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Rotten Tomatoes fans crown The Lord of the Rings: Return of the King the best of the Best Picture winners


Quintus

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And that's not what this test says about it! It says it's the best of two of the best of two arbitrarily paired of the best of two arbitrarily paired of the best of two arbitrarily paired of the best of two arbitrarily paired of the best of two arbitrarily paired Best Picture winners!

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This is a list voted by fans, common people, so maybe movies like ROTK, Braveheart, Titanic, will have more votes. A list from professional critics would probably include more challenging, thoughtful stuff, such as Parasite, No Country for Old Men, American Beauty, etc.

 

The only movies that would get no love neither from audiences or critics are those Oscar bait movies that take Best Picture somehow, including forgettable stuff like The Shape of Water, Green Book, The King's Speech, Shakeaspeare in Love...

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2 hours ago, John said:

It is probably my favorite best picture winner. But is it objectively the best? Debatable. 

 

Film vs film, I'd say One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest is the best here.

 

Film versus trilogy? Return of the King is deserving. Because we all know its Academy Award haul was in recognition of its achievement as a whole trilogy rather than the final film itself (one that isn't the very best instalment of the three). 

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The fact is, most of the true cinema classics, the movies that actually advanced it as an art form, aren't Best Picture Winners. No Kubrick movies, no Leone, no Hitchcock, only one single Scorsese (and not one of his best)... And yeah, since this is JWFan, no Star Wars or any of Spielberg's early classics (Jaws, CETK, E.T., Raiders).

 

Of course, there's stuff like One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest, Lawrence of Arabia, No Country for Old Men, The Godfather, The Silence of the Lambs, etc., but I guess you'll find more relevant movies that didn't win or even got nominated than amongst the winners. 

 

Heck, MY favorite movie of all time, The Fellowship of the Ring (which I love more than Towers and Return) haven't won on his year, loosing to A Beautiful Mind (which I actually like, tbh, but anyway).

 

Here's a great Wisecrack video essay shitting on the Oscars, and explaining why it is a shitty, flawed award:

 

 

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Of all Best Picture nominees, my favorite....hmm....

 

Either Amadeus or The Godfather Part II I'd say.

 

The LOTR movies are a relic of my youth that I don't watch or think much about anymore.  ROTK is a very clumsy piece of work that gets by on sheer heft and the emotional power of its best scenes.

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32 minutes ago, Disco Stu said:

gets by on sheer heft and the emotional power of its best scenes.

 

which is exactly the point of cinema.

 

I measure films strictly by how it makes me feel, how much and how often during their runtime. By that measure, The Return of the King is my choice for the Best Best Picture.

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7 minutes ago, Richard Penna said:

RotK is a rare case of a genuinely popular popcorn fantasy winning

 

The 90s to early 2000s really were a golden age where movies that people actually got to see won for Best Picture. Even The Silence of the Lambs, while I do consider it more a thriller/drama than a horror movie, is far from a conventional choice for Best Picture. So were Braveheart, Titanic, Gladiator and The Lord of the Rings. Even Unforgiven is an unusual choice, given what few Westerns won the award.

 

It also happened in the 50s to early 60s: Ben Hur, Bridge over the River Kwai and Lawrence of Arabia were very much the blockbusters of their time.

 

I think that's great.

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23 minutes ago, Chen G. said:

I measure films strictly by how it makes me feel, how much and how often during their runtime.

In my opinion, judging films solely on this basis is as incomplete as judging them only on abstract technical considerations.  

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21 minutes ago, Chen G. said:

The 90s to early 2000s really were a golden age where movies that people actually got to see won for Best Picture. Even The Silence of the Lambs, while I do consider it more a thriller/drama than a horror movie, is far from a conventional choice for Best Picture. So were Braveheart, Titanic, Gladiator and The Lord of the Rings. Even Unforgiven is an unusual choice, given what few Westerns won the award.

 

 

Also Dances with Wolves, which was one of the biggest movies at the worldwide box office on 1990/91.

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Is it the greatest film ever made? No. But it probably remains my favourite, even if at a more emotional level. It's a film that's played a fundamental role in my formative years and has come to define my love and music in the years to follow in a way that only the very best of films can. So this seems like as fair a choice as any for this absurd title.

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23 minutes ago, Edmilson said:

 

Sure, but no Vertigo, Psycho, North by Northwest... My original point still stands. ;)

 

Those are all ace, but they were too ahead of their time.

 

I'm surprised no-one's mentioned Out of Africa. And The Sound of Music!

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The top 25 Best Picture Winners according to accumulated critical cache is 

 

1. Godfather, The - Coppola, Francis Ford - 1972
2. Godfather Part II, The - Coppola, Francis Ford - 1974
3. Lawrence of Arabia - Lean, David - 1962
4. Casablanca - Curtiz, Michael - 1942
5. Apartment, The - Wilder, Billy - 1960
6. Annie Hall - Allen, Woody - 1977
7. Gone with the Wind - Fleming, Victor - 1939
8. One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest - Forman, Milos - 1975
9. All About Eve - Mankiewicz, Joseph L. - 1950
10. On the Waterfront - Kazan, Elia - 1954
11. Deer Hunter, The - Cimino, Michael - 1978
12. Unforgiven [1992] - Eastwood, Clint - 1992
13. Best Years of Our Lives, The - Wyler, William - 1946
14. Schindler's List - Spielberg, Steven - 1993
15. Midnight Cowboy - Schlesinger, John - 1969
16. It Happened One Night - Capra, Frank - 1934
17. West Side Story - Wise, Robert/Jerome Robbins - 1961
18. Amadeus - Forman, Milos - 1984
19. Silence of the Lambs, The - Demme, Jonathan - 1991
20. Bridge on the River Kwai, The - Lean, David - 1957
21. Sound of Music, The - Wise, Robert - 1965
22. No Country for Old Men - Coen, Joel & Ethan Coen - 2007
23. Forrest Gump - Zemeckis, Robert - 1994
24. Rocky - Avildsen, John G. - 1976
25. French Connection, The - Friedkin, William - 1971
 

