Yes, the best picture for 1931 should have been "City Lights." Great performances by Charlie Chaplin and Virginia Cheryl.

The early Best Picture winners don't make much sense unless you look at the transition to sound film that took place at the same time. Best Picture winner Broadway Melody was one of the very first all sound films made in late 1928. At that time the camera had to be static or else recording would pick up the sound from the camera. Also, the color sequences in Broadway Melody have been lost so it remains completely in black and white. Cimarron came at the very end of the transition - 1930. It probably won not only because of weak competition that year but also because of the Oklahoma land rush scene. That kind of motion had been lost since sound films had started to be released in 1928. As for City Lights - At this time silent films were disqualified from winning Best Picture awards at least partly because they had a technological leg up on sound films because motion was not restricted in them.

I really, really enjoy your videos! Thank you so much for all the research and editing you put into these… truly a fascinating look into the history of the film industry.

I would love for you to make a video on Julia Roberts' best actress win. Ellen Burstyn and Laura Linney were a lot more deserving in my opinion. Had Burstyn agreed to go Supporting that year, she would've won. While Erin B. was likely Julia Roberts' best performance to date, her popularity and bankability in Hollywood at the time won her the award, not the performance itself.

IMHO "Crash" winning over "Brokeback Mountain" deserves a video of its own. Unfortunately most of the winners in the last years don't seem to be very relevant.

So interesting! I’d love to see more videos regarding the old Hollywood Oscar races

This is why I feel awards show should actually happen like five or ten years after a film has been released then you'll get a more accurate view of it in terms of how it effected cinema and that way you'll avoid the flash in the pan movies or performances that won awards but are nearly forgottten about years later.

The film actually concludes in 1930, since that's the date on the statue of Yancy Cravat unveiled at the film's end. The film is very frustrating, with characters not developed and motivations not explained, but also awe-inspiring in a way, since, on a lavish scale, it covers four decades to connect the modern era with an Old West that wasn't really that far away.

Interesting post. I won't comment on whether I agree or disagree - what I would like to point out ia that when evaluating/criticizing the films nominated in the early Oscar days (let's say 1927-1935), you should not be looking at them from a 2022 mindset. Sure, The Broadway Melody is date, to put it mildly, by today's standards, but think of the uniqueness of an all-talking, all-singing motion picture back in the late 1920s. Take a look at all the Best Picture nominees over the first ten years of the awards, and you will see that the overwhelming majority haven't aged too well.

"City Lights" is certainly the best English-language film of 1931. To find a comparable talkie, one might have to look all the way to Germany, to Fritz Lang's "M." Worst Best Picture winner? I haven't seen most of the reportedly terrible ones (e.g. Cimarron, Around the World in 80 Days, The Greatest Show on Earth, Green Book, Crash, The Broadway Melody). The ones I HAVE seen, whose wins were controversial, are mostly decent movies when judged on their own merits rather than measured against another movie that time has been kinder to. Citizen Kane should have won Best Picture in 1941, I agree, but How Green Was My Valley is still a good film, IMO. Raging Bull has gone down as a masterpiece, but Ordinary People is still an intriguing and well-acted family drama. And darn it, I LIKE The King's Speech.

Very interesting. Some films stand the test of time and are well revered years or decades later, while some are very popular in the moment only to be unimpressive later on. Cimarron is clearly in the latter category. Thank you for the video Brian, hope you’re doing well!

Love these, thanks!

The Worst Best Picture winner is The Broadway Melody. Cimmarron is awful too.

I can't believe people keep saying CODA is the worst best picture winner just because it's a feel good movie, knowing that there are worse movies that won Best picture Good video! Cimarron will likely be between the last best picture winners I have yet to see

Brian Rowe might want to edit his narration. Marlene Dietrich received one nomination as "Best Actress" but was nominated as "Best Supporting Actress" for "Witness for the Prosecution" in the late 1950s.

Edna Ferber's works were always very popular both in books and films!

Cimarron is a very underrated gem that's exactly what it is

I remember this at the time. I was so disappointed when we watched the Oscars live on TV that night.

