Best Oscar Year (4th Decade)

[Heksagon]

Somehow, picking the best year from each decade has so far been a lot easier than I expected. In here, 1964 is the easy choice for me.

[Big Magilla]

You could go crazy trying to see every movie ever nominated for a below-the-line Oscar.

Kisses for My President is a comedy about the first female U.S. president, which nearly 60 years later still hasn't happened in real life. The premise was a good one, the execution dismal. The Oscar nominated costumes were OK at best.

What a Way to Go! was another silly movie about a woman on a psychiatrist's couch recalling her her life as a four-time widow before taking the plunge for a fifth time. Shirley MacLaine dominates the film with Paul Newman, Robert Mitchum, Dean Martin, Gene Kelly, Bob Cummings, and Dick Van Dyke in little more than extended cameos as the men in her life.

The worst nominated film, though, was probably A House Is Not a Home which despite its catchy title song was a pretty dismal affair starring Shelley Winters as a 1920s NYC madam and Robert Taylor as her gangster lover if I remember correctly.

[Sabin]

We're entering an era where I can't really participate anymore. I just haven't seen the films...

1964 is a movie that is so dominated by a handful of films: Becket, Mary Poppins, and My Fair Lady. What was the worst nominated film of that year? There are a handful of films I've just never heard of with names like Kisses for My President and What a Way to Go! I'm not going to vote but it seems like Dr. Strangelove, The Umbrellas of Cherbourg, and The Woman in the Dunes cues this up for 1964.

[gunnar]

There were a lot of very good years to choose from, but it came down to choosing between 1960 and 1964 for me and I went with 1964. There were a lot of great films at the top - Goldfinger, Dr. Strangelove, A Hard Day's Night, Hush... Hush, Sweet Charlotte, The Night of the Iguana, Woman in the Dunes, and others. There were a lot of good second tier films as well.

One caveat for this decade is that I've only seen 70-80% of the nominees in each year. I've seen all of the nominees in the major categories, but still need to see a bunch in the foreign film and documentary feature categories plus some in the technical categories.

[Big Magilla]

The first year of the modern era gave us a strong year in recognizing the likes of The Graduate, Bonnie and Clyde, In the Heat of the Night and In Cold Blood even if they did nominate the ridiculous Dr. Dolittle for Best Picture over the latter.

[OscarGuy]

Based on the totality of nominations, which Oscar year within this decade is best?