Cinema's highest honor is the Academy Award for Best Picture. From Wings, the first-ever winner in 1928, to Parasite, the Oscar for Best Picture of the year has gone to movies of all genres and styles, from lighthearted comedies like You Can't Take It with You to grisly horror/thrillers like The Silence of the Lambs.
In most years, the Best Picture winner ends up being the movie that was the clear favorite heading into Oscar night. On occasion, however, the Academy catches viewers off guard and picks a surprise winner that no one saw coming. Here are 10 surprise Best Picture winners, ranked according to Rotten Tomatoes.
10 The Greatest Show On Earth - 42%
The Greatest Show on Earth is Cecil B. DeMille's 1952 melodrama that takes place behind the scenes at the Barnum & Bailey circus. It's widely regarded as the worst Best Picture winner ever, and its victory was especially surprising given that its competition included the universally acclaimed Gary Cooper vehicle, High Noon.
Westerns were the hottest genre around at the time, and so it seemed a no-brainer that such a high caliber western would take home the gold. Nonetheless, the spectacle of The Greatest Show on Earth prevailed.
9 Crash - 74%
Director Ang Lee's Brokeback Mountain had swept the awards circuit up until Oscar night when a visibly shocked Jack Nicholson announced that Crash had been awarded the evening's top prize.
Brokeback Mountain to this day is considered the far superior film, and so this decision was as controversial as it was shocking. Crash isn't a terrible movie, but its on-the-nose preachiness compared to Brokeback's artful subtlety makes it one of the more head-scratching choices for Best Picture in Oscar history.
8 Green Book - 77%
The odds-on favorite to win that year was Alfonso Cuaron's Roma. It was widely praised by critics as the best film of 2018 and had dominated the awards season thus far.
But Roma was always an unconventional Oscar frontrunner. It was a black and white, straight to Netflix, foreign language film with no established stars in its cast. Green Book, on the other hand, was a feel-good story starring familiar faces in full color. Sentimentality often prevails at the Oscars, and this was no exception.
7 The Sound of Music - 83%
It's hard to believe that The Sound of Music, bonafide classic that it is, was the underdog for Best Picture the year it was nominated - but it was. The favorite that year was Dr. Zhivago, considered at the time the more "serious" and more worthy film. Both had 10 nominations and ended up winning 5 awards apiece.
The Sound of Music is still regarded as perhaps a bit schmaltzy, even for a musical, but Julie Andrews' iconic performance is as popular today as it was with Oscar voters in 1966.
6 Dances With Wolves - 83%
1990's Dances with Wolves is a sprawling western epic directed by and starring Kevin Costner. Costner plays a Civil War soldier who abandons his old life in order to become a member of the Lakota tribe after being acquainted with their way of life.
It's still regarded as a good movie despite its simplistic depiction of Native American life, but being up against Martin Scorsese's indelible masterpiece Goodfellas made it the underdog for Best Picture in 1991. This would be neither the first nor the last time Marty got snubbed.
5 Ordinary People - 89%
Speaking of times Scorsese got beaten in the Best Picture category by a movie almost everyone deems inferior, Ordinary People is another such example of this phenomenon. Robert Redford's somber family drama is generally well-liked, but it went into Oscar night expected to lose Best Picture to Raging Bull, which is widely considered one of the best films ever made.
Redford also took the Best Director prize that night, with Raging Bull winning two awards - Best Editing, and of course, Best Actor for Robert DeNiro.
4 Shakespeare In Love - 92%
Perhaps a bit of an asterisk is warranted here, as, by Oscar night itself, Shakespeare in Love was considered the favorite to win Best Picture.
However, until Academy voting got underway, it was thought to be inconceivable that such a fluffy romantic comedy would triumph over Steven Spielberg's World War II masterpiece Saving Private Ryan. It's still considered one of the oddest Oscar decisions in history.
3 Rocky - 94%
Actor-screenwriter Sylvester Stallone's Rocky is the ultimate underdog story. Its road to Oscar gold parallels that trajectory. Not only was Stallone was relatively unknown at the time, but Rocky was nominated as part of what is perhaps the most impressive Best Picture field ever. Its competition was Network, Taxi Driver, Bound for Glory, and All the President's Men.
In the end, Academy voters found Rocky's triumphant story too good to resist. It took Best Picture and Best Director, though Stallone himself lost the Best Actor trophy to Network's Peter Finch.
2 Spotlight - 97%
Alejandro G. Inarritu's masterful epic The Revenant was the favorite to win Best Picture in 2016, which would have been Inarritu's second Best Picture prize in two years. Spotlight, however, was the dark horse that snuck up on everyone and took the gold.
It's a whip-smart movie in the tradition of All The President's Men about journalists at The Boston Globe who expose a child molestation scandal at the Catholic church. The strength of its script and wonderful ensemble cast put Spotlight over the top.
1 Moonlight - 98%
The most infamous Oscars mishap so far came when Faye Dunaway read the incorrect envelope at the 2017 Oscars, wrongfully declaring La La Land the winner. La La Land entered the evening the prohibitive frontrunner, as it was nominated for a record-tying 14 awards.
In the end, though, Moonlight was the most beloved movie among Academy voters, who responded to its dreamlike stylistic flair and moving coming-of-age narrative. It's the kind of movie that's all too rarely produced, and Oscar voters pounced at the opportunity to crown it the best of the year.
December 27, 2020 at 11:00AM
https://screenrant.com/oscars-surprise-best-picture-winners-ranked-rotten-tomatoes-scores/
Academy Awards: 10 Surprise Best Picture Winners, Ranked (According To Rotten Tomatoes) - Screen Rant
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