Best Picture winners that were undeserving

“Cavalcade” is one of those old-school epics that were once popular in Hollywood. It’s about life in Britain from 1899 through 1933 and focuses on a bunch of people. Despite being an old film, it’s one of the first Best Picture winners and is generally looked upon poorly by more modern film viewers. It beat, among others, the classic musical “42nd Street” and a version of “Little Women” starring Katharine Hepburn.

It’s not just that “How Green Was My Valley” won, although the movie is largely considered decent at best these days. No, it’s also about the films it beat. For example, the iconic film noir “The Maltese Falcon” lost out to this story of Irish miners. Oh, also it beat a little movie called “Citizen Kane,” considered by many to be the greatest film ever made.

If “The Greatest Show on Earth,” a mediocre, epic movie about life in the circus full of stars, had won in the 1930s or '40s, it would have made sense. However, by 1952 the movie industry had changed a bit, and “The Greatest Show on Earth” felt out of place. This win feels like old-time Hollywood trying to cling to its sensibilities. That’s how a movie that stars Jimmy Stewart as a clown wins Best Picture.

The year 1956 was a one for epics. “The Ten Commandments” and “Giant” were both nominated for Best Picture. So was “The King and I,” the classic musical. In the end, the winner was the wacky, comedic, over-the-top adventure film “Around the World in 80 Days.” A similar film now would be considered a solid crowd-pleaser but not an Oscar-winning film. Apparently the voters of 1956 felt differently.

A lot of people feel like 1967 was a pivotal year for Hollywood. “In the Heat of the Night” is a good movie, and Sidney Poitier gives an impressive, memorable performance. However, the Academy could have rewarded success and forward thinking by giving the win to the film that also was the box office champ, “The Graduate.” Or “Bonnie and Clyde” would have been a fine option.

Hollywood went a little musical happy in the ‘60s. “Oliver!” was the fourth musical to win Best Picture in that decade. It’s also the worst of the bunch. Sure, you remember “Please sir, I want some more,” but one line does not a great movie make.

First, congratulations to the ‘70s for not having a single movie undeserving of being a Best Picture winner. There was a nice, almost-20-year stretch there of worthy victors. Then came “Out of Africa.” It barely has over a 50 percent rating on Rotten Tomatoes and is just sort of a big pile of whatever. That’s surprising for a film starring Robert Redford and Meryl Streep.

This was a real out-of-left-field choice — an artsy film about a Chinese emperor and directed by an Italian master in Bernardo Bertolucci. While the film has some nice visuals, it’s long and boring and far from good, let alone worthy of winning film’s top prize. That’s especially true in a year when “Moonstruck” and “Broadcast News” were nominated.

You may have heard a lot about “Driving Miss Daisy” after the most recent Oscars, which we will assuredly get to later. At the time, it was a genial crowd-pleaser, but time hasn’t been kind to the story of an old rich white lady’s unexpected friendship with her black chauffeur. It’s the sort of film that seems both well-meaning and misguided, especially in the same year that “Do the Right Thing” came out but wasn’t even nominated.

The backlash against “Dances With Wolves,” Kevin Costner’s lengthy epic, has probably gone a little far. It’s not a bad movie. It’s actually pretty good, if a half-hour too long. Of course, we don’t like it when a pretty good film wins Best Picture. That’s especially true when “Goodfellas” was nominated as well. Eventually, Scorsese got his Best Picture and Best Director trophies, but it took longer than it should have.

In terms of standing the test of time, “Forrest Gump” has aged like milk left in the sun. It’s not a good movie, rather it's a weird ode to Baby Boomers with a ludicrous premise not told in a great way. Hey, at least Tom Hanks is in it. While a lot of people will say that “Pulp Fiction” should have won, it too has its flaws. That being said, at least that would have been a forward-thinking vote for Quentin Tarantino.

We’re with Elaine Benes. “The English Patient” is a total snooze. While we aren’t sure we want to see “Sack Lunch” either, we definitely didn’t want to see “The English Patient” walk away with Best Picture, especially over “Fargo.”

Campaigning has been a part of the Oscar process for years, but it got really intense in 1998. A lot of people think it’s campaigning that got “Shakespeare in Love,” a total all right film, the win over “Saving Private Ryan” which combined the powers of Tom Hanks and Steven Spielberg. It felt surprising at the time and like a strange upset. Of course, we don’t necessarily want to mention the name of the guy who was the driving force behind the “Shakespeare in Love” campaign. Let’s just say his name rhymes with Larvae Fine Spleen.

Speaking of problematic people associated with Best Picture winners, we can’t skirt the fact that Kevin Spacey starred in “American Beauty.” That being said, we aren’t judging the quality of the movie through that prism. It was always a heavy-handed, facile film about life in suburbia. The revelations about Spacey’s behavior just makes it all that much more unpleasant.

As a director, Ron Howard specializes in pretty good films. He’s a solid, unremarkable but reliable presence. That means his movies have no panache or verve though. This is certainly true of “A Beautiful Mind,” the Russell Crowe film about John Nash, the schizophrenic mathematician. It’s not bad or misguided or anything, but it’s also kind of like the cinematic equivalent of beige.

“A Beautiful Mind” is, in baseball terms, a single. On the other hand “Crash” is like striking out swinging and also hitting yourself in the head with your bat on the third strike. From the second “Crash” won, which was a true surprise, people were stunned. It was considered a bad movie at the time by many critics and film fans. Not mediocre, mind you, but straight-up bad. “Crash” is tone deaf and overwrought. To pull a movie at random, “Hitch” also came out in 2005. It would have been a more worthy Best Picture winner.

At the turn of the decade, the Oscars started to get nostalgic. In 2011, “The Artist” won Best Picture, but we kind of admire the ambition of making a silent movie, and it turned out well. “The King’s Speech” is also good, but it’s a stodgy, vintage film — the kind that were made decades ago. This award could have gone to “The Social Network,” or “Black Swan,” or, heck, even the Coen Brothers remake of “True Grit.” That was an old-school film too, but it was also better at it.

“Spotlight” was an afterthought for basically the entire run of the Oscars telecast. It wasn’t winning awards, while movies like “Mad Max: Fury Road” and “The Revenant.” were. “The Big Short” was also nominated that year as was “The Martian.” We don’t want to sit here and keep naming films that were better than “Spotlight,” though. It was a major surprise when it won, given how it was an afterthought through the entire awards process.

“The Shape of Water” came out only a couple of years ago, and it’s also basically been forgotten. It never made much of an impact, and it definitely didn’t feel like a film primed to win Best Picture. Maybe it as everybody’s second pick, and that was enough for a movie about a lady being in love with a fish man the Oscar. There were so many better films made in 2017, though. Want a touching comedy? There’s “Lady Bird.” A massive war epic? That’s “Dunkirk.” And of course, there was “Get Out.” Sorry fans of fish men getting girlfriends. This was a mistake.

Yes, what we’re saying is that the last two Best Picture winners didn’t deserve it. Call it recency bias, but we feel like our opinion, which also happens to be the general consensus opinion, will stand the test of time. People were rolling their eyes at “Green Book” through the entire awards process. It felt like a ’60s-style movie about overcoming racism — too simple and a little awkward. Some called it an inverse “Driving Miss Daisy,” with the white person is driving the black person around. While the folks behind “Green Book” may have gotten just a smidge more criticism than they deserved, it’s not the movie for this era, making its win feel like the Academy is still stuck in the past.