Moviefone Picks The Best of Oscar's Best

As a teenager, The third Man shook me to my foundations. It had everything: unrequited love, action, drama, corruption, and a woman to idolize.

You would have done us a greater service if you could have given us a list of the 25 greatest films. Then the wonderful humor of the industry could come through rather than Hollywoods c ompulsion with its Art. Then we could consider the Ealing comedy's, Second Hand Lions, The God's Must Be Crazy.

The Oscar filter unfairly eliminates movies that are worthy candidates for the best 25 ever.

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Top 25 lists always vary as they are made by a person's or a groups personal choices. I doubt that you will find few people that will completely agree with this or any list. One of my favorites, excluded from the list, is "Chinatown".

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I don't understand the groundrules, beyond someone had to win an oscar to make the list. What about comedy...Blazing Saddles and Young Frankenstein, e.g... They have had the impact of lifting us from day-to-day, making us laugh in the process and wanting to catch them every time they are shown. It's a great list of great movies; but I do not think it is the top 25 ever made.

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What about To Kill A Mockingbird or It's A Wonderful Life?These are two great movies but didn't even make the top 25?Hmmm, makes you wonder just who's making up these lists.

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About half were OK-the rest should have been replaced by ones mentioned by those making comments. Some made films were duds compared with "Sound of Music" and "Forrest Gump" Just taking a sample from each type of movie doesn't cut it. "Lord of the Rings" you have to be kidding!!

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I would enjoy seeing the list, but I have been trying for 30 minutes, unsuccessfully, to get it. It hangs up on 6/8.

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I LOVE the author's comment at the beginning, how many Oscar winners are classics, but "Crash, not so much". He ain't kidding, it tops the list of worst ever to win. In fact, the 25 worst winners is probably more interesting than the best winners, as the Academy has a checkered history, at best.

Even more interesting is a list of 25 films that were eligible but did not win. Here are 80 or so to choose from, just about all of which were better than the actual winners, to show how awful the Academy's history really is (in no particular order) (* means not even nominated):

Citizen Kane
The Wizard of Oz
2001: A Space Odyssey*
Vertigo*
The Searchers*
Singin' in the Rain*
Some Like It Hot*
Psycho*
Raging Bull
Goodfellas
Brokeback Mountain
The Shawshank Redemption
Pulp Fiction
Network
Double Indemity
Taxi Driver
Star Wars
Fellowship of the Ring
City Lights*
Sunset Boulevard
The Pianist
North By Northwest*
Notorious*
It's a Wonderful Life
The Third Man*
The General*
Sunrise*
Touch of Evil*
A Streetcar Named Desire
The African Queen*
A Place in the Sun
The Grapes of Wrath
High Noon
Twelve Angry Men
Rear Window*
To Kill a Mockingbird
Dr. Strangelove
Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf?
The Graduate
Bonnie and Clyde
The Lion in Winter
Bringing Up Baby*
Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs*
Duck Soup*
King Kong (1933)*
Modern Times*
The Maltese Falcon
Traffic
Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind*
Children of Men*
The Sixth Sense
Toy Story*
Fight Club*
A Clockwork Orange
The Last Picture Show
Chinatown
Nashville
Apocalypse, Now
Reds
Blade Runner*
Sophie's Choice*
E.T.
Tootsie
Do the Right Thing*
Breaking the Waves*
Fargo
L.A. Confidential
Saving Private Ryan
The Wild Bunch*
Easy Rider*
Night of the Hunter*
Shane
Treasure of the Sierra Madre
My Darling Clementine*
Fantasia*
Dumbo*
Sullivan's Travels*
The Miracle of Morgan's Creek*
His Girl Friday*
To Be or Not To Be (1942)*
Meet Me in St. Louis*
Mr. Smith Goes to Washington
The Magnificent Ambersons

There are many more.

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What about The Searchers?

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Where was "The Wizard of Oz" and "The Ten Commandments", both blockbuster movies, then and now.

