Ranking the Best Pictures, Part Two: 56-29

by Chris Marshall:

I realized a little too late yesterday that these articles are going to be super long, so I’m just going to jump right into the rankings. Tier two movies commence!

In case you missed it, here's part one, which ranks the winners from 84 to 57.

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The Oscar Project #44: The French Connection (1971)

by Chris Marshall:

I have an interesting relationship with The French Connection in that I’ve never seen it before, but I’ve written about it. More specifically, I’ve written about Pauline Kael’s review of it in The New Yorker. Kael strongly disliked the movie, claiming that it was “what we once feared mass entertainment might become: jolts for jocks.”

My opinion wasn’t as harsh, but she was right about at least one thing: it was one of a few films that came out around this time that had a common theme. This, Dirty Harry, and Walking Tall were all made in the early 1970s, and all concerned law enforcement officials that had to go against the wishes of higher-ups to catch the villains.

You can make up your own mind about why there were so many films of this variety coming out at the time, but some common explanations were that they were reactions against the Nixon administration, or the war in Vietnam, or in some cases, a reaction against the reactions against the two aforementioned topics. Kael also described Dirty Harry as “fascist,” and Walking Tall doesn’t exactly contain the most liberal themes in the world.

The Oscar Project Interlude #4: Best of the 1960s

by Chris Marshall:

Here we are, on the brink of the 1970s. I couldn’t be more excited. The musical-heavy 1960s weren’t as bad as I expected, but I’m still glad they’re over, if only so I can get into what promises to be the best decade of Oscar winners from top to bottom. There are individual winners in other decades that may match up, but no time period matches the overall quality of the 1970s.

The 60s were somewhat uneven, but in addition to the musicals, which I’ve talked about ad nauseum, there was also a glut of British-made films: Lawrence of Arabia, Tom Jones, and A Man for All Seasons. Between 1961 and 1968, In the Heat of the Night was the only American-made non-musical Best Picture winner. As opposed to the 1970s, which contains 10 American-made non-musical winners.