Best Oscar Year (7th Decade)

[Heksagon]

1993 is an easy choice here, the easiest choice since the 1st decade.

[Mister Tee]

I could make much the argument against 1997's Oscar slate that you do against 1993's. For openers, The Ice Storm is my very favorite of the year, and it's shocking it was omitted everywhere, even by the screenwriters (the closest it came to a nomination was apparently Sigourney Weaver, which I actually think is among the film's least distinctive elements). I'd also want Boogie Nights/Wings of the Dove/Donnie Brasco over anything on the best picture slate beyond LA Confidential.

So, even though I'd prefer The Age of Innocence and In the Line of Fire over, say, The Piano and The Fugitive, I acknowledge the latter are at least solid movies, and my favorites -- plus others like Fearless, Short Cuts, and Six Degrees of Separation -- still make Wes' cut by virtue of their top-line nominations. And the year was just so bountiful that even an imperfect slate assembled from it is pretty amazing.

[Big Magilla]

Afterglow wasn't much of a film to start with, but it did put Julie Christie in the spotlight for the first tie since 1978's Heaven Can Wait.

[mlrg]

I saw Afterglow ten years ago and it already felt dated at the time.

[Sabin]

Big Magilla wrote
Sabin, I know Boogie Nights wasn't nominated for Best Picture. It was, however, nominated for Supporting Actor, Supporting Actress, and Original Screenplay, and although I didn't agree with all of 1997's nominations, I didn't find any objectionable ones in the top 8 categories. There are only two films that I was disappointed in not seeing among the nominees at all - The Ice Storm and Margaret's Museum.

Got it.
Well, personally as I've said, I have a lot of fondness for the 1997 lineup. I find it to have a remarkable variety to what kinds of films were nominated. With the exception of L.A. Confidential, they were all different kinds of box office hits. But as I search the total nominations for the worst film, you're right. I really am struggling. Maybe Afterglow, which I saw recently and is so horribly dated (although Christie is quite good)? Maybe Con Air (although it's kind of fun)? There's a host of films nominated that haven't stood the test of time but I just can't bring myself to come down hard on As Good As It Gets or anything else in that league. I'm still going with 1993 but you make a good case.

Big Magilla wrote
1993 had no really objectionable nominees in the top eight categories but there were several I found underwhelming and not nearly as good as some of the films that were left out of the nominations. It was a disappointing year for me at the time, whereas 1997 insofar as what it had to work with, wasn't. 1994 was OK even though the Best Actress category was the weakest it had been since 1975.

I was only talking about 1994 as a Best Picture lineup. 1994 had just an excellent Best Supporting Actor lineup, which to be fair continued a three year trend.

[Big Magilla]

Sabin, I know Boogie Nights wasn't nominated for Best Picture. It was, however, nominated for Supporting Actor, Supporting Actress, and Original Screenplay, and although I didn't agree with all of 1997's nominations, I didn't find any objectionable ones in the top 8 categories. There are only two films that I was disappointed in not seeing among the nominees at all - The Ice Storm and Margaret's Museum.

1993 had no really objectionable nominees in the top eight categories but there were several I found underwhelming and not nearly as good as some of the films that were left out of the nominations. It was a disappointing year for me at the time, whereas 1997 insofar as what it had to work with, wasn't. 1994 was OK even though the Best Actress category was the weakest it had been since 1975.

[Sabin]

I took Daniel's meaning as well. That being said:

Big Magilla wrote
For best picture, Schindler's List, The Piano, and The Remains of the Day were certainly deserving and In the Name of the Father was a good choice, but not better than What's Eating Gilbert Grape? and The Wedding Banquet. The Fugitive was a perfectly good popcorn movie, but there were so many better choices including The Joy Luck Club, Philadelphia, Shadowlands , Farewell, My Concubine, Three Colors: Blue, and Fearless.

What you're saying is:
- Three of them were deserving.
- One was a good choice but not perfect.
- The last one was good but there were so many better choices.

That means three of the Best Picture nominees were in your top five, one of them was presumably in your top ten, and maybe one of them was at the bottom of your top ten or hovering around your top twenty. Between 1995 (when I started watching movies) until 2008 (when the expanded roster hit), I can't say that about a single lineup. Remarkable stuff.

But if we are going by your metrics of choosing the best of all possible nominations, then I'd be forced to say that I might choose 1994. I happen to think it's one of the most underrated lineups of Best Picture nominees. I love all five nominated films and I would agree that there were better choices in 1993 than The Fugitive. Swap Short Cuts in and it's probably unimpeachable. I probably need to see The Age of Innocence again.

Big Magilla wrote
I wouldn't say the nominations were better in 1997 than they were in other years, but they were the most interesting even if the outcome was as predictable as it was. Titanic, L.A. Confidential, As Good as It Gets, Good Will Hunting, and Boogie Nights all seemed to have a chance at winning something and most of them did.

You seem to have forgotten that Boogie Nights wasn't nominated. The Full Monty was. That being said, I wish you were correct.

[dws1982]

It seems to me that you guys are looking at this is a completely different way than I am.

Obviously 1993 was a good year for movies, but was it the best year of the decade as far as recognizing the best that it could in the nominations? I don't think so.