I took a journey in 2020 to view all the Oscar winning Best Pictures. Though Cimarron is definitely one of the worst to win, IMHO no film to win will ever be worse than The Greatest Show On Earth.

There are a lot of bad Best Pictures. Too many to chose from. The real issue is whether there's any point in choosing a so called Best Picture when it merely represents a fleeting consensus in a given historical moment. If we're being honest, we can only assess what a genuinely good or even great film is over an extended period of time. How else can we see if the film holds up? Occasionally the Academy gets it right (The Godfather films), but overall, it seems the Academy is less interested in the "best" film and more concerned with sending a message that reflects the political/social sympathies of the membership. Also, up until the late 60s, the Best Picture films tend to be of a certain sort: middle brow, conservative, somewhat-issue oriented - but overall safe choices. Until, as I said, the late 60s. In '68, they went with Oliver, a G-rated musical that some claim hasn't held up well, then in '69, Midnight Cowboy - the first x-rated (or at the time it was, though was subsequently re-classified) film about a New York hustler and his sidekick homeless friend. This seemed to reflect a huge break or shift in the membership's consensus about what a Best Picture could, should and can be. Things were clearly changing about the kind of maturing social candor/ subject matter permitted in American films. A hint to Brian: this particular moment "Oliver to Cowboy" might make an interesting topic.

Very interesting. You've got a new subscriber.

There is no way films of yesterday can be compared to the films that came later and today. "Cimarron" needs to be taken in the context of the year in which it was made for an honest evaluation.

Strange the Cadillac chose the same name for a compact car that is known as perhaps the worst Cad ever!?

Just out of curiosity; is that a taller Oscar statue in the middle? 1:59

The only thing I remember about this terrible film is the actor calling someone ‘Shug’ all the time. It drove me insane. I was going to say maybe it was just a shitty year for cinema this year, but if City Lights was the same year, it’s ridiculous that it wasn’t even nominated

Indeed! City Lights is a treasure Cimarron is cringe worthy. The opening credits set the tone and not a good one .

I actually like Cimarron, seemingly the only person alive who does. I'd say Broadway Melody or Cavalcade are the worst

From my recollection, I would say that the worst best picture winners I’ve ever seen are Driving Miss Daisy, Out of Africa, and Chariots of Fire. I didn’t hate any of these. I just found them boring/and or not having too much substance.

That was very interesting! As for undeserving winners - Crash is an obvious candidate, but what about - Oliver or How green was my valley- both considering the competition. Fritz Lang’s masterpiece M is also from 1931, but I guess it wasn’t released in the USA that year. But since it asks difficult questions, it would not have won anyway.

Annie Hall. Star Wars definitely got robbed in 1977

I would completely agree with you, but then I finally saw Nomadland a few months ago. Bleh. I wanted to slit my wrists as soon as the credits rolled. 😬

I love Irene Dunne, i wish she was first nominated for another film, probably Back Street (1932,) it's a great performance.

Green book is a great movie. Greatest Show on earth was good too I May agree with around the world in 80 days

This might be an unpopular opinion, but I never understood why Annie Hall beat Star Wars for Best Picture in 1977.

What year did Fritz Lang's M come out? It would be a great choice for Best Picture, Director & Actor(Peter Lorre)

Great video as always, Brian!

I don’t know that I’ve ever seen a bad one, but I do often disagree with the Academy. The worst example I’ve seen is in the films of 1984. Not that I think anything nominated or winning was bad, but because my own favourite of that year wasn’t nominated for anything. That being the epic crime film, Sergio Leone’s Once Upon A Time In America, starring Robert De Niro. Had the film been released in the US in its European, 3 hour 49 minute version, I guarantee it would’ve swept the Oscars, or at least have been nominated for: Best Picture, Best Director for Leone, Best Actor for Robert De Niro, Best Supporting Actor for James Woods, Best Original Score for Ennio Morricone, Best Adapted Screenplay for Leone and Best Cinematography. I also think that they went wrong in 1991 and 1998. Not that I think Silence of the Lambs or Titanic are bad, but, I think both JFK and LA Confidential are better.

Well, the Oscar best picture is the best picture of the moment the award was given. So if Cimmarron got great reviews then, who are we to say 90 years later? :) And the Oscars back then and for a long time always went for the big spectacle type of movies.

