The Academy Awards have easily become the most highly regarded and pivotal awards body in Hollywood, with the best of the best films fighting for the highly coveted spot of being nominated for Best Picture. Each year has its own stand-out selection of Best Picture nominees, ranging from years with a clear individual victor to years with a healthy selection of great and deserving films.Some years, however, have gone above and beyond with just how difficult the choice behind the actual winner has been, featuring an incredibly stacked selection of nominees.
With hindsight in mind and the knowledge of which films would go on to become bonafide classics and considered masters of their craft, it is easy to see certain years' selection of nominees as much more plentiful than others. It also helps to explain exactly why some of the greatest films of all time would sometimesgo home empty-handed at the Academy Awards, as the range of competition was simply too great to spread the wealth accordingly.
101977 Academy Awards
Best Picture Nominees: Annie Hall, Star Wars, The Goodbye Girl, Julia, The Turning Point
It would only make sense that the monumental 50th Academy Awards would prove to be home to one of the most legendary rivalries between two individual movies in the history of the Academy Awards. The faceoff between blockbuster legendStar Warsand the small innocuous romantic comedyAnnie Hallis one that will forever be debated as to which film truly deserved the win.Both films can be accredited to completely revolutionizing and revitalizing their respective genres, science fiction and romantic comedy, and are both still regarded as some of the best films of all time.
The other three nominees,The Goodbye Girl,Julia, andThe Turning Point, each have their own positives and legacies, withThe Goodbye Girlspecifically still being considered a cornerstone of romantic comedies. However, their legacies don’t hold a candle to those ofStar WarsandAnnie Hall, who are both in contention for some of thegreatest movies of the 70s, let alone the singular year of 1977.
92007 Academy Awards
Best Picture Nominees: No Country for Old Men, Atonement, Juno, Michael Clayton, There Will Be Blood
While for the most part, not enough time has passed to be able to judge and understand the legacy of films released within the past 20 years, there is no question as to the level of quality in the selection at the 80th Academy Awards. The clear highlights of the selection areNo Country for Old MenandThere Will Be Blood, two modern-day masterpieces that are both in the running for thebest films of the 21st century so far.
This isn’t to discredit any of the other nominees, asJunorevolutionized and ushered in a new era of independent low-budget comedies in the years to come, andMichael ClaytonandAtonementare both exceptional dramas in their own right. While many Best Picture lineups happen to have at least one mismatched nomination,there are no low points of the 2007 nominees, with the highlights also managing to be some of the award’s highest high points in recent memory.
82009 Academy Awards
Best Picture Nominees: The Hurt Locker, Avatar, The Blind Side, District 9, An Education, Inglourious Basterds, Precious, A Serious Man, Up, Up in the Air
The 82nd Academy Awards had already made massive waves and changes in its choice to increase the maximum number of Best Picture nominees from 5 to 10, a rule in place for 65 years. While the change as a whole has been a mixed bag when it comes to creating stacked Best Picture lineups, bringing in as many uneventful choices as it did exceptional entries, the ruling is at its best during its first year of experimentation.
The extravagant range and differences between each film nominated, with nearly all of them being heavy hitters in their own right, helped cement the change as a good choice for the future of the Awards. Ranging from massive audience favorites likeAvatar,Up, andInglourious Basterdsto critical favorites likePrecious,Up in the Air, andA Serious Man, the 2009 Oscars gets the best of both worlds in the best way possible. Each of these films still are considered in high regard to this day, with it being impossible to imagine which films wouldn’t have made the cut if the award were still 5 nominees.
71976 Academy Awards
Best Picture Nominees: Rocky, All the President’s Men, Bound for Glory, Network, Taxi Driver
While many Best Picture lineups have their most pivotal and legendary selections from the actual winner, the 49th Academy Awards is one of the rare examples where the winner is overshadowed by other nominees. This isn’t to even say that the winner isn’t an influential film in its own right, asRockyis still massively beloved as a sports film and has continued relevance as the first in a long-standing franchise. That’s still to say that, in terms of pure quality,Rocky’s incredibly fierce competition makes the 1976 selection stand out that much more.
The trio ofAll the President’s Men,Network, andTaxi Driverare all massively beloved and legendary films that are often in conversation as some of the greatest and most critically acclaimed films of all time. In nearly any other year, all four of these films would have been strong enough to completely sweep the Academy Awards, yet they were destined to face off against one another in spectacular fashion.Bound for Gloryalso deserves recognition as a beloved period piece, although it clearly doesn’t hold a candle to the other nominees.
61995 Academy Awards
Best Picture Nominees: Braveheart, Apollo 13, Babe, Il Postino: The Postman, Sense and Sensibility
The 90s as a whole had a great number of beloved and iconic films that would go on to define the decade,and it just miraculously came to be that a handful of the decade’s best would be nominated at the 68th Academy Awards. The highlights are certainlyBraveheartandApollo 13, two massive blockbuster dramas that came to define filmmaking of the era and brought the medium to the edge of what was technologically possible for the time.
The other selections includedBabe, one of the mosthighly acclaimed and beloved family moviesof all time, andSense and Sensibility, an effective period piece that has amassed a great following over the years. Rounding out the already outstanding selection wasIl Postino: The Postman, an Italian romantic comedy that was able to cross the language barrier and act as a cultural landmark film for the 90s as a whole.
