Best Picture Oscar Winners

Oppenheimer is the latest movie to win the Best Picture Oscar
Oppenheimer is the latest movie to win the Best Picture Oscar

Want to know the best Best Picture Oscar Winners?  How about the worst Best Picture Oscar Winners?  Curious about Best Picture Oscar Winners’ box office grosses or which Best Picture Oscar Winners picked up the most Oscar® nominations? Need to know which Best Picture Oscar Winners got the best reviews from critics and audiences and which one got the worst reviews? Well you have come to the right place …. because we have all of that information.

My first experience with the Oscars® was back in 1982 when I was 14. I had watched Raiders of the Lost Ark many times during the summer of 1981. And I was convinced it was the best movie ever to be filmed. When the Oscar® nominations came out I was so happy that Raiders received 8 nominations and I was convinced that Steven Spielberg would win Best Director and Raiders won would Best Picture. The night of the Oscar® show, I saw Raiders of the Lost Ark win 4 minor Oscars® and 1 special Oscar® for sound.

After being sent to bed, I quietly turned on my black and white television that was in my room. I watched the last part of the show when they give out the major awards with the volume almost on mute. Finally they got to Best Director…and the winner was…..Warren Beatty ????? for Reds….I was stunned, but that was nothing compared to when they called Chariots of Fire for Best Picture of the Year. I could not believe they did not call out Raiders….I was convinced there most have been a mistake. No mistake, as the producers of Chariots of Fire got their Oscars®. Spielberg applauded the win, while I turned off the television and though how unfair life is sometimes. Not saying I am still bitter about the loss, but I still refuse to acknowledge Chariots of Fire as Best Picture of 1981. So there will be no Oscar® winner for the 1981 year on the tables.

Since 1927, there have been 97 Best Picture Oscar Winners. The following table ranks those 97 movies many different ways.   Just in case you are wondering Chariots of Fire is on the table….all the way down at #65.
Peter O'Toole in 1962's Lawrence of Arabia
Peter O’Toole in 1962’s Lawrence of Arabia

Best Picture Oscar Winning Movies Can Be Ranked 6 Ways In The Table Below

The really cool thing about ther table is that it is “user-sortable”. Rank the movies anyway you want.

  • Sort Best Picture Oscar Winners by star of the movie
  • Sort Best Picture Oscar Winners by adjusted domestic box office grosses using current movie ticket cost
  • Sort Best Picture Oscar Winners by critic reviews and audiences voting.  60% rating or higher should indicate a good movie.
  • Sort by how many Oscar® nominations and how many Oscar® wins each Best Picture Oscar Winners received.
  • Sort Best Picture Oscar Winners by Ultimate Movie Rankings (UMR) Score.  UMR Score puts box office, reviews and awards into a mathematical equation and gives each movie a score.  The ceiling to earn points for box office is $200 million…once a movie passes that mark it stops earning points in that category.
  • You can use the search button to sort by year
Charlton Heston in 1959's Ben-Hur
Charlton Heston in 1959’s Ben-Hur

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78 thoughts on “Best Picture Oscar Winners

  1. Wow what a great idea, I agree with some of the other comments. How can Titanic be so far down the list, but I do agree Out of Africa being in the bottom 10.

    1. Hey Faye, thanks for the compliment. As for Titanic,….mega bucks….mega Oscars….but critics and audiences only rate it a score of 79% which barely keeps it out the Worst Best Picture list. As for Out of Africa…I have read numerous places where people think it is one of the weaker Oscar winning Best Pictures.

  2. Whew. I have seen 82 of the movies…I haven’t seen the King’s Speech yet. You amaze me with your statistics! This page, as all of your pages, in entertaining and informational. I do love reading your pages being a movie buff too. I don’t think I could pick a best movie of all time, even if you held a gun to my head!

    1. Hey tillsontitan….82is pretty impressive…..I am at 83….with the only one I have not watched is 1933’s Cavalcade….Just curious what is the other movie you have not seen? I appreciate the comments and the compliment. As for picking a best movie…I agree it is way to hard….which is one of the reasons I like the Movie Score system…..it does the picking for me….usually it does a good job of picking out the better movies….so I think The Godfather is a good choice.

  3. Sweet page, great fun seeing great movie after great movie. I like the Top Ten, but I most admit I am shocked that Titanic is so far down. 29th seems a little low, at least in the Top 20.

    1. Hey KellyE…..well Titanic has the box office and the Oscar wins….but critics and audiences do not rate the movie very well….a 79% is good for an average movie…but a 79% in this company of great movies does not bode well for ranking higher than the 29th it currently sits at….as always I appreciate your comments.

  4. Just wanted to say, although I do not agree with this list 100%, I think it is a great list and I like the reasoning behind the rankings. Very interesting stuff.

    1. Thanks for the compliment Oscar Winners….I am glad you like the reasoning….thanks for stopping by.

  5. Great movie page, Cogerson. It’s funny how some movies get Best Picture and years later people still wonder how they managed to beat the other contenders. I hadn’t even heard of most of those Worst Best Picture winners, except for “Out of Africa”–how many times has Meryl Streep been nominated, by the way? Very interesting!

    1. Hey Painted Seahorse….there is a great book out there called Alternative Oscar by Danny Peary….and he looks at all the winners and losers and tells you who should have won and why….it is one of my favorite books. As for Streep she currently has 16 nominations….with number 17 coming this year for The Iron Lady….but she has not won in almost 30 years….she is probably due again….thanks for the great comments
      Painted Seahorse

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