Just in time for this year’s who-cares Oscars, New York magazine has undertaken the herculean task of ranking all the previous Best Picture winners from 90 to Number 1. The high ranking (11) for Moonlight, a picture that nobody saw and is only remembered today for the screw-up that first gave the nod to La La Land, is ridiculous. And the middle-of-the-pack number (57) for Ridley Scott’s epic, Gladiator, seems way off as well.
Whoops!
The Top Ten (spoiler alert: Casablanca is king) is fairly uncontroversial, featuring Godfather I and II, plus All About Eve and Amadeus. But Lawrence of Arabia, a crashing bore of a picture that gets more interminable than the Sahara with each watching, at number 6? A companion link takes you to an amusing alternative universe in which Saving Private Ryan beats out Shakespeare in Love, which of course it should have.
Enjoy.
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