Chris Zumski Finke: This all started one late night when you, resident of Zimbabwe and film aficionado, sent me the following text: “Just watched Birdman for the first time. Help me understand it. It is a film about bad actors acting badly. Right?”

But I couldn’t help you, because I don’t particularly like Birdman. I respect the film, sure. Its conception is interesting, and execution is smart. But at the end of the day, I just don’t think it has much to say. It wasn’t one of my 10 best films of 2014, and when it won Best Picture, I was underwhelmed.

Jeff Michler: For me, I always start Oscar season and even Oscar night with a sense of hope and a feeling of excitement that this time they’ll get it right. That despite the misguided voting of the Academy members last year, this year the people who made My Movie will be holding the statue at the end of the night. Yet, by the time 1am rolls around, its Iñárritu holding the statue and not Linklater. Chris, it’s how I imagine you feel at the end of every football season when the Vikings still aren’t holding a Lombardi trophy. This last year, the disappointment felt really personal, because I’ve been loving Linklater films since the late 90s. I actually avoided seeing Birdman until just recently.

CZF: Yes, Linklater is terrific, and I hope he has his day. Anyway. Complaining about Birdman, it turns out, is a rabbit hole. So here we are, ranking the last 25 years of Best Picture Oscar Winners. Let’s look back to recent history and see what films Hollywood has chosen to remember, and whether any of it is really any good.

JDM: I should clarify that this list is not a list of the best movies of the last quarter century. Nor is it a list of the biggest snubs or shocks in the Best Picture category. While we may feel that the Academy selected Titanic over L.A. Confidential or Birdman over Boyhood just to spite us (I’m assuming, Chris, that you love Curtis Hanson’s noir gem as much as I do), we will put those feelings aside and try to judge the movies on their own merits. The films are ranked against one another, without looking back at the other nominations or questioning the Academy’s wisdom in naming these films Best Picture of the Year.

CZF: No, I don’t share that sentiment about Titanic and L.A. Confidential. But that’s a crucial distinction. So let’s get started with the Bottom 5. The first thought I have when considering these 25 films in toto is how average it is. As someone who talks about or writes about or podcasts about movies almost all the time, I can’t believe how little thought these Academy Award Winners take up in my brain. It’s just strikingly mediocre.

Except for the garbage. There are a few real bad movies here.

25. Forrest Gump
24. Crash
23. Chicago
22. Gladiator

These four, to me, are the dregs of this list. The kind of movies that leave you marveling at the terrible decision making of the voters. Forrest Gump may have seemed like a smart pick in 1994 but no film on this list has aged worse. Boomers have never seemed more self-satisfied than when reducing their generation to the Forrest and Jenny curve: a dim witted simpleton bumbles through life to become a war hero, a millionaire, and a spiritual guru, while the peace activist Jenny is fated to drugs addiction, abusive men, and dies of AIDS. But hey, at least he names his boat after her. This movie is terrible and I hate it!

JDM: You and I each have the same bottom four, nearly in the same order.

25. Crash
24. Forrest Gump
23. Chicago
22. Gladiator

For me, Crash is at the bottom for the same reason as Forrest Gump. The movies are smug, self-satisfied, and aspire to “say something IMPORTANT” about life, or race, or war. When viewed from the distance of a year or two they show themselves to be hollow and frankly, in the case of Forrest Gump, offensive. Hank’s mildly mentally handicapped Gump is played very broadly with little sense of the internal or external challenges someone with his disability would face. Maybe this is the material’s fault but compared to Dustin Hoffman’s Rainman, Hank’s Gump is offensive. The only reason why I have Crash one notch below Gump is that I remember enjoying Gump when it came out. I never remember enjoying Crash.

CZF: Here begins a long-run of movies on this list are just, well, fine.

21. A Beautiful Mind

A Beautiful Mind comes in at the bottom of the mediocrity pile out of its willingness to simplify human complexity into the most banal of cinematic formulas.

JDM: I agree that these Best Picture winners tend to fall into three easy categories. The terrible four films at the bottom. And a handful, say four or five, excellent movies at the top. The remaining 15 or so tend to fine but unmemorable.

21. American Beauty

For me, American Beauty is at the the top of the bottom. I think, similar to Forrest Gump, that the movie has not aged well. What it has to say about the banalities of suburban life lacks depth, making the movie itself banal. When I watched it again a couple of year ago I thought, “Wow, this is trite. 15 years after Blue Velvet and 10 after Twin Peaks and this is all director Sam Mendes and screenwriter Alan Ball came come up with to say about the shallowness and hypocrisy of suburbia?” Plus, I’ve never been convinced by Kevin Spacy’s acting in the film nor Ball’s ability to say anything original, either here or in Six Feet Under.

