50. “The Sting” (1973)
A slick, thoroughly enjoyable, totally empty period con-caper re-teaming “Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid” stars Paul Newman and Robert Redford as grifters taking on Robert Shaw‘s hoodlum. Breezy and fun, with great chemistry between the stars, but so lightweight you fear a gust of wind might blow it off the screen.
49. “Slumdog Millionaire” (2008)
Danny Boyle‘s unexpected smash has its problems, we’ll acknowledge, mainly in its scripting and the very occasional whiff of poverty porn. But it’s hard to think of a recent Best Picture winner that’s as bright and vibrant as this one, so full of energy and invention. We’d seen crowd-pleasers win Best Picture before, but never one that looked or sounded like “Slumdog Millionaire.”
48. “Ordinary People” (1980)
Robert Redford, proving early how much time the Academy has for actors-turned-directors, won Best Director as well as Best Picture for this unassuming but very well-performed drama detailing the slow disintegration of a family in the wake of the death of a son. Among several notable elements is Timothy Hutton’s performance that should have launched him to much greater heights of stardom than he subsequently achieved.
47. “Gandhi” (1982)
Richard Attenborough‘s ambitious three-hour epic telling of the legendary Indian political figure makes a decent run at chronicling the story of Gandhi’s life, but doesn’t do much beyond that. It’s a rather shallow and personality-free take, afraid to ever take much of a viewpoint on anything. Still, it’s impressive in the broad strokes, and in the occasional effective little scene too.
46. “Argo” (2012)
Facing the inevitable Best Picture backlash even before it won, we still stand beside the grown-up entertainment of Ben Affleck‘s “Argo.” Sure, it tinkers with the truth a bit, and the director isn’t the strongest choice in the lead, but it’s genuinely, knuckle-gnawingly tense, and has a deep bench of supporting players, with fine work from everyone from Bryan Cranston to Scoot McNairy.
45. “The Departed” (2006)
A bit of a comic-book trifle when compared to Martin Scorsese‘s best work, with a couple of whopping misjudgements (god, that final shot…), but when “The Departed” works, it really works. Most notably in William Monahan‘s hilariously profane script, a couple of cracking suspense sequences, and a fantastic, perplexingly undervalued Matt Damon performance at the center.
44. “The Artist” (2011)
While the Michel Hazanavicius film seems on the surface to have been a challenge for the Academy, being in black and white and silent, it’s still a very escapist film with not a huge amount of substance there once you take away the gimmicks of its presentation. Affectionate and perkily performed (Jean Dujardin got the Oscar, but we fell most for Bérénice Bejo), it still doesn’t feel like one for the ages.
43. “Rain Man” (1988)
Two and a half decades later, what really stands out about this solid Barry Levinson film is not the much-parodied Best Actor-winning Dustin Hoffman performance, that became an early byword for goosing a character’s disability or an affliction to an Oscar, but just how good Tom Cruise is, in the less obvious role as the conflicted brother.
42. “Titanic” (1997)
A phenomenon the likes of which hadn’t been seen for decades, “Titanic” understandably attracts a lot of backlash today. But if you can separate yourself from the hype, the fact remains that it works, dammit. Sure, it’s broad-strokes storytelling, but compare it to copycats like “Pearl Harbor” and “Australia” and you can see that James Cameron is someone who actually knows how to do this kind of old-fashioned melodrama and make it click with audiences. And he’s got eleven Oscars and two billion dollars to prove it.
41. “Rocky” (1976)
We’re fans of Sylvester Stallone’s essential boxing flick, but the familiarity of the format which it helped define has gotten to the point now where some of its lustre has faded. The sequels became broader and more, well “Eye of the Tiger”-y, but the original still feels heartfelt: it’s not subtle, but it is energetic, emotive filmmaking.