51974 Academy Awards
Best Picture Nominees: The Godfather Part II, Chinatown, The Conversation, Lenny, The Towering Inferno
When one of the widely regarded greatest films of all time manages to be awarded Best Picture, it can be easy to forget just how equally formidable the competition was, a case most prominently shown by the 47th Academy Awards. While the clear highlight would be the legendaryThe Godfather Part II, the film would manage to find great competition inChinatownandThe Conversation. While the other nomineesLennyandThe Towering Infernoare enjoyable in their own rights,this formidable trio is one of the strongest that the Academy Awards has ever seen.
Any Best Picture lineup was always going to be considered one of the best of all time with the inclusion ofThe Godfather Part II, butChinatownandThe Conversationprove just how fierce the competition truly was. It makes for a highly intriguing trio for many reasons, with each film revolving being different levels of crime dramas, andThe Godfather Part IIandThe Conversationspecifically both being directed byFrancis Ford Coppola.
41953 Academy Awards
Best Picture Nominees: From Here to Eternity, Julius Caesar, The Robe, Roman Holiday, Shane
Especially with the older Academy Awards of the golden age of Hollywood, the importance and legacy of each batch of Best Picture nominees fluctuate greatly from mostly forgettable selections to those that have a long-lasting and undeniable influence on cinema as a whole. The 26th Academy Awards certainly falls into this second category,with films likeFrom Here to Eternity,Roman Holiday, andShanebeing defining experiences in their respective genres and would be monumentally influential in the decades to come.
While most other Best Picture lineups of this era only have their highly influential films being the actual winners,Roman HolidayandShanehave equal parts of influence on the romantic comedy and Western genres asFrom Here to Eternitydid on romantic dramas. Even over 60 years later, these films can still find themselves influencing and inspiring the biggest films of the modern era, as seen withShane’s direct influence on modern westerns likeLogan.
31939 Academy Awards
Best Picture Nominees: Gone With the Wind, Dark Victory, Goodbye, Mr. Chips, Love Affair, Mr. Smith Goes to Washington, Ninotchka, Of Mice and Men, Stagecoach, The Wizard of Oz, Wuthering Heights
When considering films during the golden age of Hollywood, it’s difficult to consider two films more influential and iconic to the medium of film as a whole thanGone With the WindandThe Wizard of Oz.Miraculously, these two legendary films would find themselves going head to head at the 12th Academy Awards, alongside 8 other notable and influential films of the era. In terms of a direct head-to-head between two all-star films, the Academy Awards has not and will not see another matchup more legendary and iconic thanGone With the WindvsThe Wizard of Oz.
Many often forget that, long before the academy would extend the maximum nomination count for Best Picture in the 2010s, the category was initially slated to have up to 10 entries. This allowed for a collection of other influential and notable films to share the spotlight with the two titans at the top, with films likeMr. Smith Goes to Washington,Of Mice and Men, andStagecoachhaving their own resounding legacies as Hollywood classics.
21994 Academy Awards
Best Picture Nominees: Forrest Gump, Four Weddings and a Funeral, Pulp Fiction, Quiz Show, The Shawshank Redemption
Rarely does a Best Picture lineup claim credit to having one of the most commonly recognized greatest films of all time, let alone having more than one in its lineup.However, the 67th Academy Awards was the rare, once-in-a-lifetime example of having three distinct films in its lineup that can equally be considered to be the greatest film of all time.Forrest Gump,Pulp Fiction, andThe Shawshank Redemptionare some of the most legendary and iconic films of all time, only continuing to further their powerful legacy in the 30 years since their release.
The only thing holding this selection back from being the greatest Best Picture lineup of all time are the two lesser inclusions,Four Weddings and a FuneralandQuiz Show.Four Weddings and a Funeralstill holds merit as a prominent romantic comedy of the era, whileQuiz Showhas been completely forgotten and overlooked as time has passed. Still, the massive weight of the three powerhouse nominations easily places the 1994 Academy Awards into contention for one of the greatest individual years in film history.
11975 Academy Awards
Best Picture Nominees: One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest, Barry Lyndon, Dog Day Afternoon, Jaws, Nashville
The biggest factor that has stopped Best Picture lineups from being considered perfect is the seemingly unavoidable, the few background films that can’t hold a candle to the heavy hitters that won the awards. However, for what may just be the only time that this will happen in film history, the 48th Academy Awards managed to nominate 5 equally legendary and influential masterpieces for Best Picture. This has left no room for a forgettable film in the lineup, as each film on its own would easily take home the award for Best Picture without a second thought.
While history only remembers the award for the legendary sweep done byOne Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest, it’s hard to ignore just how high quality every film nominated for Best Picture was this year. From the masterfully crafted historical epicBarry Lyndonto the perfectly aged and high stakes crime thrillerDog Day Afternoon, to the grandfather of blockbuster filmmakingJawsto pitch-perfect musical satireNashville. It’s a genuine miracle that all five of these masterpieces in filmmaking managed to come out in the same year, as well as each being recognized for their craft by the Academy Awards.
