This sort of list is different for everyone, but I'll bet one common theme is how difficult it is for everyone to narrow their list down to ten. Easy as it is to complain about Oscar's taste, they've picked a lot of damn good movies over the last 80-some-odd years. In my humble opinion, the cream of the crop are:
10. American Beauty (1999)
Despite plenty of baity competition, American Beauty made for a terrific turn-of-the-millennium winner that offered us a brief reprieve from the “Oscar movie”. The darkly funny screenplay from Alan Ball presents a remarkable cast of characters, each one of them fully realized and simply fascinating, brought to life by an exceptional ensemble. The film demands that we all look closer at the mundane and the ordinary, only so that we can discover the "ordinary" does not really exist. Be it for better or for worse, everyone and everything is different than the image they project. DP Conrad Hall pulls off what could have been a very pedestrian project with an astonishingly subtle visuals.
9. No Country for Old Men (2007)
Not since the 1970s had the Academy's selection of the year's best film been such a dark and dour one, not to mention one with so little emotional gratification for the audience, evoking themes of chance, inevitability, and hopelessness in rich yet minimalist fashion. Perhaps you could attribute such a decision to the fact that its only real competition that year was the arguably darker and even more challenging There Will Be Blood, but to have picked this rather straight-faced Coen piece was nonetheless their most courageous choice of the decade (and the only time since 1999 that they coincided with my own choice for the year's best movie).
8. Titanic (1997)
Claims that Titanic hasn't aged well could be seen as justified; Cameron's script is kinda lame, and some of the acting is a bit melodramatic, but you know what? Who cares! This glorious and smartly structured epic never fails to captivate and ensnare the viewer in its heartbreaking love story, even upon repeat viewings. I'm weak, I know, but I consider it the defining screen romance of the modern age of cinema. This is to say nothing of the gargantuan production, setting high watermarks (pun intended) for brilliance in production design and visual effects. Maybe its eleven wins was a tad overkill, but the majority of them were most deserved.
7. Casablanca (1943)
It's not hard to see why to this day Casablanca, an exemplary studio effort owed mostly to savvy producer Hal Wallis, remains one of the most unanimously adored movies of all time. Humphrey Bogart is unforgettably appealing as the acerbic antihero whose hard-boiled shell conceals a heart full of compassion and nobility. Ingrid Bergman, radiantly beautiful as always, plays wonderfully off of him with great tenderness and emotional nuance. The script is one of the finest ever written, striking a perfect balance between romance, melodrama, and humour, filled with more quotable dialogue than any film ever produced.
6. The Godfather (1972)
While Bob Fosse's Cabaret won a whopping eight categories, including two acting awards and the prize for Best Director, it was Francis Ford Coppola's examination of familial values and Italian-American culture that took the crown (plus Best Adapted Screenplay and Best Actor for Brando). Seeings as it's often cited as one of the greatest American films of all time, I'd say they made the right decision. It's a masterpiece with which it's hard to find much fault. Coppola gives us literally dozens of instantly memorable scenes, including the horse's head in the bed and Michael's symbolic baptism in blood at the climax.
5. The Sound of Music (1965)
The Academy must have developed its musical burnout by the end of the 1960s, a decade which saw four musicals (all of them prior stage hits) win coveted Best Picture honours. Oddly enough, the best of them – Robert Wise's iconic improvement on Roger and Hammerstein's famed show – is the one that nearly didn't win, just nosing ahead of Doctor Zhivago. Perhaps you could chalk it up to sentimentality, but I say longevity is a quality of a great film, and this is one that remains ageless in spite of its period setting and vintage Hollywood treatment. Oscar sniffed out a truly deserving winner in this unforgettable delight, now a family viewing standard.
4. Schindler's List (1993)
Common perception was/is that Spielberg's pair of Oscars for his Holocaust-themed opus were a long time coming. But truth be told, none of his previous pictures, wonderful though they may be, were the best of their respective years. Schindler's List, on the other hand, is far more disciplined, mature, ambitious, and artistically credible. Not only is it the greatest of his career, but among the greatest of all time. The film's commanding (and hardly contestable) triumph at the Academy Awards represents one of those rare instances in which AMPAS successfully waited until just the right moment to give someone their long-awaited trophy.
3. Annie Hall (1977)
Woody Allen made an enormous leap from broad comedian to auteur humourist with this highly influential romantic comedy. And yet as oft imitated as it is, it still remains a distinct and strikingly original invention, not even close to being surpassed by its many derivatives. Allen and Diane Keaton, having already costarred together in three of his early films, naturally made a terrific comic duo, but their performances stepped up to a more human level in this fourth collaboration, earning acting nominations for both of them, and a well deserved win for Keaton. If comedies have to be this good to win Best Picture, it's no wonder that it doesn't happen more often.
2. The Silence of the Lambs (1991)
If there's a genre that's found even less than comedy among Best Picture winners, it's horror. To my knowledge, this masterful horror from Jonathan Demme is the only one that ever took the top prize; some would rather label it a psychological thriller, but that's a misnomer. This movie frightened me. Possibly more than any other horror movie ever has. Sometimes just by the tense conversations between sensational stars Jodie Foster and Anthony Hopkins. Not only is it one of the most atypical Best Picture victors the Academy ever anointed, but one of only three films to capture the rare quintuple crown of Picture, Director, Actor, Actress, and Screenplay.
1. Gandhi (1982)
I expect I might be the cause of some raised eyebrows for this #1 choice, but this is a film, for some reason, that really speaks to me. Most people are firmly in the E.T. camp to this day, but with the exception of maybe two categories, find it hard to argue with Gandhi's eight Oscars. It's just so damn impressive. Director Richard Attenborough paints an elaborate picture of not only the man, but of where mankind's been, what it's done, and where it's going. Ben Kingsley is nothing less than completely believable as the humble but immensely revered figure, accepting his status as the spiritual symbol of a nation with both solemnity and good humour. His intimacy with the many characters that inhabit Gandhi's life imbues this mother of all epics with a moving human element. Brilliantly shot, edited, and designed in every aspect, multiple viewings are required to fully appreciate the monumental film making achievement that Gandhi represents.