Ok... I'm gonna be the odd man out and say that I actually like Cimarron. I'm a sucker for ensemble characters and a story that spans over a long period of time (I'm a fan of Cavalcade as well). Now, that being said, I will be the first to admit it has aged terribly. It's definitely not something that modern audiences would enjoy or even find slightly interesting. I can see why it would appeal to audiences at the time, but it definitely has no real place in this day and age other than as an historical footnote.

Crash, Green book , Shakespeare in love , the artist and Slumdog millionaire are the worst !

CODA and Green Book are the most recent. Nomadland was meh but it was during the covid shut down year so I let it slide. Of course, Crash.

The front page was also loosely remade in the 90s as Switching Channels with Kathleen Turner and Burt Reynolds

Crash....awful film! Shakespeare in Love is also up there!

I've watched very few of the Best Picture winners so I can only make an assessment based upon the ones I've watched so I'll say this instead. Of the ones I've seen I would say the worst of them are Crash, Dances with Wolves and Shakespeare in Love. Not calling them the worst Best Picture winners just the worst of the ones I've seen.

I recommend you check out a channel by the name of reccollect, who is one of the few people who can say they have watched every Best Picture winner and he put Gigi as the worst. He put Cimarron in 80th place out of 94.

How City Lights wasn't even nominated is a tragedy.

Nomadland and Coda winning BP is the worst for me. Nomadland is poverty-porn with the message being “pulling yourself up by your bootstraps and working at Amazon is the best!” Coda is appalling, the acting by everyone except the dad is atrocious. The cinematography is lifetime-network worthy, and the storyline is like a high school musical sequel.

OOPS - it looks like I got that wrong. Nomadland won 2021 not CODA. Sorry.

People don’t seem to talk about Tom Jones

My wife and I watched Cimarron a few years ago, and we found it just as dull as everyone else did. But what really bothered us was Richard Dix's acting. And yet, going through film magazines of that period, Dix was considered one of the greatest actors of the period. That, i can not explain. As for it's win, I believe it had to do with its technical accomplishments. But those, Cimarron was praised to the skies. Much of this had to do with the switch from silent to sound, and all the problems that recording in sound caused. Sound forced everyone to make their movies indoors, with the cameras placed inside of these wooden closets in order to block out the sound of the machines. But Cimarron filmed it's groundbreaking land rush scene outdoors, and it did a spectacular job doing so. A few other movies had done so but they had not accomplished what Cimarron had with all those people scrambling across the horizon. Also, the film was praised for its lighting, being able to recreate the candle effect that existed in the years before the electric lightbulb. This is a bit like the praise that Stanley Kubrick recieved for doing something similar in Barry Lyndon. We assume best picture always means a package of a good story, good acting, and good writing. But some, best picture can also mean technical accomplishments. In our time, we have the Lord Of The Rings trilogy. Yes, it was a great story, b ut it also won for its technical accomplishments in the use of CGI. That's the best explanation I can come up with to explain why Cimarron won.

Of the last 20 Best Picture winners that I have seen, the two worst were "The Shape of Water" and "The Artist". "TSOW" was just a trashy romance novel with a cartoonish villain. "The Artist" was a crashing bore: 80% "A Star Is Born" and 20% "Singin' in the Rain".

I think Richard Dix is more famous as a punchline of a joke in Blazing Saddles.

I watched every single best picture winner last year. Most made it a fun little project. Some were laborious. Cimarron was in the latter category

The answer is Crash.

Some films get old awfully. I can understand why people liked it so much those days.

My personal view of Oscar’s is not a popular one, a load of phoney baloney. Studio politics played a large part in the nominations and wins. Cimarron was an expensive production which is why it won

This is talk about the worst best picture, but my best and greatest movie is Cecil B. De Mill's "the greatist show on earth". It was the most beautiful, exiting, wonderful, thrilling and absolutely stunning colour. I'd like to see on large screen in the theater again. Spielburg's new movie Fableman showed the train wreck scene from that.

A terrific, well researched episode.

