How good are Oscar-winning movies, artistically, not in terms of star power or box-office appeal This was the point of departure for a survey conducted over my website, EmanuelLevy.com. Respondents were asked to rank-order the ten best and the ten worst films that have won the highly coveted top prize, Best Picture. Here is a summary of the results:
Oscar’s Best Pictures (rank-ordered by percentage of votes)
The Godfather (73%)
The Godfather, Part II (71%)
Casablanca (69%)
All About Eve (56%)
Lawrence of Arabia (54%)
Gone With the Wind (51%)
Schindler’s List (49%)
The Best Years of Our Lives (48%)
No Country for Old Men (47%)
Million Dollar Baby (46%)
Unforgiven (44%)
It Happened One Night (42%)
Shakespeare in Love (40%)
On the Waterfront (41%)
The Departed (37%)
The Apartment (33%)
Annie Hall (32%)
Oscar’s Worst Pictures (rank-ordered by percentage of votes):
Around the World in 80 Days (57%)
The Greatest Show on Earth (54%)
Braveheart (47%)
Gladiator (43%)
Mrs. Miniver (43%)
Crash (40%)
Going My Way (39%)
A Beautiful Mind (35%)
The Broadway Melody (30%)
The Great Ziegfeld (29%)
Cavalcade (28%)
Cimarron (27%)
Note
The survey indicated that 73 percent of the respondents thought that Coppola’s “The Godfather” (1972) was one of the ten best films to win the Best Picture, and 57 percent thought that “Around the World in 80 Days” was one of th ten worst Oscar-winners.
