This concluding entry about every movie to win the Academy Award for Best Picture doesn’t need the four-paragraph intro that Part One did. All you need to know is that the list begins with the 1970’s – generally believed to be the best decade for quality filmmaking – that my all-time favorite movie is on the list, and that after March 4, 2018, another movie will join this list.
(Also, films in italics are especially worth watching. Read on.)
Well, Loyal Reader, it’s that time again. I managed to see every nominated film in the acting and writing categories, as well as all eight nominated films competing for Best Picture. There are some good films here, few on par with, say, anything from 1999, 2002, 2003, 2012, or 2014 (banner years all), but still a strong selection of nominees.
We have a movie about a group of generally despicable human beings who profited off the 2008 housing market collapse. We have a movie about a Cold War battle of wills. We have a movie about the immigrant experience, circa the 1950’s. We have a movie about survival in a dystopian, water-scarce, post-apocalyptic future. We have a movie about how science can save us all. We have a movie about the harsh post-Civil War northern frontier. We have a movie about a terrified mother and a sheltered child. We have a movie about print journalists fighting the good fight. And on Oscar night, we will have host Chris Rock likely bruising as many sensitive Hollywood egos as the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences seeks to honor.
Those honorees? Read below for my predictions.
Although there are good movies every year, it seems that we have a banner year for cinema roughly once every two or three years. 2014 was one of those years, with “Birdman,” “Guardians of the Galaxy,” “The Grand Budapest Hotel,” “Edge of Tomorrow,” “Whiplash,” and “The Imitation Game” being just a few of the year’s stellar releases. 2012 was another; “Lincoln,” “Zero Dark Thirty,” “Amour,” “Skyfall,” “Django Unchained,” “The Avengers, “Wreck-It Ralph” and one of my personal all-time favorites, “Cloud Atlas,” were among that year’s better releases.
2015 cinema, as a whole, wasn’t nearly as memorable. We had another Bond movie, another Tarantino film, and the first true sequel to “The Avengers”…yet none of these films were quite on par with their predecessors. Sure, a small film called “Star Wars Episode VII: The Force Awakens” continues to slay box office records like Kylo Ren’s lightsaber as it plunges through _____’s stomach, but I wasn’t as taken by its unoriginal story as some fans were.
Still, I’ve been on a major movie-watching kick of late. I have finally seen most of the 2015 releases that interest me, and I’m fairly certain that I’ve caught up on the majority of Oscar contenders. (I will find out for certain once the nominees are announced next week.) There certainly are enough good films to compile a top ten list, something I am wont to do. Here goes…without spoilers!
GringoPotpourri’s Top Ten Films of 2015:
GringoPotpourri 