Any semi-serious critic will likely tell you that the Academy Awards – for however fun they are to follow, and for however much importance we place on them – are most certainly no serious gauge for measuring the actual best films of the year. Ask any critic – or even a casual fan – what they felt the best film of any given year was, and they will very, very rarely list a film that won the Academy Award for Best Picture, or even a nominee.
There are exceptions, of course (Casablanca leaps to mind), and great films are frequently nominated for Best Picture, but for the most part, The Academy likely does not do their critical due diligence and they do not bother compiling, delving, analyzing, debating, or really seeking out the true best films of the year. In order to be a true authority on the matter, one would have to see every film released in 2014. And I don’t think anyone bothered to see the many hundreds of films eligible.
Check Out: 9 Best Pictures Winners That Time Forgot
Most nominees (generally speaking) tend to be a very particular kind of drama released at a very particular time of the year. This is how dull biopics like The Imitation Game, The Theory of Everything, and American Sniper are in contention for Best Picture of the Year.
So what was the best film of 2014? We here at CraveOnline selected a few: William Bibbiani felt that the Best Picture nominee Whiplash was the best of the year, although no one thinks it will actually win, including Bibbiani. Fred Topel agreed with William, although his top-of-the-year list contains a few weird surprises. Brian Formo felt that Under the Skin was the best of the year. I myself selected Alejandro Jodorowsky’s ambitious art film The Dance of Reality as the best of the year, and it has had no awards buzz whatsoever, and even went unseen by a lot of my professional colleagues.
Let us take this time to look back over a few recent years and consider the films that won Best Picture, and compare them to the films that were actually (according to critics) the best pictures of that year.
Slideshow: Films Better Than Best Picture Winners
Witney Seibold is a contributor to the CraveOnline Film Channel, and co-host of The B-Movies Podcast. You can follow him on “Twitter” at @WitneySeibold, where he is slowly losing his mind.
6 Best Picture Winners That Weren't The 'Best Picture' At All
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2013: 12 Years a Slave
Better Pictures: Before Midnight, Upstream Color, Blue is the Warmest Color, Her, The Spectacular Now, The Wolf of Wall Street
Steve McQueen's artistically composed meditation on the horrors of American slavery, based on the true story of a free black man who was kidnapped and enslaved, felt less like a commentary or a tale with a message, and more like a mere litany of horror and suffering. Despite all the screaming and bleeding, many took away the straightforward message that slavery was a pretty terrible institution, a message that we all (presumably) knew going in. The romances of Before Midnight, Blue is the Warmest Color, Her, and The Spectacular Now all delved much deeper into the human soul. Shane Carruth's Upstream Color is a unique explosion of love and memory and trauma, and it is striking in a way movies hadn't been before. And who could resist the energetic comic/horrific debauchery of Martin Scorsese's The Wolf of Wall Street?
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2012: Argo
Better Pictures: The Master, Moonrise Kingdom, Amour, Lincoln, The Turin Horse, To the Wonder, Cosmopolis
Ben Affleck's Argo was a fine film about a hostage crisis that was solved, essentially, by filmmakers. This was a fun movie for the Academy's filmmakers to fancy, but awarding Argo meant ignoring some of the more moving and artistically daring films of the year. P.T. Anderson's The Master is an oblique and confusing look at the rise of the celebrity-founded self-cults of the 1950s, and it plays like living inside someone else's mind. Michael Haneke's Amour is emotionally destructive and great. Steven Spielberg's Lincoln is skilled an amazing and has much more to say than usual pro-American platitudes. To the Wonder is Terrence Malick once again opening his heart onto a screen, dreamily pondering faith and love. The Turin Horse was an apocalyptic view of a world of mud. And Moonrise Kingdom, well, was just sweet.
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2011: The Artist
Better Pictures: Weekend, Hugo, A Separation, Melancholia, The Tree of Life, Uncle Boonmee Who Can Recall His Past Lives, Into the Abyss, Rango, Midnight in Paris, Certified Copy, Higher Ground, etc. etc. etc.
2011 was a baffling year, as The Artist somehow pulled ahead of dozens of great movies to be declared the best film. The Artist is sweet enough, but best of the year? Hardly. Indeed, it was one of those Best Picture winners that quickly vanished into obscurity, never to be referred to again. If you want a better movie, you have many, many other films to start with.
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2010: The King's Speech
Better Pictures: The Social Network, Black Swan, Toy Story 3, Winter's Bone, Inception, The Ghost Writer, 127 Hours, Exit Through the Gift Shop, etc.
This was the year after The Academy elected to expand the number of Best Picture nominees from 5 to 10. And the list of nominees included some really great – and daring – selections including many of the ones listed above. The expanded number of nominees had people assuming that something interesting may end up winning. The Academy selected The King's Speech, a forgettable and usual drama as the best movie. What was the point of expanding if they're just going to pick the same kind of dull biopic?
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2008: Slumdog Millionaire
Better Pictures: Che, Happy-Go-Lucky, The Wrestler, Snow Angels, Let the Right One In, Frozen River, The Dark Knight/Iron Man, Milk, Rachel Getting Married, My Winnipeg
I honestly don't understand the world's affection for Danny Boyle's Slumdog Millionaire, a fun and sweet film, yes, but not nearly as exciting as any legitimate Bollywood movies, and certainly not better than any of the films listed above, including some of the superhero blockbusters that his theaters that year. The Wrestler reduced me to tears, Snow Angels will punch you right in the heart, and Happy-Go-Lucky is a meditation on what it is to be truly happy in a world of misanthropes. Comparatively, Danny Boyle's film is bland stuff.
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2005: Crash
Better Pictures: Munich, Brokeback Mountain, Me and You and Everyone We Know, Millions, The New World, Caché
The controversy over Paul Haggis' Crash will not be repeated here, except to repeat the obvious: It wasn't, by any stretch, the best film of its year, or any year for that matter. 2005 was actually a pretty good year for film, and it was surprising to see so many greats go unrecognized by both audiences and The Academy. All of the films listed above are highly recommended. Except for Crash. You can actually skip that one altogether.
