30. Braveheart – 1995
It’s completely ridiculous and about as historically accurate as that Martin Lawrence movie where he went back in time to become a knight, but who really cares? It’s really fun and is everything a rousing epic is supposed to be. Just don’t take it too seriously and you’re golden. Sure, you would expect an Oscar winner to aspire to a little more than that, but have you even seen some of the turds on this list? Braveheart is doing okay.
29. Slumdog Millionaire – 2008
It’s a really, really good movie that caught fire at the perfect time and ran wild on Oscar night. It’s maybe slightly overrated as a result, but you can’t deny that the story is engaging – if maybe a teensy bit ridiculous. That’s all okay, maybe better than okay even, but we’re looking for the best of the best here, and Slumdog Millionaire falls just a hair short.
28. The Hurt Locker – 2009
This will always be known as the movie that jacked the Oscar from Avatar, which is a shame because it’s a better movie than alien Dances with Wolves. Still, while it’s a very good war movie, it isn’t quite great. Jeremy Renner is awesome, though, and this is Kathryn Bigelow’s second best movie (Point Break forever.)
27. Gandhi – 1982
It’s really hard to distinguish historical bios from the rest of the pack. That’s because they all more or less follow the same formula. But Gandhi is one of the best, thanks largely to Ben Kingsley owning it in the lead role. It’s a perfectly respectable Oscar winner. No more, no less.
26. Gladiator – 2000
Like Braveheart, it’s kind of ridiculous, but in a really good way. It’s just a lot of fun, and while it seems more like a blockbuster type than an awards winner – the Maximus/Commodus showdowns are straight out of WWE, Stone Cold Steve Austin vs. Vince McMahon style – it’s got just enough artistic depth to make you at least want to take it seriously. It’s a weird hybrid of classy and trashy, but what the hell, it works.
25. Argo – 2012
It’s kind of hard to historically judge movies that are still relatively new. We don’t know how they’re going to age, but Argo seems sort of like one of those movies that will always be regarded as a good, solid flick. It’s really, really entertaining and engaging, which, honestly, should be the goal of any good movie. There’s not quite enough there to make it truly great, but then again, very few movies are.
24. 12 Years a Slave – 2013
Some people wildly overrate this because of what it’s about. And some people wildly underrate this because of what it’s about. The truth is that it’s a really good movie that is hard to accurately judge because it’s impossible to disentangle it from the snarled racial politics that loom over everything in our culture. That’s probably not fair, but the movie doesn’t exactly hide from that either. In the end, it’s a good movie. And it’s an important movie. I’m just not sure if it’s a great movie.
23. Kramer vs. Kramer – 1979
Divorce isn’t really a big deal anymore, but there is still a lot here that resonates today, especially given the apocalypse over gender roles that has taken over the internet. But what really makes this work is that it’s Dustin Hoffman and Meryl Streep going at it while at the top of their games. This could have been a movie about a farting contest and with ’79 Hoffman and ’79 Streep it still probably would have won the Oscar.
22. My Fair Lady – 1964
This is just old school movie goodness, and if you don’t have at least a little bit of a crush on Audrey Hepburn, you can go to hell. Is it kind of corny? Yeah, a little, but it’s a legend for a reason. When it’s really kicking, it’s magic.
21. American Beauty – 1999
There is something about this that just screams “1999!” It hasn’t exactly aged spectacularly well – the floating bag stuff is especially funny in an internet meme kind of way – but Kevin Spacey just kills it so hard that it doesn’t really matter. It helped define an era, those late Clinton, pre-9/11 years when everyone was just sort of comfortably bored and nothing really meant anything, and that’s a really, really hard trick for any movie to pull off. And in that respect, I suppose it’s actually aged perfectly.