CZF: The middle of this list is very tricky. So many of these films fit the “typical Oscar winner” mold, and as such feel almost interchangeable in terms of quality and (lack of) depth.

20. Slumdog Millionaire
21. Shakespeare in Love
22. The King’s Speech

These are the well-acted, well-directed Oscar Favorites That Won Oscars. Feel good movies of human triumph made with care and blah blah. They ask questions like: will the King get over his stutter and be able to make the speech? They aren’t bad, but they lack fire and life, and leave me with almost no desire for repeat viewings. As works of art, they are boring. 20 years from now they will represent “movies that won Oscars, once”. While film classes that want to revisiting great movies from these years will watch Rachel Getting Married, The Thin Red Line, and Winter’s Bone (respectively).

JDM: I also have had a difficult time ranking these middle ten movies because, in most cases they are movies I saw once in the theater and once again on DVD. Few inspire me to come back to them for another viewing. That said, I broke the list down into two broad categories. Movies that are fine, maybe even good, but, when I think of watching them again, leave me disinterested.

20. Birdman
19. A Beautiful Mind
18. Slumdog Millionaire
17. Million Dollar Baby
16. The King’s Speech
15. Shakespeare in Love

All of these are well acted and, except for Birdman, are about interesting people doing interesting things. That said, none of them, except Birdman, is particularly interesting to watch.CZF: Moving on to the next set, we recently did Braveheart on the Stake Podcast, and that has increased my appreciation for its pulpy B-movie inclined splatter-and-gore fight scenes. But still. There are enough historical inaccuracies in this film to satisfy an entire history degree at Liberty University.

17. Braveheart
16. The Artist
15. Million Dollar Baby
14. American Beauty

I don’t love American Beauty, sure, but I don’t quite get the complete rejection of it. If anything, I think the film has become more interesting as a picture of American suburban life in the immediate pre-9/11 world. What a weird world, then, college students will say when they watch American Beauty in 2023 intro to American Film Studies classes.

13. Argo

I love Argo. It might get it mostly wrong (sorry Canada) but its a blast of white-knuckle movie making. Bravo, Ben Affleck.

12. Birdman
11. The English Patient

JDM: These are all movies that I’ve watched multiple times and will continue to watch. They each have their problems but, compared to the other six films in the middle ten, these films are fun.

14. Braveheart
13. The Artist
12. Dances With Wolves
11. Argo

I enjoy the bagpipes and blue face paint and severed limbs in Braveheart even if I roll my eyes when I read the credits and see Mel Gibson as Director, Producer, and Lead Actor. I enjoy watching Jean Dujardin dance his way through The Artist even if the story is unoriginal and he lacks a partner of Ginger Rogers calibre. Chris, as you said, something in Dance with Wolves keeps me coming back, even if I roll my eyes when I read the credits and see Kevin Costner as Director, Producer, and Lead Actor. And Argo, a totally loveable and fun movie, but hardly a movie one would put in on a top ten list of movies in the twenty-teens.
CZF: So we’ve gotten through the guff, and arrived at the top 10. There is really nothing on this list from 25-11 that I would go to the wall for; some movies I like, some I can’t stand. But truth is the top 10 films here are all movies I think will hold some cinematic value in 25 years or so. At least to varying degrees. I mean, people will watch Schindler’s List for decades because it is important, or The Departed because its fucking badass.

10. Dances with Wolves

There remains something about Dances With Wolves that I can’t quite put my finger on, and it keeps me returning to the film every few years. It should have aged worse than it has, but Costner’s love of the film and its narrative are so strong. It might not be a popular opinion, but it remains among my faves from the early 90s.

9. Schindler’s List

Perhaps this is as good a place as any to admit that I have been won over by the counter-narrative against Schindler’s List. There have been three unapologetic genre films to win Best Picture in the past 25 years: Unforgiven, The Departed, and Return of the King. And each one is better than Schindler’s List. They may not be as important, or as beloved, or culturally agreed upon as One Of The Greats, but they are better.

Spielberg’s greatest dramatic achievement (they say) is a technical masterpiece, but its central conceit is so un-complex (if people just tried harder the Jews of Europe could have been saved!), and its treatment of the evil of the Holocaust is so generic and cartoonish that I cannot consider the film to be the masterpiece so many others find it to be.

