Oscars: Top 25 Best Picture Winners

Easily the best film made about the psychological cost of America’s involvement in Vietnam, Michael Cimino’s The Deer Hunter also features some of the finest performances of the decade, including stunners by Robert De Niro, Meryl Streep, John Cazale, and John Savage. Best of all, though, is Christopher Walken, as a man so shattered by combat that he becomes a zombie-eyed Russian Roulette casualty. A gut-punch of a film. —Chris Nashawaty

King dominated the 2004 Oscars, winning all 11 prizes for which it was nominated. The win was seen as a de facto award for the whole Lord of the Rings trilogy — and King arguably suffers in comparison to the first two movies, what with the longer running time and that whole ”Oh look, an invincible army of the dead!” twist. But King set a new standard for epic grandeur on screen with the impossibly massive Battle of Pelennor Fields. And how many other Best Picture winners feature a giant spider? (We checked. None.) —Darren Franich

The only X-rated movie to ever win Best Picture, John Schlesinger’s corrosive classic follows young Texan Joe Buck (John Voight) into the New York of 1969, where he becomes a hustler and meets Dustin Hoffman’s immortal con man ”Ratso” Rizzo. The film’s adult content and its portrayal of contemporary urban alienation was a hallmark of an adventurous period for movies, and the curious friendship (romance?) between Joe Buck and Rizzo makes for one of cinema’s great duets. —Darren Franich

Two years after Henry V — Laurence Olivier’s ebullient Technicolor feast-for-the-eyes filmed during wartime as pro-Brit propaganda — fell short of the Best Picture statuette, Olivier made good with another Shakespearian adaptation. He claimed the top prize (and Best Actor) for a movie that’s the polar opposite of Henry V. Filmed in bleakly noirish black-and-white, Olivier’s Hamlet remains a ghoulish delight — and not just because Olivier was over a decade older than the actress playing his mother. —Darren Franich

The very first Oscar ceremony featured two top prizes: ”Outstanding Picture” and ”Unique and Artistic Production.” The former was seen as a way to reward top-notch studio product, which is why it went to the successful Wings. The latter was seen as an explicitly more highbrow award — and that prize went to Sunrise, an impressionistic masterpiece by the great silent director F.W. Murnau. The Academy eliminated the ”Unique and Artistic” prize and retroactively declared Wings the first Best Picture. Decades later, Wings shows its age, while Sunrise has become one of the high-water marks of early cinema. —Darren Franich

Released in the February doldrums to shockingly huge grosses, Lambs wound up sweeping the Big Five categories (Picture, Director, Actor, Actress, and Adapted Screenplay.) The film remains an eerie exploration of grotesque mental instability. Jodie Foster’s terse Clarice Starling is one of cinema’s great heroines, while Anthony Hopkins’ magnetic Hannibal Lecter chews the scenery (also, human faces) with relish…and a nice bottle of Chianti. —Darren Franich

If you’ve seen David Lean’s haunting war movie, then just seeing the title here probably has you whistling the film’s signature tune. And if you haven’t seen it, then what the hell are you waiting for? Alec Guinness gives his finest performance (which is saying something) as a stiff-upper-lipped British commander in a Japanese World War II prison camp who’s too blind to see that the bridge his men are building will help the enemy. At turns, rousing and heartbreakingly tragic. —Chris Nashawaty

Jack Nicholson had one of the greatest runs of any film actor ever between 1969 and 1975. Consider: Easy Rider, Five Easy Pieces, Carnal Knowledge, The Last Detail, Chinatown, and The Passenger. The icing on the cake was the final film in that series, Miloš Forman’s adapatation of Ken Kesey’s blistering novel about a sane man (Nicholson’s hell-raising R.P. McMurphy) trapped in an insane world — in this case, a mental ward run by Louise Fletcher’s battle axe Nurse Ratched. A haunting metaphor for the doomed rebel spirit of the ’60s. —Chris Nashawaty

When someone says, ”They don’t make them like they used to,” they’re talking about It Happened One Night, a road movie about the world’s mouthiest dame and the world’s caddiest cad. Few rom-com stars have ever had more chemistry than Claudette Colbert and Clark Gable, who hate each other so much they must be in love. —Darren Franich

Miloš Forman’s biopic of the Austrian composer prodigy Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart is a brilliant bait-and-switch. Why? Because the main character isn’t Mozart at all. It’s his bile-souled rival, Antonio Salieri. F. Murray Abraham won an Oscar for his staggering turn as Salieri. And why shouldn’t he have? After all, he’s the film’s hero, villain, and green-eyed monster all in one. —Chris Nashawaty

Director William Wyler actually flew in bombing missions during World War II while filming a documentary, which probably explains why his tale of veterans returning home still stings with real-life anguish nearly 70 years later. Best Years of Our Lives famously featured non-actor Harold Russell, who won two Oscars for his role, but every performer in the film does career-best work. (Behind the camera, Gregg Toland — who shot Citizen Kane — turned Best Years into one last masterwork of deep-focus photography before his early death.) The most impressive thing about the movie is portrayal of the traumatized All-American man — it’s the rare movie that’s tough and sentimental. —Darren Franich

