The received wisdom that the Oscar for Best Picture always goes to mainstream, generally inoffensive ‘quality’ pictures is only partially true. There have been multiple exceptions to this – and increasingly so over recent years, with an influx of younger Academy voters and a desire to be seen as more progressive than in the past.
Who knows what it might mean for this year’s Best Picture nominees – which are All Quiet on the Western Front, Avatar: The Way of Water, The Banshees of Inisherin, Elvis, Everything Everywhere All at Once, The Fabelmans, Tár, Top Gun: Maverick, Triangle of Sadness and Women Talking. But while we wait to find out on Sunday night, here are ten of the more unexpected movies to have won the gong:
The Shape of Water (2017) – Disney+, Amazon Rent/Buy
Guillermo del Toro’s hybrid romantic-fantasy-thriller is an unlikely Best Picture winner in its central theme of an inter-species sexual relationship between deaf laboratory cleaner Elisa (Sally Hawkins) and Doug Jones’s imprisoned ‘Amphibian Man’. The picture blends Cold War spying (Michael Stuhlbarg), racism (Octavia Spencer), bullying US army officers (Michael Shannon) and the plight of closeted homosexuals (Richard Jenkins) into a satisfying, but occasionally silly, cinematic experience.
No Country for Old Men (2007) – Paramount+, NOW, Amazon Rent/Buy
The Coen brothers’ bleak worldview is on full display in this neo-noir western based on Cormac McCarthy’s 2005 novel. Javier Bardem’s ridiculously coiffured hitman Anton Chigurh stalks the West Texas/Mexico border of 1980 in search of Vietnam vet Llewelyn Moss (Josh Brolin) who has absconded with $2 million of cartel money he chanced upon after a drug deal shoot-out. Will Llewelyn outfox his pursuer and enjoy the loot with wife Carla Jean (Kelly Macdonald)? It’s a coin toss.
Midnight Cowboy (1969) – MGM, Amazon Buy
Another picture unlikely to put a spring in your step is John Schlesinger’s tale of would-be cowboy gigolo Joe Buck (Jon Voight) and seedy conman ‘Ratso’ Rizzo (Dustin Hoffman). Buck’s dream of making it big servicing Manhattan’s well-heeled lonely older women doesn’t go to plan and he ends up eking a squalid semi-living with Rizzo, in the hope of eventually earning enough to relocate to sunny Florida. There’s plenty of dark humour in Midnight Cowboy but it remains an occasionally disturbing picture – not one for a romantic evening in. The movie benefits from John Barry’s evocative score, and Harry Nilsson’s memorable rendition of Fred Neil’s haunting ‘Everybody’s Talkin’’.
Parasite (2019) – All4, Amazon Rent/Buy
Some might posit that Parasite’s surprise success was a corrective to the previous year’s Green Book, a Best Picture winner that appeared to many little more than a Driving Miss Daisy (1989) switcheroo with a dash of the equally mediocre Crash (2004). South Korean director Bong Joon-ho (Okja) channels Luis Bunuel and Roman Polanski in an enjoyable social satire-thriller where the impoverished Kim family insinuate themselves into the home of the rich Parks, who are not quite what they seem. Unsurprisingly, as Parasite is a foreign language picture, both a US remake of the film and a TV series have been mooted.
Tom Jones (1963) – Amazon Rent/Buy
The international box office and awards popularity of Tony Richardson’s adaptation of Henry Fielding’s 1749 novel The History of Tom Jones, a Foundling led to an early ‘The British are coming!’ moment for the UK film industry. Sadly, like screenwriter Colin Welland’s boast after the Academy Awards success of Chariots of Fire (1981), this was largely an illusion. The movie made a star of Albert Finney (Jones), but is rather a chore, spoiled by modish New Wave affections, overacting and a grating score by John Addison. ITV’s four-part mini-series ‘reimagining’ Tom Jones will begin on 30 April; producer/adapter Gwyneth Hughes (The Girl) described Fielding’s novel as ‘the mother of all romcoms’, which doesn’t bode well. At least to me. Ted Lasso’s Hannah Waddingham vamps the role of randy Lady Bellaston; Joan Greenwood (Kind Hearts and Coronets) played the character in the movie.