8. Unforgiven
7. The Departed
6. Return of the King

No, instead, give me the haunting amorality of Unforgiven, the devastating criminal violence of The Departed, and the glorious high fantasy of Return of the King (though it’s possible that RotK will have its legacy tarnished by those awful Hobbit movies). This is why I love that sometimes frowned upon term: “genre”. Each of these films imagines a more complete moral universe than Schindler’s List, and each filmmaker has no illusions about what kind of story is being told. Just fantastic cinematic achievements that stand alone.JDM: For me, these next five are both clearly better than the large mediocre middle group of films while also having weaknesses that keep them from being counted among the Top Five Best Pictures of the last 25 years. They are films that I believe we will still be watching 20 years from now. With the possible exception of 12 Years a Slave.

10. 12 Years a Slave

Chris, everything you said about Schindler’s List I feel about 12 Years a Slave. I greatly admire the film while also finding its central conceit un-complex and its treatment of the evils of slavery generic. I also worry about how well it will age. With only two years between us and its win, I don’t think we can say if 12 Years a Slave will be Forrest Gump or Dances with Wolves. Will we, with a couple decades hindsight, find its vision of the experience of slavery, particularly its vision of the female experience, profound or trite? That is not to say the movie is not important (and good). In fact, along with Schindler’s List and Dances with Wolves, it is the only Best Picture winner of the last quarter century to deal seriously with persecuted peoples (Although I guess hobbits, dwarves, elves, and men are all facing genocide at the hands of Sauron). Clearly the awards won by these films hasn’t changed the stories Hollywood tells or how it casts characters; specifically regarding Native Americans but, in general, anyone of color. The continued white (and male) hegemony of directors, producers, and studio heads means it is likely that when we re-do this list ten years from now we will still be talking about how white the award winners are.

9. The Return of the King
8. The Departed
7. Titanic
6. No Country for Old Men

While I have reservations about just how good 12 Years a Slave is, I have fewer reservations about the remaining films on the list. Both The Return of the King and Titanic are examples of grand cinema (nearly) at its best. Neither, mainly due to mediocre acting in both films, reaches the Olympian heights of the great Hollywood epics, like Lawrence of Arabia, Intolerance, or Gone with the Wind. But, both are excellent films that deserve three hours of your time every few years or so. While LotR: RotK may be be a bit overrated, due to fan enthusiasm, each new Marvel film shows how strong the LotR franchise was in creating a world and making us care about those who live in it. Alternatively, because of its massive box office grosses and the Celine Dion song, I think Titanic has become a bit underrated. I took my share of dates to see Leo and Kate, and for the first five years after the film’s release I was happy to avoid re-watching Titanic. But, I’ve watched it three times in the last fifteen years and each time I watch it I am ever more impressed with James Cameron’s ability to construct such a credible world and then avoid romanticizing the destruction of it. While many claim A Night to Remember is the superior Titanic film, I think that film’s vision of the sinking is too gauzey. While Cameron doesn’t go beyond generic upstairs-downstairs critiques of the British class system, he spends a lot of film time with the downstairs folk, especially at the end.

The last two films in the 6-10 slot are good genre films. But, as with The Return of the King and Titanic, I think The Departed and No Country for Old Men just have too many flaws to be considered among the greats in their respective genre. The Departed is a well crafted film. And, it contains DiCaprio’s best moment in acting, as he tries to comprehend the body of Martin Sheen that has just landed in front of him. Yet, nobody would claim that The Departed is among even the best gangster movies Martin Scorsese has made, let alone the best gangster movies ever. The same is true for No Country for Old Men. As with many Coen Brother films, one could consider this a genre noir or a genre western. It pales in comparison to previous Coen noir (Fargo, Blood Simple) let alone the classics of the genre from the 1940s and 1950s. When ranked among Westerns it fares better, but the source material keeps it from being a great western - it is the weakest Cormac McCarthy novel. Shane, True Grit, or All the Pretty Horses it is not.

CZF: Hold on. You are saying that No Country for Old Men is not better than All the Pretty Horses? That’s crazy talk. Like legit craze. Anyway. We finally made in to the Top Five.

