Five words: The Greatest Show on Earth.
Come on, with a field consisting of High Noon, The Quiet Man, Moulin Rouge and Ivanhoe and the Oscar goes to the circus picture?
And you there, Princess Grace? We will take the Oscar out of your cold dead hands and put it in Judy Garland’s cold dead hands where it belongs. For pete’s sake, Academy, Grace Kelly was getting a whole country, you couldn’t give Judy the Oscar she deserved?
I boycott the Oscars for their unconscienable refusal to recognize the genius that was Harvey Lembeck. .
Bastards.
S.J. Perelman, national treasure though he truly was, did not deserve the screenwriting Oscar for “Around The World in 80 Days”.
You’re right. Star Wars is a joke. The acting is bad. But… it’s also the most influential movie of the last quarter century, whereas Annie Hall is just a nice Woody Allen movie.
And lochdale, those are the movies that Kramer vs. Kramer beat.
I agree that Monsters Inc. didn’t break any grounds in terms of its story, but as an animated movie overall, I think it’s a better long-term film than Shrek, which largely rode on its cachet of “hip” jokes to cover up its weaknesses (the most blatant being how it violates its own “don’t judge people by their appearance” theme with the recurring jokes about Prince Farquaand’s shortness). I mean, Snow White isn’t noted for its groundbreaking storytelling, but I don’t think anyone will deny it’s a classic, either.
Again, mark my words – in ten years, people will watch Shrek, feel the gags drop like lead balloons, and wonder what the frag the Academy was thinking when they gave it the Oscar.
I can’t believe no one has yet nominated The English Patient. What a load of crap! Elaine Benes was right when she ripped into it on Seinfeld. It’s nine (count 'em, nine) Oscars in 1996 made me want to hurl a brick through my TV.
Amen to that. The only thing Marisa Tomei should win an Oscar for is the ability to play Marisa Tomei in movies. Generally speaking, I think the Academy does itself a disservice when it gives a best-performance award to someone making his or her first starring appearance unless the person has a long resume of other work. It’s too hard to know whether the Oscar should go to the performer or the casting director.
Seen it several times. Love it. Watch it whenever it’s on one of the movie channels. Maybe helps that I’m a coach…
Yesssssss! Truly terrible. It’s the only film Mr. 3894 and I have ever walked out on.
Agreed. I have not seen Shakespeare in Love, but I highly doubt that it even comes close to Saving Private Ryan. That decision pissed me off to no end.
Jon Voight needs to have his oscar revoked simply on the merits of his current work. That monkey makes William Shatner look subtle and nuanced. The only good thing he ever brought to the screen was Angelina Jolie, who deserves an oscar for every movie she has ever been in simply based on personal hotness.
If that were true, we wouldn’t have this thread now would we 
Julia Roberts should lose hers. It was just a pity award anyway. She’s made a career out of playing the same part over and over and over and over again. Plus she really sucked in Mary Reilly. With a performance like that on your record, you should never ever ever be even considered for an oscar.
Well, having had the advantage of actually seeing both movies, I disagree. Saving Private Ryan was a fairly predictable and ordinary, if unusually gory, war movie. Shakespeare in Love was a very clever, unusual, and well acted movie. No one would doubt this pick if it weren’t for the bizarre casting of Ben Affleck. Seriously, what the hell was he doing in that movie?
My pick - Kevin Costner won best director for Dances With Wolves. Sorry, I don’t know if I can live in a universe where Kevin Costner has an Oscar for anything.
Best Picture for Terms of Endearment. There’s no way a sappy, Shirley MacLaine tearjerker should get that award over The Right Stuff.
Paul Newman. I’m sorry, man, I love your work, but The Color of Money? Please. I don’t know who else was nominated, but they can’t have stunk up the joint that bad.
Yeah, but you couldn’t tell that by the end of that year. Star Wars was a very influential film…in the long run. As a stand-alone judgement, it stank. 
And I have to go with Kyla on Shakespeare in Love. Much more original and moving than Saving Private Whatisname.
I would like to join others in piling on Gladiator, and to return to the year 2000 best picture contest. The greater outrage here lies in the list of nominees. Erin Brockovich? Almost Famous didn’t even get a best picture nomination, while the Miramax-produced crapfest that was Chocolat did.
Oh, my god, I’m looking at the list of films from that year (2000) and there’s another one that should have been nominated: Wonder Boys. Outrage! Who can I write to?
And has anyone mentioned L A Confidential?
Oh, they have? Well, carry on, then.
For the 1986 Oscar, Newman beat out Dexter Gordon (Round Midnight), Bob Hoskins (Mona Lisa), William Hurt (Children of a Lesser God), and James Woods (Salvador). This site has year-by-year lists of nominees and winners in the major categories.
I saw The English Patient on DVD a while back. Now I’m not really sure what kind of competition it had running against it, but surely they could have found a better recipitent for any of the awards it was nominated for, or won. What a horribly boring movie.
Truer words were never spoken. She plays the plucky, feisty Everygirl (often the underdog, outsider, etc) in every single movie she’s in. I think she is by far the most overrated actress in Hollywood. For the Best Actress Oscar in 2000 she was against Joan Allen for The Contender (great performance, good movie), Juliette Binoche for Chocolat (Juliette is lovely, but she’s just lucky this movie was cast before Audrey Tantou burst onto the scene), Ellen Burstyn for Requiem for a Dream (I hated the movie but EB was great), and Laura Linney for You Can Count on Me (LL is always good, she’ll get her Oscar sooner or later).
Just after I posted I stopped being lazy and looked on imdb.com. Hoskins was head and shoulders better. Hurt was great. Woods was excellent. I have not seen Round Midnight, to my knowledge. But certainly there are three better performances than Newman. Making a mistake by ignoring him for the Hustler should not have been rectified in this manner.
