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…
9. Patton (1970)
Of all the game-changing pictures in this list and this decade, Patton feels like a relic of a bygone era. Franklin Schaffner’s picture is a large, sweeping epic, with a powerhouse turn from George C. Scott as the controversial General. And beyond Scott’s stirring speech in front of the massive American flag, what do we remember? It’s big Hollywood scope and jingoistic bravado feel like a different film from a different decade. Which makes sense, given the fact it was the first Best Picture of the new decade. The revolution hadn’t quite grabbed hold.