I liked Cimarron. Its much better than Crash, Green Book, Oliver! I mean for me its nowhere near the bottom

There are so many bad movies that won Oscars 😂. Keep these videos coming, they're real good

for me, always will be Shakespeare in Love not only bcuz of saving private mountain, but also because of gwyneth and fernanda montenegro (i’m brazilian)

Just for the record, I made a list ranking all b west picture winners, and Cimarron was the sixth worst best picture winner. I'm sure I'll get a lot of flack when I list my top 5 worst, but remember, it's completely subjective: 1. The Sound of Music, 2. Rocky, 3.The Last Emperor, 4.Gandhi, 5. The Shape of Water

I love Cimmarron! The win from How Green Was My Valley over Citizen Kane is the biggest disgrace in Oscar history!

I actually like Cimarron very much. The 1960 remake was good but not as good as the original. I love Cavalcade. I thought Moonlight, Shakespeare in Love, and for that matter almost all of the recent Best picture winners are not worthy of the award. The last two films I truly thought Worthy were The Last Emperor and The Return of the King.

I believe this was RKO’s only win for best picture. One of the big five studios along with Paramount, MGM, 20th Century•Fox. And Warner Bros, RKO didn’t have much best picture success. Universal, Columbia, and United Artists (3 of the little 4 which included Republic) won more best picture Oscars.

Have to add two more to the list; Out of Africa and Dances with Wolves.

The fact that Cimarron was not only nominated but won Best Picture is bad enough but when you take into account that Charlie Chaplin's City Lights wasn't even nominated it makes it even more outrageous, Hell A Free Soul starring Norma Shearer, Clark Gable and Lionel Barrymore would have been more worthy of a nod over this atrocity.

Definitely a bad film to win Best Picture. That said, to this day, The Broadway Melody is the worst Best Picture winner I have ever seen. A close second is Gigi.

Crash beating Brokeback Mountain is pretty awful.... but then, I haven't seen Cimarron.

I suspect that when many people keep mentioning "Crash" among the worst oscar wins, it's mainly due to politically correct sensitivities and because it beat a lot of people's favorite, "Brokeback". Still, "Crash" is a great film with a great plot and great acting. There, now. I've said my piece.

.....is it wrong that I kinda wanna see "TRADER HORN" out of (mostly) morbid curiosity??😬🧐 Edit... To be clear, morbid curiosity because of all those behind the screen "shinanigins." It clearly looks like it's aged . HORRIBLY!!!

Wow - Cimarron must be some kind of awful to beat out Cavalcade, but while I've seen Cavalcade, I haven't got the courage to sit through Cimarron, so I'm going to simply take your word for it!

What about The Lost Weekend

The worst? "Dances with Wolves" (1991) and "Ordinary People" (1981)

Will you cover Charlie Chaplin in your Oscar Omissions series? I'm in the middle of binging your videos and I'm enjoying all your content

good, interesting video. However this is some difference between what we might consider 'worst' movie today to those that just may have aged well or were totally undeserving at the time (take that, Schocky er Rocky). Having seen every picture winner over the years, (yes, of them) many of them more than once, it may feel safe to make this distinction. Indeed, Cimmaron is one of the worst but the next year's winner may be equal. Cavalcade is so stuffy, so dull, so stiff that it can be practically unwatchable to a modern day audience outside of Oscar completists. The same can be said for Greatest Show on Earth which truly is a terrible Best Picture winner. However, some choices are not nessisarily chosen on merit but on box-office performance and audience popularity and not on critic'a reviews. Others are blatantly bought (The King's Speech, The English Patient especially the infamous Shakespeare in Love) Just let's not get started on the whole "Crash' or Green Book fiasco.

A good question is why Dunn is such a forgettable movie star from Hollywood's Golden Age? Her contemporaries spark some recognition in the minds of the general public.

Chicago is the worst best picture winner ever, and it’s not particularly close.

Crash

I adore Shakespeare in Love and wil defend it's Best Picture win to the death. Crash was the most undeserving winner of all time; probably closely followed by Braveheart, Dances with Wolves, and Driving Miss Daisy. Oh, and probably most of the winners of the last decade.

CAVALCADE (1933) was a dismal, crashing bore. I'd like to know the politics behind its Best Picture win. Certainly NOT merit.

