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. Hi

    I was surprised that Spotlight won over The Revenant. Admittedly I haven’t seen it but I will definitely make a point to now. But on a commercial point of view, it has been a very low gross. This seems to be a trend over the past few years with Hurt Locker and Birdman. Although I did really enjoy Birdman, Michael Keaton was fantastic and good for him to be in another Oscar winning movie.
    But at the end of the day, the Oscars are a PR exercise for the film industry, and thus a business that will want to make a profit. And if the top film can’t make over $100m, something is seriously wrong.
    I see already sites predicting next year’s winners. Birth of a Nation, that done very well at The Sundance Festival, is an early tip.

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  2. Looking at this list there are some alltime greats on this one. My favorites arebeasily A Man For All Seasons, The Sting and The Hurt Locker.

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    1. I agree some the best movies made this list. Of your 3 favorites…I would give the edge to The Sting. I have not seen A Man For All Seasons in years….maybe it is time for a revisit…..thanks for stopping by.

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  3. American Sniper is way ahead of the competition at this years Oscars in box office and popularity, the others aren’t even close. I hope it wins Best Picture if only to hear the gasps in the audience. It might happen, 2 days to go. The only nominated films I haven’t seen are Boyhood and Whiplash. I liked Birdman so I wouldn’t mind that winning.

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    1. Hey Steve….I think the fact that American Sniper made so much money pretty much eliminated it as a serious contender. Birdman was an unusual movie…hard to believe it got the big award.

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  4. Interesting info!Lots of fun to read.

    A few comments- Hugh Hudson did NOT win Best Director , although Chariots of Fire did. That was also the year of Reds and Warren Beatty won Best Director. Everyone expected Reds to win Best Picture that year. Raiders of the Lost Ark only seems like the obvious choice in hindsight.

    I’ve seen every Best Picture winner, not too many surprises with the GWTW, The Godfather etc. I was surprised at the low ranking of It Happened One Night. It was one of the 30’s biggest hits and a genuine classic. Also, All Quiet on the Western Front- it is still very highly regarded. I don’t dislike Cavalcade as much as others do. There were just so many other more enduring movies that year, King Kong and 42nd Street, being the most famous.

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    1. Hey Marc…thanks for your insightful comments. You are correct…Mr. Beatty beat out Spielberg and Hudson for the director’s award….Spielberg still got ripped off…lol.

      You have me beat, as I am still a few Oscar winning movies away from seeing them all…as for It Happened One Night….it’s box office numbers did not represent how big a hit it really was. Columbia Pictures blocked It Happened One Night in with other movies….so theaters had to take 3 or 4 movies if they wanted It Happened One Night….then they took the box office dollars and evenly divided them with the 4 movies in the block….Frank Capra was furious with Columbia for doing that…just to avoid some profit clauses in Capra’s contract….thankfully studios are not the only ones that report box office numbers nowadays.

      Cavalcade is one of the few Best Picture winners I have not seen…bought I would think King Kong and 42nd Street would have deserved some Oscar love that year…thanks for stopping by.

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  5. When I was growing up, my little brother, sister and I were “dropped off” at the movie theater every single weekend where we enjoyed the best of movie-land. So, we are still today, great movie fans. I enjoyed this page so very much. The photos are brilliant!

    Reply

    1. Hey vocalcoach…..I remember those days myself….my grandmother used to take me to the latest Disney movie every single time one of them would open at the theater. She had three favorite movies…and two of them make the list….#25 The Sound of Music and #47 Going My Way…her third favorite was Wizard of Oz…..your comment helped break back those nice memories of her….thank you very much for that.

      Reply

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