Before Chicago and Les Misérables breathed new life into the movie musical, My Fair Lady was the music of America’s hearts. Pitch-perfect performances from Rex Harrison and Stanley Holloway lead a stellar cast of stars, and when Audrey Hepburn is your weakest link, you know you’ve come close to cinematic perfection. —Denise Warner

A haunting score, powerful performances, black-and-white cinematography, and Steven Spielberg’s expert direction form a juggernaut of a film that enraptured audiences world wide. The bleak, heroic story of Oskar Schindler’s drive to save as many Jews as he could during the Holocaust lingers well beyond the theater. —Denise Warner

Many consider Francis Ford Coppola’s Godfather sequel to be superior to the original, but why split hairs? Both are perfect. Al Pacino takes us deeper in Michael Corleone’s heart of darkness, while Robert De Niro (as the young Vito Corleone in sepia-toned flashbacks) shows us the birth of the one of cinema’s greatest antiheroes. All of that, plus ”I know it was you, Fredo. You broke my heart! ” What more could you want? —Chris Nashawaty

The Manhattan-set riff on Romeo & Juliet had a fascinating, somewhat fraught production. Director Robert Wise was an old studio pro. Legendary Broadway choreographer Jerome Robbins was brought in to film the dance numbers, went way over budget, and was ultimately kicked off the project. He still shares a co-director credit, though, and the film itself is an addictive, high-energy cocktail of old-fashioned melodrama and youthful daring — a perfect merger of Old Hollywood and Sondheim. Also, try not to snap your fingers during the opening number. —Darren Franich

Rose told Jack she’d never let go, but it was James Cameron’s sweeping, rapturous tale of eternal love that gripped the hearts of audiences around the globe. Kate Winslet, and Leonardo DiCaprio make short work of the film’s expansive 195-minute runtime, and Celine Dion’s powerhouse theme ”My Heart Will Go On” helped us all feel like kings of the world. —Denise Warner

People use the word ”epic” a little too casually. But this widescreen piece of eye-candy casts a spell you?ll never be able to (or want to) break. David Lean’s 228-minute extravaganza about the eccentric, enigmatic British soldier (indelibly played by Peter O’Toole), who led the Arab Bedouins against the Turks during World War I, is the definition of a capital-E you-know-what. It made every film that came before it seem?small. —Chris Nashawaty

After corporate ladder-climbing Baxter lends his bachelor pad to his married superiors so they can discreetly cheat on their wives, he realizes he’s fallen for his boss’s mistress and begins to rethinks his priorities. Billy Wilder’s creation is one of the blue-chip standards of cinema, thanks in no small part to Jack Lemmon and Shirley MacLaine’s sizzling chemistry. —Denise Warner

The Coen Brothers’ taut thriller not only gave us one of cinema’s most terrifying villains (with an equally horrifying bowl cut) but also redefined Westerns thanks to a slow-burn plot and Hitchcockian flare. —Denise Warner

If you want to see what all the fuss surrounding Marlon Brando is about, then check out Elia Kazan’s bareknuckle drama about a lone palooka grappling with his conscience on the New York docks. Kazan knew how to get the best out of his actors — and Eva Marie Saint, Lee J. Cobb, Rod Steiger, and Karl Malden are all terrific. But it’s Brando’s raw, electric performance that will haunt you when it’s over. —Chris Nashawaty

Has anyone ever talked the way people talk in All About Eve? Some films have a few memorable quotes, but it’s hard to think of a line from writer-director Joseph L. Mankiewicz’s that isn’t memorable. (”You’re maudlin and full of self-pity. You’re magnificent!” or ” You can always put that award where your heart ought to be,” and ”Don’t cry. Just score it as an incomplete forward pass. ”) The tale of an aging Broadway star and the hotshot newcomer who threatens her, Eve is still the only movie in history to earn nominations for four of its actresses. It remains a devastatingly acerbic vision of ambition and decay. And it’s damn funny, too. —Darren Franich

It’s the neurotic love story we didn’t know we needed. Woody Allen’s signature style proved that romantic comedies can be smart, sweet, sexy, sad, and most importantly — human. —Denise Warner

David O. Selznick’s luscious love story throws us into the privileged life of Scarlett O’Hara, whose strength, sex appeal, and ruthlessness propel her through riches, wealth, suitors, and the brutal Civil War. In a mesmerizing performance that inspires equal measures love and hate, Vivien Leigh’s Scarlett trades barbs and kisses with Clark Gable’s Rhett Butler. Frankly, my dear, how could we not give a damn? —Denise Warner

A cinematic offering we can’t refuse, Francis Ford Coppola’s masterpiece about the multi-generational Corleone family endures thanks to rat-a-tat writing and across-the-board acting brilliance. —Denise Warner

Hands down, the greatest Hollywood love story ever made. As the hard-boiled expat owner of Rick’s Café, Humphrey Bogart reveals the soft chewy center beneath the cynic. And, as the woman who broke his heart back in Paris, Ingrid Bergman shows us why a man might stay up all night staring at the bottom a highball. Here’s a movie that has it all (Romance! Nazis!). And it just gets better and better…as time goes by. —Chris Nashawaty