5. The Hurt Locker

I have Kathryn Bigelow’s The Hurt Locker, a small picture, costing nothing to make and starring no one of consequence (in 2009, at least). But the bomb-disposal technician Staff Sgt James was just the conflicted Iraq war character that audiences needed in 2009. The movie solidified Bigelow as one of the best action directors in Hollywood, featuring some of the most intense action sequences in decades. The film also gave the director the reputation as an “important filmmaker.” That title can be a curse, but not for Bigelow. She won Best Director for the film, and went on to make another brilliant (if inaccurate) action-war-politics film in Zero Dark Thirty.

JDM: Chris, I agree with everything you said about The Hurt Locker, but I think it is slightly better than even you give it credit for. I’ll say why in just a bit. For now, I want to sing the praise of The English Patient.

5. The English Patient

This is, hands down, my favorite movie on the list. I recognize it is long and melodramatic but that’s why I love it. Give me empty vistas of sand, a tragic love story, a bit of espionage, and a thumbless Willem Dafoe! You can have your gritty, important movies. For me, the reason why The English Patient stands out above the other epics on this list is the acting. Ralph Fiennes, Juliette Binoche,Willem Dafoe, Kristin Scott Thomas and Naveen Andrews are all excellent in the film.

CZF: Snooze. I am with Elaine Benes on The English Patient: “Quit telling your stupid story about the stupid desert and just die already!”

4: 12 Years a Slave

Slave narratives like that of Solomon Northrup are rare in the movies. We have histories made about the Civil War, and slave-era dramas about life in America, and films about great men fighting for the liberation of black slaves. But what we don’t have is slave stories that are about life in slavery.12 Years a Slave made me, more than any other film, think about the war on black life and black bodies that slavery entailed. To consider slavery not as one of the historical situations of the American nation but as a constant, depraved war on individuals. Steve McQueen’s film will stand the test of time as one the best films made about the subject. It’s hard to make that claim given the recent vintage of the picture, but there are just some films that make their claim to history, immediately.

JDM: I understand your desire to view 12 Years a Slave enlightened by the writings of Ta-Nehisi Coates. And given the popularity of both in the last couple of years that makes sense. But, as a film, I don’t see much more than the standard righteous man’s struggle against ultimate evil so that he can get home. I think for me what was missing in 12 Years was the complexity of the central character as played by Chiwetel Ejiofor, which I think Jeremy Renner gives us in The Hurt Locker, my pick for number four.

4: The Hurt Locker

The internal conflict of a central character and how that conflict is (or isn’t) resolved is what I think makes movies great. And it is something that is lacking from a surprising number of Best Picture Winners. Looking back over the list of winners, the conflict is frequently an external force that the main character must overcome or outwit. Sometimes this works (LotR) but often it doesn’t (Gladiator).

CZF: A fair assessment of character struggle, and it’s benefit. Though I don’t think interior struggle is necessary to a film’s greatness. To wit:

3: Titanic

Titanic is one of the greats. I have always believed this, and as the reputation of the film has waxed and waned, my opinion of the film has only increased. Much complaining has been done in the past 20 years over the film’s romance and dialogue. As though teenagers in any time have have been known to speak eloquently of their lustful encounters. Complain about Leo and Kate if you will, but they are measured and capable, and up to the challenge of personalizing a movie that is really about epic catastrophe. The scale of James Cameron’s film was unheard of in 1997, and the technical execution of his massive project is flawless. Sure, there is plenty of dopey class stuff and broad performances, but the tension is real, the horror of that night is actualized, and the sadness of the entire affair rendered audiences speechless. Naysayers be damned. This is a masterpiece; one of Hollywood’s most grand achievements.

JDM: I’m glad to see you share my love for Titanic, though my regard for it still suffers from my teenage hangover. For me, the third best Best Picture is Unforgiven.

3: Unforgiven

Chris, you may find this a surprising choice for me. I was long unconvinced of Unforgiven’s greatness as a film and as a critique of America, the West, and violence. You may remember in our undergrad film courses arguing with the professor about whether Unforgiven is really an anti-violent film. Much hangs on the post-script regarding the fate of William Munny. But as I’ve returned to the film over the last ten years, and especially after watching and re-watching Deadwood, I now believe that Unforgiven is among the greatest Westerns ever made. Its influence, not only on Westerns in the intervene 24 years, but on any film searching for an anti-hero or a dark and gritty premise is obvious. Its attempt at to make a moral statement may be a bit muddled, but so is the one made in The Searchers, which also fails to diminish the greatness of that film.

