< Best Picture winners 1927/28–1949 | Best Picture winners 1970–1989 >
text only: Oscar Best Picture winners (chronological) | Oscar Best Picture winners (alphabetical)Best Picture 1969: Midnight Cowboy
Midnight Cowboy is a buddy movie of rather unlikely characters falling into a rather forced friendship. Read the review…
Best Picture 1968: Oliver!
The musical era may have been coming to an end with Oliver!, but it was going out in style. Read the review…
Best Picture 1967: In the Heat of the Night
In the Heat of the Night works as well as a crime-fighting story in a tradition as old as the Sherlock Holmes as it does a drama about racism. Read the review…
Best Picture 1966: A Man for All Seasons
A Man for All Seasons is staid, stern, plodding, and precise, with about as much passion as your 11th-grade history textbook. Read the review…
Best Picture 1965: The Sound of Music
If only real life offered such satisfying fantasies as those of The Sound of Music. Read the review…
Best Picture 1964: My Fair Lady
My Fair Lady is a charming and amusing satire on the absurdity of rigid class distinctions such as were to be found in turn-of-the-20th-century London. Read the review…
Best Picture 1963: Tom Jones
Tom Jones seems little more than an excuse to revel in the licentiousness of the burgeoning free-love atmosphere of the 1960s. Read the review…
Best Picture 1962: Lawrence of Arabia
David Lean’s gorgeous Lawrence of Arabia — one of the greatest movies ever made — captures its enigmatic subject beautifully. Read the review…
Best Motion Picture 1961: West Side Story
West Side Story is a brilliant updating of Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet, the two warring families of Verona now two gangs in New York City. Read the review…
Best Motion Picture 1960: The Apartment
It’s movies like The Apartment that make men think that “nice guy” equals “doormat.” Read the review…
Best Motion Picture 1959: Ben-Hur
Make no mistake — Ben-Hur is not great art. But it is great fun. Read the review…
Best Motion Picture 1958: Gigi
Gigi was kinda the Pretty Woman of the 50s, except it’s a charming delight and offers a much more positive moral in the end. Read the review…
Best Motion Picture 1957: The Bridge on the River Kwai
The Bridge on the River Kwai is a tense, terrifying, absolutely riveting film about the ironies of war and the deadly psychological games enemy soldiers play with each other. Read the review…
Best Motion Picture 1956: Around the World in 80 Days
It’s because the world has shrunk in the subsequent fortysomething years that Around the World in 80 Days is less charming today than it must have been in 1956. Read the review…
Best Motion Picture 1955: Marty
Marty puts its unfortunate characters under a magnifying glass, searing them with the cruelty of their world and the people around them. Read the review…
Best Motion Picture 1954: On the Waterfront
A powerful drama with the flavor of Shakespearean tragedy, On the Waterfront is a timeless story of corruption and those who fight it. Read the review…
Best Motion Picture 1953: From Here to Eternity
No, sorry, I don’t get it. From Here to Eternity is supposed to be a great, tragic melodrama, but I just don’t see it. Read the review…
Best Motion Picture 1952: The Greatest Show on Earth
It’s got baby gorillas, dogs riding horses, and Jimmy Stewart as a clown. Man, The Greatest Show on Earth is one fun flick. Read the review…
Best Motion Picture 1951: An American in Paris
An American in Paris is nothing but an excuse for some fabulous singing and dancing, but it’s a gorgeous piece of filmmaking. Read the review…
Best Motion Picture 1950: All About Eve
From the snarky opening scene onward, All About Eve is perhaps the first film with an attitude we today would call modern. Read the review…