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19 minutes ago, Jurassic Shark said:

Those are all ace, but they were too ahead of their time.

 

 

And that's the main problem within the whole concept of the Oscars. Some movies are just too ahead of their time that people need time to process it. So, it's like in 1989 the Academy thought Driving Miss Daisy was the superior film over Spike Lee's Do The Right Thing, but time proved them wrong.

 

5 minutes ago, TheUlyssesian said:


The top 25 Best Picture Winners according to accumulated critical cache is 

 

1. Godfather, The - Coppola, Francis Ford - 1972
2. Godfather Part II, The - Coppola, Francis Ford - 1974
3. Lawrence of Arabia - Lean, David - 1962
4. Casablanca - Curtiz, Michael - 1942
5. Apartment, The - Wilder, Billy - 1960


6. It's a Wonderful Life - Capra, Frank - 1946
7. Annie Hall - Allen, Woody - 1977
8. Gone with the Wind - Fleming, Victor - 1939
9. One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest - Forman, Milos - 1975
10. All About Eve - Mankiewicz, Joseph L. - 1950


11. On the Waterfront - Kazan, Elia - 1954
12. Deer Hunter, The - Cimino, Michael - 1978
13. Unforgiven [1992] - Eastwood, Clint - 1992
14. Best Years of Our Lives, The - Wyler, William - 1946
15. Schindler's List - Spielberg, Steven - 1993


16. Midnight Cowboy - Schlesinger, John - 1969
17. It Happened One Night - Capra, Frank - 1934
18. West Side Story - Wise, Robert/Jerome Robbins - 1961
19. Amadeus - Forman, Milos - 1984
20. Silence of the Lambs, The - Demme, Jonathan - 1991


21. Bridge on the River Kwai, The - Lean, David - 1957
22. Sound of Music, The - Wise, Robert - 1965
23. No Country for Old Men - Coen, Joel & Ethan Coen - 2007
24. Forrest Gump - Zemeckis, Robert - 1994
25. Rocky - Avildsen, John G. - 1976

 

No ROTK, no credibility. :angry:

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4 minutes ago, Edmilson said:

And that's the main problem within the whole concept of the Oscars. Some movies are just too ahead of their time that people need time to process it. So, it's like in 1989 the Academy thought Driving Miss Daisy was the superior film over Spike Lee's Do The Right Thing, but time proved them wrong.

 

Haven't seen those two.

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20 minutes ago, Jurassic Shark said:

 

Those are all ace, but they were too ahead of their time.

 

I'm surprised no-one's mentioned Out of Africa.

 

Get out with your chick flicks 

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1 hour ago, gkgyver said:

 

But it is. 

 

No, it isn't. With the LOTR films, I have this weird sensation that I want to laud the films for the excellence that they do have. But I also want to punch the fanboys in the face.

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It's too scholarly a view but it should be mandatory for voters to watch movies pre-1970, and really watch them. That something like ROTK or Braveheart figures so high, i mean, well....

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6 minutes ago, publicist said:

It's too scholarly a view but it should be mandatory for voters to watch movies pre-1970

 

The younger ones will find them very problematic in their depicions of race, gender, sex, etc. They label everything made before the invention of social media problematic.

 

"But The French Connection is a powerful cinema classic!"

 

"Yeah, but why there isn't a single strong female character on the movie? Why not make Popeye Doyle a woman? And why there isn't a single homossexual couple on this thing?".

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53 minutes ago, Glóin the Dark said:

I'm surprised no-one's mentioned Driving Miss Daisy.

 

I get you're joking, but I do enjoy that movie.  Winning Best Picture was the worst thing that could've happened to it.  It meant that it had to become some kind of cultural emblem.  When in reality it's just a very well-observed, nice little character study with endearing performances, and very true to the time period.  I have a lot of family in Georgia and my mom grew up in that time period, it's very true to what it was like.

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Also, they're not realistic enough, and a lot of them b/w. Truth to be told, i'm still amazed when i occasionally see old Michael Curtiz or (insert name) movies how much modern pics rely on them in terms of how to move a camera or taking a shortcut to get from A to D or what have you. There was a lot of crap then, too, but even in silent films you find things some people probably thik were invented 10 years ago.

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1 hour ago, publicist said:

It's too scholarly a view but it should be mandatory for voters to watch movies pre-1970, and really watch them. That something like ROTK or Braveheart figures so high, i mean, well....

 

Could be because technology and experience developed so much over the decades that the newer films are simply better because they're more interesting and built upon the previous generation. It's called evolution. 

You wouldn't require someone today to test drive a car from the 70s.

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