CZF:It took me a long time to get Unforgiven. I didn’t care for it much back in those college film courses. But I’ve come around, and consider a fave of Clint Eastwood’s work. A great western, indeed, but it’s no…2: No Country For Old Men

This entry surprised me as much as any on this list. As I got closer and closer to the top, No Country just kept fighting its way up the list. Re-watching the film recently, it became evident that this is the ultimate Coen film, and their best. That pains me because my love of Fargo is decades deep. But no place does the Coens like the Texas plains.

No Country is stunningly executed, which is the Coen way; its photography and direction are lessons is how form is content. But thematically No Country has more going on than anything the Coens have ever done ever. I think the film is better than the book (for what such a comparison is worth (not much)). But the revelation of Anton Chigurh on-screen is so fucking amazing. Almost no villain in recent movie history is more casually terrifying and performed with more spine-tingle. Almost…

JDM: I agree that the story is well executed. But I just don’t think the McCarthy source material is that interesting. Nor do I think the story is told with the same brio the Coen’s muster for other films, such as Fargo. But, I agree with you much more in your assessment of No Country then I think you agree with my assessment of…

2: Schindler’s List

I see your point but just think you are wrong. Particularly when it comes to what you call the generic or cartoonish depiction of evil. The set piece of the clearing of the Warsaw ghetto exceeds even Cameron’s ability to depict epic catastrophe on both its epic and human scale. I think Ralph Fiennes’ portrayal of Nazi SS commandant Göth is one of the great portrayals of villainy in film. His villainy is not cartoonish. Rather, he is a fairly banal man who has a job to do and who takes pleasure in his work. That is what makes him so fucking scary and that is the great revelation of Schindler’s List - that it was the job of millions of people to systematically murder millions of other people. I find the workaday approach to and nonchalance attitude about murder in Fiennes’ Göth the analog to Chigurh. I might even go so far as to claim that almost no villain in recent movie history is more casually terrifying and performed with more spine-tingle. Almost…

CZF: My thoughts on Schindler have been made, so I will let yours stand on their own and move on to the top pick.

1: Silence of the Lambs

When we started this, I was pretty sure that Silence of the Lambs was going to be a top 5 choice. Now, though, I am convinced that Silence of the Lambs is not only the best Best Picture winner of the past 25 years, but perhaps the best American movie in that same stretch.

Where others might put Schindler’s List (cough), I find myself drawn to Jonathan Demme’s far more complicated portrait of human evil in the phsycho-sexual murder spree of Buffalo Bill and the charming alien monster Hannibal Lecter. Add to the intense and horrific bad guys the quiet but powerful goodness of Jodie Foster as Clarice Starling-a role that changed TV and Film forever-and Demme’s creative / obsessive direction of this world, and you are left with a word that almost never should be used: a perfect movie.

JDM: Chris, while many of your opinions are wrong, this one is not.

1: Silence of the Lambs

Silence of the Lambs is the best Best Picture winner of the past 25 years. Claiming it is a perfect film is difficult but I don’t know how one would improve it. There is not a moment of slack in the entire movie. Jodie Foster’s Clarice Starling is one of the great heroines of cinema, along with Lt. Ripley. But the dual portraits of evil (the opposite poles, sexual and cerebral) that Agent Starling must face puts her one up on Ripley. While a lot of the movies on this list make me doubt in Hollywood’s ability to make compelling films, Silence of the Lambs shows that, at least once every 25 years, they produce a gem.

Chris Full List

25. Forrest Gump
24. Crash
23. Chicago
22. Gladiator
21. A Beautiful Mind
20. Slumdog Millionaire
19. Shakespeare in Love
18. The King’s Speech
17. Braveheart
16. The Artist
15. Million Dollar Baby
14. American Beauty
13. Argo
12. Birdman
11.The English Patient
10. Dances with Wolves
9. Schindler’s List
8. Unforgiven
7. The Departed
6. Return of the King
5. The Hurt Locker
4. 12 Years a Slave
3. Titanic
2.No Country for Old Men
1. Silence of the Lambs

Jeff Full List

25. Crash
24. Forrest Gump
23. Chicago
22. Gladiator
21. American Beauty
20. Birdman
19. A Beautiful Mind
18. Slumdog Millionaire
17. Million Dollar Baby
16. The King’s Speech
15. Shakespeare in Love
14. Braveheart
13. The Artist
12. Dances with Wolves
11. Argo
10. 12 Years a Slave
9. The Return of the King
8. The Departed
7. Titanic
6. No Country for Old Men
5. The English Patient
4. The Hurt Locker
3. Unforgiven
2. Schindler’s List
1. The Silence of the Lambs

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