Courtesy of Neon
If you read our combined Gold Derby odds for the Best Picture Oscar, you’ll see that the race is over and Everything, Everywhere at Once is crowned at the Oscars on March 12th. But not always does the favorite horse race win. excitement happens. The longshot comes in. Jaws fall down. Calculations go wrong. Something no one saw coming is coming in. chaos reigns.
And we love it.
If there’s one thing we’ve learned, it’s that there are no guarantees. Movies that the majority think should have won don’t. This is especially true in hindsight. Citizen Kane, widely regarded as the best film of the 20th century, was lost. That’s what many thought of the film Martin Scorsese preferably “Raging Bull”. “Moonlight” beat “La La Land”. “Crash” upset “Brokeback Mountain”. Shakespeare in Love turned Saving Private Ryan on its head. “Chariots of Fire” snatched the trophy over “Reds”. Sometimes it’s the passage of time that makes the excitement even more shocking in hindsight. Some wins just age better than others.
There are also some fascinating little things about the Best Picture Oscar category. For example, John Cazale, who died in 1978 at the age of 42, appeared in just five feature films during his career – and all five were nominated for or won Best Picture. They were The Godfather (1973), The Conversation (1975), The Godfather Part 2 (1975), Dog Day Afternoon (1976) and The Deer Hunter (1979). There is a record that will probably never be equaled.
Let’s look back at a dozen of the biggest Oscar shockers in the best picture race, along with some fascinating facts.
In no particular order:
Shocker #1: “Normal people” via Coal Miner’s Daughter, The Elephant Man, Raging Bull and Tess (1981) – At the start of this Oscar season, it was The Elephant Man who was being hyped for all the big awards. Then it was “Raging Bull” when it premiered and turned out to be such a classic. But at the end of the day, it was Ordinary People and director Robert Redford which snagged the DGA and the Oscar – and the film itself won too. It’s a good movie too. But in hindsight, it’s not a “Raging Bull.”
Shocker #2: “Kramer vs. Kramer” about “All That Jazz”, “Apocalypse Now”, “Breaking Away” and “Norma Rae” (1980) – An example of a film whose star power (Meryl Streep, Dustin Hoffman) particularly overwhelmed “Apocalypse Now” and “All That Jazz”, two films of unique size and grandeur. Back then, the “Kramer” win didn’t feel quite as shocking as it does today.
Shocker #3: “moonlight” about “La La Land”, “Arrival”, “Fences”, “Hacksaw Ridge”, “Hell or High Water”, “Hidden Figures”, “Lion” and “Manchester by the Sea” (2017) – there just weren’t any That’s how “La La Land” would lose. It had 14 nominations for Scream Loud. The Envelope Fiasco (Moderators Warren Beatty And Faye Dunaway given the wrong envelope) accompanying his loss, in which he was first announced as the winner, didn’t feel weird at all – until he was. It was a considerable amount of excitement, compounded by the crazy circumstances surrounding them.
Shocker #4: “Crash” B. About “Brokeback Mountain”, “Munich”, “Capote” and “Good Night, and Good Luck” (2006) – “Brokeback Mountain” was considered something of a disappearance to win the best film gold. Crash had failed to earn a Golden Globe nomination for Best Picture, and the only film that had managed to win a Best Picture Oscar anyway was The Sting in 1974. But “Crash” would even be the second though “Brokeback’s” Ang Lee won as a director.
Shocker #5: “Rocky” about “All the President’s Men”, “Network”, “Bound for Glory” and “Taxi Driver” (1977) – at the beginning of the awards season, the chances that a small boxing film with an unknown name in the leading role Sylvester Stallone couldn’t have won Best Picture at the Academy Awards any longer. But it took the trophy over what we now see as the three movie greats in Network. “All the Presidents Men” and “Taxi Driver,” each of which could/should have won in a year that Rocky Balboa wasn’t in the competition.
Shocker #6: “Shakespeare in Love” on Saving Private Ryan, Life is Beautiful, Elizabeth and The Thin Red Line (1999)—everything was scheduled Steven Spielberg winning the top prize for his WWII epic Saving Private Ryan, especially after winning to direct. But the now famous Shakespeare in Love campaign carried through Harvey Weinstein paid off, resulting in a triumph that no one can believe actually happened.
