorcese was due.
People might have disliked Forrest Gump for aesthetic reasons, not ideological ones.
I enjoyed Around the World in 80 Days, but perhaps will allow it on the list for no other reason than it convinced the world there is a hot air balloon in the novel. There isn’t. Sometimes they even put it on the cover of paperback editions. There is not one hot air balloon in the book, and the characters even explain why it’s impractical (slow, can’t be steered, only good for short jaunts).
I do like the theme song though, especially the Buddy Greco version.
The amount of overwrought drama in Haggis’ Crash put me off,
-however-
the aspect of the camera (and us) being privy to all these intertwined events that the participants themselves were unaware of was fascinating. I think stuff like this goes on all the time (intertwined events) but we remain blissfully unaware in real life. When we do notice a correlation or link, it seems amazing, but its’ not . . . .
The intertwinements were too many – felt contrived. Besides that, all the characters knew they were in a movie and their symbolic role in it. It was an After School Special. Brokeback Mountain was a thousand times better.
Or, more likely, because it beat out “Pulp Fiction” and “Shawshank Redemption,” both films with a sizable bloc of devoted fanboys who have never forgiven or forgotten.