OG's original post says "based on the totality of the nominations", so I'm personally not looking at anything beyond the actual lists, even if there were some great (and better) movies and performances that were left off. 1993's list of nominated movies, in my mind, is the best, and it is a pretty solid representation of the year as a whole in that a lot of those movies are still pretty widely seen and widely available to see.

[Big Magilla]

It seems to me that you guys are looking at this is a completely different way than I am.

Obviously 1993 was a good year for movies, but was it the best year of the decade as far as recognizing the best that it could in the nominations? I don't think so.

For best picture, Schindler's List, The Piano, and The Remains of the Day were certainly deserving and In the Name of the Father was a good choice, but not better than What's Eating Gilbert Grape? and The Wedding Banquet. The Fugitive was a perfectly good popcorn movie, but there were so many better choices including The Joy Luck Club, Philadelphia, Shadowlands , Farewell, My Concubine, Three Colors: Blue, and Fearless.

Then there were the acting nominations. Supporting actress was so weak that they wound up double-nominating two of the best actress contenders in lieu of such perfectly fine choices as Darlene Cates in What's Eating Gilbert Grape/, Tsai Chin among others in The Joy Luck Club, and Madeleine Stowe among others in Short Cuts, while also ignoring Jeff Bridges in both American Heart and Fearless, Juliette Binoche in Blue, and Michelle Pfeiffer in The Age of Innocence.

[Mister Tee]

There are very solid years in this bunch -- 1991, 1995, 1997 -- but 1993 was such a good year that even year-end critics, who seemed to have "best of a lackluster year" permanently set in type, stepped back and said, damn, that was some vintage. I may have personal preferences that weren't ratified by Academy voters, but look at that best picture roster -- then, delete them all, and imagine a slate of The Age of Innocence, In the Line of Fire, Much Ado About Nothing, Philadelphia and Short Cuts. How many Oscar slates of the era are that good? (Don't even try me with 1990.) And then there are films that didn't even rate a nomination -- This Boy's Life, Groundhog Day, The Secret Garden -- that I'd gladly revisit. 1993 was just one of those special years, and is my easy choice.

[Sabin]

dws1982 wrote
Gotta go with 1993. It's as solid a Best Picture lineup as I've seen n my lifetime, and a lot of the other movies are really good as well. Sure, movies like Philadelphia have aged poorly, but if you want to give someone an idea of 1993 as a film year, pointing them to the list of Oscar nominees is a great way to start in a way that it isn't for a lot of years.

Philadelphia has aged poorly but in retrospect it probably should have been nominated. It ended up winning more Academy Awards than three Best Picture nominees, it was about very important, and it was a big hit from a recent Oscar winning director.

[dws1982]

Gotta go with 1993. It's as solid a Best Picture lineup as I've seen n my lifetime, and a lot of the other movies are really good as well. Sure, movies like Philadelphia have aged poorly, but if you want to give someone an idea of 1993 as a film year, pointing them to the list of Oscar nominees is a great way to start in a way that it isn't for a lot of years.

Probably would've gone with 1997 at one point, but as time goes on, As Good As It Gets gets harder and harder to watch; it's on some streaming service or another all the time, and every time I watch it, my opinion of it goes down. Aside from the way it handles the Greg Kinnear character and especially Nicholson's interactions with him that would not fly today, it's just a lazily-written, directed, and--for the most part--acted film. The two performances that hold up are Shirley Knight and Helen Hunt, who is not my winner, but who people were way too mean about in real time. And I don't know if it's more revealing about me or the movie, but when I rewatched Good Will Hunting a year or two back, Stellan Skarsgaard's professor was the character I identified most strongly with, and I think the movie really sells him short. I know it's not his story, but Skarsgaard really finds something that the screenplay doesn't offer. But I still love Titanic, think LA Confidential and The Full Monty are very good entertainments, and think a lot of the down-ballot films are really good--The Wings of the Dove, Wag the Dog, Jackie Brown, Kundun.

[mlrg]

1993 also stands out for me.

Also, the Oscar ceremony itself is my favorite ever. There is a high level of intimacy within the audience at the Dorothy Chandler pavilion and the winners seemed to please everyone.

[Reza]

But 1993... I wasn't there for it but as I look down these nominees, what was the worst film nominated? Cliffhanger? Beethoven's 2nd? This year is insane. Almost everything nominated is at least very good. There's a bedrock of quality that I don't think any year in competition can compete. The acting categories are equally outstanding.

1993.

I wouldn't call Cliffhanger one of the worst films nominated. It's an excellent thriller and provides the requisite suspense and Lithgow is hilariously over-the-top as the villain. Maybe Beethoven's 2nd holds that title? Wouldn't know as I haven't seen it.

But the rest of the 1993 ouput is truly amazing. An easy vote for me.

[Sabin]

I hold 1997 close to my heart for its Best Picture lineup. I may not love all the films but it's such a balanced film. The zeitgeist blockbuster! The excellent studio dud! The human comedy! The underdog coming of age film! The foreign sleeper! With Boogie Nights, Donnie Brasco, Jackie Brown, The Sweet Hereafter, Wag the Dog, as well as a reasonably high floor for quality, 1997 was really a rather vintage year.

But 1993... I wasn't there for it but as I look down these nominees, what was the worst film nominated? Cliffhanger? Beethoven's 2nd? This year is insane. Almost everything nominated is at least very good. There's a bedrock of quality that I don't think any year in competition can compete. The acting categories are equally outstanding.

1993.