Pizza

It is interesting to look back at the past with 20/20 although there have been times during the actual year that have been frustrating for me, such as 2001 (and i was a little kid and i knew that was a mistake) and Pulp Fiction.

Pizza

It's wonderful to see the love for "No Country for Old Men" in this thread and it was the film I was rooting for that year. I have to say that us folks here are in the minority as it seems most people I talk to can't stand the film. It's a truly great film though there are few other "good ones" that have nabbed the top prize. I feel the academy should add a new category that recognizes films that have proven to be real classics over time but missed being recognized.

inri222

SM was IMO the worst of a bad crop of nominees. The Curious Case of Benjamin Button, Milk, The Reader & Frost/Nixon were IMO better than Slumdog Millionaire.

This is all Oscar had to offer for best picture in the same year that these came out

Let the Right One In
Happy-Go-Lucky
Doubt
Gomorrah
Wendy and Lucy
Che
Synecdoche, New York
35 Shots of Rum
Hunger
Ballast
Two Lovers
Frozen River

eXcentris

I loved "No Country for Old Men" but unfortunately, it think it qualifies as a huge screw-up, because I believe that "There Will Be Blood" was the best American film of that decade, and the real/true classic.

bluetoast

No Country was my clear favorite film of the 5 picks that year, and quite possibly my favorite of that decade. I saw it at least twice and TWBB 3 times in theaters. Everything else after those two was a very distant 3/4/5th place.

auto

sherm42

I was very glad that Saving Private Ryan lost. It was total manipulative tripe, and obvious Oscar bait.

bluetoast

Also Ciarán Hinds was totally wasted in TWBB. Great actor limited to about 3 lines of dialogue.

Hokeyboy

The best movie of 2008 IMO was Synecdoche New York. Not even close to nominated.

DaveyJoe

The Thin Red Line is a masterpiece, though.

Supermallet

I think both are classics and either would have been a fine choice. No Country is one of the finest films from two of the most unique American filmmakers in our history, and I appreciated that a dark, complex movie that wasn't labeled an art film got so much recognition.

PopcornTreeCt

Well said.

bootsy

Voted for Schindler's List, Braveheart, American Beauty, ROTK, Million Dollar Baby, The Departed and No Country. Some of the list of nominees look really bad the more we get away from some of those years.

Boba Fett

Schindler's List wasn't better than In the Name of the Father.

It's one of the biggest offenders of Spielberg's habit of overwrought audience manipulation. It has truly magnificent moments, but the ending almost undoes everything.

Fist of Doom

2003 was my only vote.

MoviePage

Keep:
1996: The English Patient
1997: Titanic -- sorry, I've never liked L.A. Confidential and this film has proven its longevity
2003: LOTR: ROTK -- only as a vote for the trilogy since FOTR didn't win
2006: The Departed -- the best of a very weak group
2007: No Country for Old Men -- the best Best Picture of the past two decades
2011: The Artist is the only Best Picture winner I haven't seen, so I'll let it stand

Change:
1993: Remains of the Day is one of my favorite films of all time, though I have no real problem with Schindler's List winning
1994: Pulp Fiction
1995: Sense and Sensibility
1998: At the time I would have voted Saving Private Ryan. Now, it would probably be Thin Red Line.
1999: The Insider
2000: Traffic (or maybe Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon -- it's way past time a foreign-language film won the big prize)
2001: One of those dismal years when the worst of the nominated films won. I would've voted for LOTR: Fellowship at the time, and hindsight proves correct since it was the best of the trilogy.
2002: The Pianist
2004: The Aviator
2005: The worst Best Picture choice of all time, and I've seen The Greatest Show on Earth and a lot of other atrocious ones. Brokeback Mountain should have been the winner.
2008: Milk
2009: Avatar, though at the time I likely would've gone with The Hurt Locker
2010: The Social Network
2012: Silver Linings Playbook (out of the ones I've seen, so this could change in the future)

stvn1974

Spielberg making Oscar bait? Surely you jest.

PenguinJoe

You guys are forgetting that it doesn't matter what we as movie-goers think is the best picture it's all people in the tight knit Hollywood industry really that are the only ones that matter. Much like the Grammy's. I think Pulp Fiction should be a best picture winner but it's not. Nor are Goodfellas, LA Confidential, Fargo, and Chinatown. When Argo won it was more about giving it to WB than anything else. Be kind of glad the masses don't get a say cause if we did Twilight would be a best picture nominee.

Living Deadpan

I heartily agree.

Thing is, though, part of me wished it didn't win Best Picture because I knew it would incur the backlash that all BP winners suffer from. I seem to recall that after it won those awards, certain hipster elitists went from calling it a masterpiece to "OVERRATED!"

I also voted for American Beauty and The Departed. I'm not sure these films ultimately benefited from winning Best Picture, either.

eXcentris

People changing their opinion based on some award doesn't make much sense to me. I call it overrated, much like I would call a film winning over Casablanca, Lawrence of Arabia or The Godfather, overrated.

cleaver

Voted Schindlers List, Gladiator, LOTR ROTK, and The Departed. Almost voted American Beauty but The Matrix was that year, Million Dollar Baby but for Eternal Sunsine. Gladiator/Crouching Tiger and The Departed/The Prestige were close enough for me not to haggle.

MoviePage

I think you forgot to read the instructions.

Living Deadpan

So, in other words, you're saying "Death to the demons Joel & Ethan Coen!" (Sorry, I cannot let a Cronenbergian screen name go unremarked.)

I think "overrated" is an overused word, myself. And I really don't think the Oscars are the arbiters of ratedness (not a real word, I admit).

bluetoast

Yeah doesn't overrated just mean "Other people like something that I don't like as much, and that's bad. They shouldn't do that." And like you said deadpan, the arbiters of ratedness can vary from definition to definition.

JumpCutz

I like this post.

And Saving Private Ryan, even though it didn't win is overrated too.