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Most People obviously don't read theposts of others before posting. This list was taken from a list of 79 films. In order to be on the list the film had to have won the Academy Award for BEST PICTURE. Films like Fargo, Citizen Kane, The Wizard of Oz, The Shawshank Redemption, Pulp Fiction, Dr. Zhivago, The Color Purple, Jaws, etc. Were NOT eligible. SO I offer a list of the 25 Greatest Films that should have won a BEST PICTURE Oscar...

25.)Last Year at Marienbad- 1961 (Wasn't Nominated)
24.)The Searchers- 1956 (Wasn't Nominated)
23.)The Sacrifice- 1986 (Wasn't Nominated)
22.)Touch of Evil- 1958 (Wasn't Nominated)
21.)The Exterminating Angel- 1962 (Wasn't Nominated)
20.)Fitzcarraldo- 1982 (Wasn't Nominated)
19.)La Dolce Vita- 1960 (Wasn't Nominated)
18.)Persona- 1966 (Wasn't Nominated)
17.)M- 1930-31 (Wasn't Nominated)
16.)Pulp Fiction- 1994 (Lost to Forrest Gump)
15.)The Grand Illusion- 1937 (Lost to You Can't Take It With You)
14.)The Passion of the Christ- 2004 (Wasn't Nominated)
13.)The Umbrellas of Cherbourg- 1964 (Wasn't Nominated)
12.)Sin City- 2005 (Wasn't Nominated)
11.)The 39 Steps- 1935 (Wasn't Nominated)
10.)Grave of the Fireflies- 1988 (Wasn't Nominated)
9.)Modern Tiems- 1936 (Wasn't Nominated)
8.)The 400 Blows- 1959 (Wasn't Nominated)
7.)8 1/2- 1963 (Wasn't Nominated
6.)The Bicycle Thief- 1948 (Wasn't Nominated)
5.)Spirited Away- 2002 (Wasn't Nominated)
4.)The Rules of the Game (Wasn't Nominated)
3.)Fantasia- 1940 (Wasn't Nominated)
2.)Seven Samurai- 1954 (Wasn't Nominated)
1.)Citizen Kane- 1941 (Lost to How Green Was My Valley)

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I would like to make the following corrections:

the title of the film is Modern Times

The Rules of the Game- 1939

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The list was "The Best of Oscar's Best" - meaning the best of the best pictures of the year. Movies like "Young Frankenstein", "Wizard of Oz", "Pulp Fiction", "True Grit", etc. were NOT best pictures!!!!!! I would have added "wEst Side Story" and "From Here to Eternity".

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Wizard of Oz lost to Gone with the Wind in 1939.

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You missed my all-time favorite film, "The Sting", with Paul Newman and Robert Redford. Actually, it's tied in my mind with the Marx Bros. "A Day at the Races", but Groucho, Harpo, Chico and Zeppo never won an Oscar for anything. In your comments on the films, you repeatedly said "Oscar likes....". Well, I like con men. "The Sting" is all about them. In addition to Newwman and Redford, the late I-don't-remember-his-name was great as Kid Twist. As for the Marx Brothers, I'm a Chico fan. Chico: "I-i-i-c-e creaam! Getta yo' tootsie fruitsie ice cream!"/Groucho: "Two dollars on Sunup." is the funniest scene in all cinema, in my opinion. Also up there is Harpo's Porgie and Bess sendup, "Who dat man?", though it might not be viewed as politically correct today.

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West Side Story should be number 1...no doubt the finest drama/musical/love story ever made.

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The Grapes of Wrath
The Yearling
I Remember Mama
Father Goose
The Incredible Mr. Limpet
Gone With the Wind
Romeo & Juliet
Forest Gump
Shawshank Redemption
Schlindler's List
E.T.
Star Wars
Indiana Jones
The Little Mermaid
Beauty & The Beast
Chocolat
Private Ryan

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