Best Picture

[Greg]

I, too, really liked The Sting.

Also, to make at least some here gag, some probably not-particularly-loved-at-this-site Oscar winners that I love are
Amadeus, Out Of Africa, Rain Man, Titanic and The English Patient.

[Sabin]

I like 'The Sting'. It's better than 'The Exorcist'.

...oh shit. Is that the sound of nobody caring? Sorry.

[Okri]

I learned my lesson, Mister Tee. I will never assume there will be a director/picture split (particularly if the best picture prediction has no director nominee).

[Eric]

Much as it pains me to say it, the IMDB Top 250 is probably about as accurate a portrait of what films will likely "endure" in the future as anything -- at any rate, the ones that are above ground now. The 2006 films that are on that list (in order) are:

Pan's Labyrinth
The Departed
V for Vendetta
Children of Men
The Prestige
The Lives of Others
Little Miss Sunshine
United 93

While The Prestige and perhaps V for Vendetta can be written off the list over the IMDB's history of attracting fanboy cults around certain films (Lord of the Rings), I can imagine the rest of those emerging as the "enduring" films of 2006, for better and worse.

[Hustler]

Once again, wrong decision. Letters is far superior.

[Mike Kelly]

Agree with you Magilla. I've seen and have been moved my many so-called works of art, but can't tell you how many times I've watched Out of the Past, Kiss Me Deadly and Laura. Certainly once a year for each. Scorsese has said The Departed was his 'B' movie, and like so many of that kind, it is eminently viewable. I've no doubt I'll rewatch it more than 90% of the other Best Picture titles I have in my collection. Its Oscar is OK with me.

[OscarGuy]

Badly, IMO. It wasn't that great. It's worse than The Departed, but there have been so many better movies to win and so many worse that it can't help but go down in forgotten memory. Think about Life of Emile Zola, Mutiny on the Bounty, The Sting? These are films that most people dismiss and forget even won at times. They seem so slight and unimportant in the large morass that is film history that The Departed appropriately fits with them.

It's not a memorable selection and certainly won't be remembered with the same love that say Schindler's List, Silence of the Lambs, Casablanca, Lawrence of Arabia or with the some hatred as films like Braveheart, Crash, Greatest Show on Earth and Around the World in 80 Days... We'll all remember it won, but not many people will in the future. If it had beaten out any major motion picture, it might get that remembrance, but that Best Picture slate was thoroughly forgettable, so it really has no frame of reference. People will remember the Dreamgirls snub more than they will The Departed victory.

[taki15]

I agree with you Big Magilla. If we say that the ''Departed'' will be forgotten because it hasn't something ''important'' to say or because it doesn't push any artistic envelope, we fall into the same trap with the Academy.

That's the same line that was used some years ago when films by Hitchcock, Howard Hawks and Steven Spielberg were ignored and the prizes went to overblown, self-important bores like ''The Greatest Show on Earth'', ''Chariots of Fire'' and ''Gandhi''.

After all, how badly has aged another cop movie that won the Oscar(''The French Connection'')?

[Big Magilla]

I disagree. Although I have admired something in many of Scorsese films, The Departed is the first one I thoroughly enjoyed. It's an old fashioned movie movie, one that doesn't knock itself out trying to be significant in any way. It's just the work of a director having fun. I think it will be looked at in future years with the same affection we look at Casblanca today, a popular choice in its day but not even remotely considered a work of art until decades later.

Pan's Labyrinth, Children of Men and Letters From Iwo Jima will doubtlessly retain their critical reputations but may never be as fully embraced by the public as The Departed is today. Dreamgirls will fade. Four years ago Chicago was annointed as the harbinger of great things to come for movie musicals. Today the consensus is shifting to "how could that have won?" and Chicago is a far more interesting piece of work than Dreamgirls.

[FilmFan720]

I agree...in years we will be talking about Marie Antoinette, Dreamgirls, Pan's Labyrinth and Children of Men (I haven't seen Letters from Iwo Jima, but from what I've heard it will also be remembered). But I don't think we will scoff at their choice (though we will question why those films weren't up for the top awards). I think The Departed will be a well-remembered, if unremarkable, choice which finally gave the Oscar to a much-loved filmmaker.

[OscarGuy]

...it'll be like Kubrick's Barry Lyndon.

Which many auteurists consider one of his two or three greatest works.

Not me. I consider it lesser Kubrick. Too much like his early studio work.

[dws1982]

...it'll be like Kubrick's Barry Lyndon.

Which many auteurists consider one of his two or three greatest works.

[OscarGuy]

Marie Antoinette, and The Lives of Others.

Those two are wishful thinking. Lives will forever be known as the film that robbed Labyrinth of an Oscar for Foreign Language Film and outside a few people on this site, not many liked Marie Antoinette...it'll be like Kubrick's Barry Lyndon.

[OscarGuy]

I think Melissa Etheridge was the makeup for last year...after all, awarding a gay artist is just compensation...blech.

I'm glad I'm not the only one who didn't care much for Sideways. I loved Aviator and MDB was good, but for the life of me I didn't like Sideways.

Departed wasn't in my top 10, the only one of them that I saw that was was The Queen, though its loss didn't surprise me one bit.

[Penelope]

Personally, it doesn't make up for last year's atrocity--but at least they didn't twist the knife again by selecting Babel. (I have to admit I was actually rooting for Little Miss Sunshine, just to see the explosion here...ah, well.)

The Departed will settle comfortably in the middle to lower half of Oscar's pantheon. Among all of this year's winners/nominees, I suspect the ones that will still be revered 50 years from now will be Pan's Labyrinth, Children of Men, Marie Antoinette, and The Lives of Others.