The Best Picture Retrospective: The Complete Rankings 2019 Edition

THE BEST PICTURE RETROSPECTIVE: THE COMPLETE RANKINGS

We now have 92 Best Picture Academy Award winners. Parasite becomes the first foreign-language film to win film's highest honor.

With that, I now include it among the rankings to see where it will fall from Number 1 to Number 92. Now, again let us remember the three criteria I used for my personal rankings?

Do I think the film is good?
Do I think this film will or has it stood the test of time?
Would I watch it again?

It is hard to say exactly how Parasite will ultimately end up in the annals of film history. Certainly in being the first foreign-language film to win Best Picture it has earned a place in history, but where it will stand in overall film history is still up to debate. I have done the best I could looking on the three criteria I created.

It should be no surprise that this list will be updated every year, but perhaps in a decade I will reevaluate the entire list. With that, enjoy.

1. Casablanca (1943)
2. All About Eve (1950)
3. Schindler's List (1993)
4. The Godfather Part II (1974)
5. All Quiet on the Western Front (1930)
6. Lawrence of Arabia (1962)
7. Gone With the Wind (1939)
8. It Happened One Night (1934)
9. The Godfather (1972)
10. The Silence of the Lambs (1991)
11. Amadeus (1984)
12. West Side Story (1961)
13. Ben-Hur (1959)
14. Unforgiven (1992)
15. On the Waterfront (1954)
16. The Sound of Music (1965)
17. Hamlet (1948)
18. The Bridge on the River Kwai (1957)
19. Rocky (1976)
20. The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King (2003)
21. Rebecca (1940)
22. The Last Emperor (1987)
23. From Here to Eternity (1953)
24. Wings (1928)
25. Marty (1955)
26. All the King's Men (1949)
27. One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest (1975)
28. Grand Hotel (1932)
29. The French Connection (1971)
30. Chariots of Fire (1981)
31. Parasite (2019)
32. The Best Years of Our Lives (1946)
33. How Green Was My Valley (1941)
34. Platoon (1986)
35. Patton (1970)
36. Mutiny on the Bounty (1935)
37. Mrs. Miniver (1942)
38. The King's Speech (2010)
39. A Man for All Seasons (1966)
40. Terms of Endearment (1983)
41. In the Heat of the Night (1967)
42. Moonlight (2016)
43. The Sting (1973)
44. My Fair Lady (1964)
45. Spotlight (2015)
46. Midnight Cowboy (1969)
47. Chicago (2002)
48. The Apartment (1960)
49. Gladiator (2000)
50. You Can't Take it With You (1938)
51. 12 Years a Slave (2013)
52. Argo (2012)
53. Driving Miss Daisy (1989)
54. Braveheart (1995)
55. The Deer Hunter (1978)
56. The Departed (2006)
57. The Artist (2011)
58. The Lost Weekend (1945)
59. Green Book (2018)
60. Shakespeare in Love (1998)
61. The Life of Emile Zola (1937)
62. Going My Way (1944)
63. Gandhi (1982)
64. Around the World in 80 Days (1956)
65. The Greatest Show on Earth (1952)
66. Dances With Wolves (1990)
67. The Hurt Locker (2009)
68. Annie Hall (1977)
69. Slumdog Millionaire (2008)
70. Rain Man (1988)
71. The Great Ziegfeld (1936)
72. Gigi (1958)
73. An American in Paris (1951)
74. Tom Jones (1963)
75. Titanic (1997)
76. Kramer vs. Kramer (1979)
77. Ordinary People (1980)
78. Forrest Gump (1994)
79. American Beauty (1999)
80. Oliver! (1968)
81. Million Dollar Baby (2004)
82. The Broadway Melody (1929)
83. Cimarron (1931)
84. A Beautiful Mind (2001)
85. The English Patient (1996)
86. Birdman (2014)
87. Gentleman's Agreement (1947)
88. Crash (2005)
89. No Country for Old Men (2007)
90. The Shape of Water (2017)
91. Out of Africa (1985)
92. Cavalcade (1933)

I look forward to seeing where next year's winner will find itself.