Very much agree with Around the World in 80 Days as being one of the worst, just very bloated and too long. I actually like Greatest Show On Earth, it has a good story and great cast and I’ve never really understood the hate it gets. Cimarron is very stagey and campy but then again the 1930s was not a great decade for westerns. It’s average but not the cream of the crop.

2019 I think the voting members were asleep at the wheel. Nicole Kidman never even got a mention for what I consider one of her best roles in Destroyer. But then I would have been severely torn between Glenn or Nicole winning. The overrated Roma…I was staring at the ceiling waiting for boredom to end. I agree Mahershala Ali should not have gotten best actor…I thought the other 4 best actor performances were better.

Worst…Moonlight, really ?

I thought Everything Everywhere All At Once was awful. I barely made it through.

They'd just came out of the silent era and into "talkies" (hence, the acting style), weren't that far from WW1, and just into the Great Depression. What would you expect?

Mrs Minniver is easily the worst Oscar winner. They take an interesting topic, war, and an interesting premise, hiding an enemy soldier in a family, and the director doesn’t get one single good performance from the entire cast. The story sparks a tiny bit of interest about sending messages to parents using “blipping”, but eventually devolves into nonsense about roses. It finishes on a depressing note of people bonding over loved ones, in a church. Any movie that ends up in church is usually not great. It was made in the same year as Casablanca ffs, and doesn’t hold a candle to it. Dreadful film. If you wanted to torture me, you would only have to make me watch half of Mrs Minniver, and I would tell you everything.

Gigi (1958) has to be up there too. Awful film.

I aint seen me most of the old ones and your Cimarron is no exception, but it can't be worse than Green Book. How I hate that film! I'd rather watch my stools swimming in the toilet water than a paint-by-numbers exercise in that well intended, yet syrupy sweet hollywood tone deafness. Maybe if it was released in the 70s or something I'd halfway appreciate it like I do the similar Driving Miss Daisy, but the year was 2015 and it was boring as hell to boot.

The Artist is the worst ever Best picture winner 👹🔥🔥

Nomaland Birdman Greenbook Crash Spotlight. Well acted but boring. Mad max,room,the revenant.so much better

I haven't seen Cimarron, but Around the World in 80 Days was brutally unwatchable.

the Oscars are pretty bad today, Cimarron is an outlier, lala land and bird man were pretty awful, i dont even think of the Oscars any more, as a side note its not just the people handing out the awards, good films are few and far between these days, so we are more likely to award very bad films.

Another "Hollywood Babylon"!

Kramer Vs Kramer, Out of Africa, Oliver!, Dances with Wolves, Unforgiven, Driving Ms Daisy, The English Patient and Ordinary People are among the most underwhelming Best Picture winners IMO.

“Potentially offensive”??😒🥺The sight of the black chid-Eugene Jackson-hanging from the ceiling and used as ‘comic’ relief was an immediate turnoff! I could never finish the movie 🎥 after that...☹️

It's not the worst movie I've ever seen. In fact it is MUCH better than the remake with Glenn Ford in 1960. Now that was a slow film. I know your channel is about Oscar winners, but you didn't even mention the remake. Evidently, the studio thought the original was a big enough hit to spend more time and money on an updated remake.

The Shape of Water is by far the absolute worst movie to even be nominated let alone win an Oscar. If you watch Splash - a fantastic funny Tom Hanks John Candy early 80’s movie, then watch Shape of Water you will see what a rip off it is. I literally predicted the ending FULL STOP verbatim to my husband before we were into the first 30 min and he a) agreed and b) lost his mind laughing bc I was 100% correct. It was sooooo THIRSTY to use a gen z term to be considered “original art” they failed to have an original concept or screenplay or direction. I don’t remember who they were up against but I do remember it was a FAR BETTER choice. Ugh. I am a true all-genre movie lover. This movie was offensive it was so stupid. (And because it takes itself so seriously while Splash tells an almost identical story but at least it’s hilarious and sweet and fun!)

Worst movie to win Best Picture? “Chariots of Fire”!! Also worst score and song!!!

In my humble opinion CODA was not worthy of its best Oscar win.