CODA (2021) – Apple TV
Sian Heder’s remake of Franco-Belgian film La Famille Bélier (2014) stands out not so much for its subject matter, which is a formulaic story reminiscent of tearjerkers from the 1930s, but the casting of deaf actors in the main roles in this tale of an aspiring (hearing) singer and her deaf family. Emilia Jones (daughter of Aled) stars as Ruby Rossi, the titular Child of Deaf Adults – CODA – who are struggling with their New England fishing business, the licence suspended as deafness prevented them from hearing the Coast Guard’s blaring horns and frantic radio calls. Ruby must choose between pursuing a singing career or hanging around on the fishing smack, interpreting for father Frank (Troy Kotsur) and brother Leo (Daniel Durant). Needless to say, everything turns out for the best in the end.
All the King’s Men (1949) – Amazon Rent/Buy
Robert Rossen (The Hustler) produced, wrote and directed this political drama inspired by the career of populist politician Louisiana governor Huey Long (1893-1935). Burly Broderick Crawford (Born Yesterday) stars as Willie Stark, self-taught lawyer, champion of the people, philanderer and eventually corrupt state governor who meets (as did Long) an untimely end. An unremittingly cynical picture, All The King’s Men was the apex of the socially conscious Best Picture winners of the mid-late 1940s, alongside The Best Years of Our Lives (1946) and Gentleman’s Agreement (1948). In 2006 a scenery-chewing Sean Penn starred as Stark in a remake which flopped at the box office and earned the actor some of his worst reviews to date.
Birdman (2014) – Amazon Prime, Amazon Buy, Disney+
Contrived to appear as one long single-shot take, Alejandro González Iñárritu’s (The Revenant) arthouse drama kickstarted the career resurrection of Michael Keaton, and ironically led him back to the role of Batman. Washed-up superhero star Riggan ‘Birdman’ Thomson (Keaton) attempts a career comeback by writing, directing and starring in a Broadway adaptation of Raymond Carver’s short story ‘What We Talk About When We Talk About Love’. His efforts are plagued by the internal chiding of Birdman’s voice and the antics of irritating method actor Mike Shiner, played by Ed Norton, surely spoofing himself.
The Artist (2011) – Amazon Rent/Buy
Directed by Michel Hazanavicius, The Artist stands out by virtue of being an overwhelmingly silent picture, shot in black and white, depicting the period in Hollywood when talkies began. Personally, I would opt for Damien Chazelle’s Babylon (2022) and Mel Brooks’s Silent Movie (1976) over this, but as the saying goes, you pays your money and you takes your choice. Incidentally, The Artist cribs from Silent Movie by having the only audible dialogue at the very end of the film; in the case of Brooks’s picture, mime artist Marcel Marceau (‘No!’). Très drôle.
The Silence of the Lambs (1991) – MGM, Amazon Rent/Buy
Although a box-office smash, Jonathan Demme’s adaptation of Robert Harris’s novel was in some ways an atypical Best Picture winner owing to the nature of the material. Semen-flinging prisoners (Stuart Rudin as ‘Multiple’ Miggs), a penis-hiding serial killer (Ted Levine as Jame Gumb) and the strangely sympathetic ‘Long Pig’ enthusiast Dr Hannibal ‘The Cannibal’ Lecter (Anthony Hopkins) are hardly the stuff of The King’s Speech or The Sound of Music. The movie made Hopkins a true Hollywood star, but unfortunately also started a cottage industry of film and TV sequels and spin-offs – Ridley Scott’s Hannibal (2001) being easily the best, although the NBC series (2013-15) of the same name has its moments.
If you’re looking for other, edgier Best Picture fare, I suggest Nomadland (2020), The French Connection (1971) and The Lost Weekend (1945). The 2023 Oscars ceremony begins at 1 a.m. on Monday UK time and will be broadcast on Sky Cinema’s Oscars channel and NOW TV.
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