During Oscar season, it’s always fun (at least for me) to go back and look through history, at Best Picture Oscar winners of year’s gone by. Some of these movies age like fine wine, others curdle and wilt from our collective consciousness over time.
So here’s a little reindeer game for you: ranking the Best Picture Oscar winners in different decades. Let’s start with what is probably the most difficult of all the decades, the 1970s. Difficult because this was the turning point in American cinema. Difficult because all of these films, deserving of the Best Picture statue or not, are truly wonderful and important – at least, in the sense that movies can be important. Here goes nothing…
10. Kramer vs. Kramer (1979)
Not that Robert Benton’s domestic drama wasn’t insightful, emotionally compelling, and wonderfully acted. It’s not a bad film, but the fact that it kicks things off at number 10 speaks more to the decade than this specific movie. Dustin Hoffman and Meryl Streep, who both won Oscars for their respective performances, elevate this divorce story above any sort of TV of the week melodramatic dreck. And watching the evolution of Hoffman’s Ted Kramer as he learns to be a real father is a marvelous arc. And yet, still, it’s the tenth best film from the incredible slate of 70s Best Picture Oscar winners.