Shocker #7: “How green was my valley” about Citizen Kane, Blossoms in the Dust, Here Comes Mr Jordan, Hold Back the Dawn, The Little Foxes, The Maltese Falcon, One Foot in Heaven, Sergeant York “. ‘ and ‘Suspicion’ (1942) – It was the year of Orson Welles Masterpiece “Citizen Kane”, not to mention Alfred Hitchcock’s “Suspicion” and “Maltese Falcon” with Humphrey Bogart. The fact that a nice little movie like How Green Was My Valley could triumph over them remains a farce.
Shocker #8: “Parasite” on Ford v Ferrari, The Irishman, Joker, Jojo Rabbit, Once Upon a Time in Hollywood, 1917, Little Women and Marriage Story (2020) – Parasite, a black comedy from South Korea with English subtitles, has somehow beaten eight competitors, including the film Quentin Tarantino holds his best (“Once Upon a Time in Hollywood”), a Scorsese film (“The Irishman”) and Sam Mendes WWI masterpiece 1917 becomes first non-English language film to win top Oscar trophy. “Parasite” also won for Bong Joon Hos directing.
Shocker #9: “In 80 days around the world” on ‘Giant’, ‘The King and I’, ‘The Ten Commandments’ and ‘Friendly Persuasion’ (1957) – The biblical epic ‘The Ten Commandments’ was meant to wipe out its competition here, but voters ignored the memo. They opted instead to adapt the Jules Verne Roman about a hot air balloon adventure, but share their allegiance by choosing George Stevens as best director for “Giant”.
Shocker #10: “Fire Chariot” spanning Reds, Raiders of the Lost Ark, Atlantic City and On Golden Pond (1982) – 12-time Oscar nominee Reds, starring Beatty, had the inside tracks to the film’s biggest awards to win night (film, director, screenplay) but only won for best director. The other two went to “Chariots”, a British import with great public success. In hindsight, Raiders wouldn’t have been a bad choice either. But it shouldn’t be.
Shocker #11: “Argo” via Silver Linings Playbook, Zero Dark Thirty, Amour, Django Unchained, Lincoln, Life of Pi, Les Miserables and Beasts of the Southern Wild (2013) – so it seemed how the Oscar voters didn’t take “Argo” seriously, seemingly reluctantly naming it while snubbing the director Ben Affleck. Spielberg and his “Lincoln” were considered favorites for picture and direction. But Ang Lee took home Best Director and Argo was a surprise winner for Best Picture, a rarity of rarities for a film with no director’s name.
Shocker #12: “An American in Paris” on ‘A Place in the Sun’, ‘Decision Before Dawn’, ‘A Streetcar Named Desire’ and ‘Quo Vadis’ (1952) – The experts chose ‘A Place in the Sun’ to take home the Oscars for picture and direction to take home. George Stevens would win the director’s award again for “Sun,” but the gorgeous musical, “An American in Paris,” snagged the night’s biggest statuette.
A few other interesting bits of Best Picture Trivia:
- Only five cast members have starred in three Best Picture nominated films in the same year: Claudette Colbert 1935 for It Happened One Night, Cleopatra and Imitation of Life; Charles Luighton 1936 for Mutiny on the Bounty, Les Miserables and Ruggles of Red Gap; Adolph Menjou 1938 for Stage Door, One Hundred Men and a Girl and A Star is Born; Thomas Mitchel 1940 for “Gone with the Wind”, “Mr. Smith Goes to Washington” and “Stagecoach”; And John C Reilly 2003 for Chicago, The Hours and Gangs of New York.
- Can you name the last black and white-only film that won the Best Picture award? It was The Artist in 2012. The first time all five Best Picture nominees were shot in color was in 1957.
- This year’s All Quiet on the Western Front is one of just a dozen foreign language films nominated for Best Picture. The others are Grand Illusion (1939), Z (1970), The Emigrants (1972), Il Postino (1996), Life is Beautiful (1999), Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon (2001), Amour (2013), Roma (2019), Parasite (2020) and Drive My Car (2022).
- The longest running Best Picture winner was Lawrence of Arabia (1963) at 3 hours and 42 minutes, a minute longer than Gone With the Wind (1940). The shortest is “Marty” (1956) at 91 minutes.
- William Wyler holds the record for directing the most Best Picture nominees (13) and Winners (3).
PREDICT the Oscar winners 2023 until March 12.
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