Tomorrow, we finally begin our Academy Awards lunacy. The announcement of the 2020 nominees is not until January, but we have some homework to do before then. Just how well do you know the past Best Picture winners? Why does any of this even matter? If you’ve been a reader on this site before, you likely already know that I have a love-hate relationship with the Academy Awards (mostly love, though). The ceremonies are often junk (especially the last number of years). Often, I feel the wrong winners get chosen. This is just, as George C. Scott put it, a “meat parade” orchestrated by club members patting themselves on the back.

So, why do I have such an obsession? Why do I admittedly love the Academy Awards, despite their many (and I mean many) problems? I love any opportunity to discuss film. That’s all. I love the cementing of a film’s status in history. Even if the wrong film is selected, there’s a conversation to be had. What I also admire, is how each film is telling of what the state of America (or the world) was like when they won. The other nominees tell a similar tale, but the winner is the ultimate message: this film was selected, because this lens was put on the microscope of America’s mainstream art. This is how artists were conveying their thoughts on the state of their lives.

Also, after bashing the Academy a teensy bit, I’m going to defend it for a second. Unlike the Grammys or Emmys, I feel the Academy Awards takes the occasional risk. I’m talking awarding a Spanish screenplay a win (Talk to Her), nominating first-time indie directors (Benh Zeitlin for Beasts of the Southern Wild), and awarding a Best Picture trophy to artsy (The Last Emperor), risky (Midnight Cowboy), and downright bonkers (Tom Jones) films. This is what it’s all about. Sometimes, the surprise of a film winning isn’t because you disagree, but because you can’t believe the Academy (the same folks that back-pedalled and awarded Crash over Brokeback Mountain) stepped outside of their comfort zones.

So, we’re going to look at every single Best Picture winner. Ever. We’re going to go through one film a day. Each film will be reviewed, even if they weren’t so great (and believe me, there are a number of Best Picture winners that downright suck). Many of these films were ones requested by readers for our On-This-Day Thursday series. That kind of got the ball rolling. If people wanted to see all of these Best Picture winners, why not just get them all onto the site once and for all? That way, On-This-Day can be reserved for other films, and many of your requests will be easily found in one database on our site. Plus, we can add each and every new winner into this section, so it’s always up-to-date.

So, where did all of this come from? This project stems from an experiment I did a few years ago when I was the editor of the film section over on the Toronto lifestyle website Live in Limbo. I used to co-host a film podcast called “Contra Zoom”, co-created by Dakota Arsenault (every episode can be found on Spotify here). He brought up the idea of going through every winner, ten at a time, and capturing our thoughts on each decade. I said yes to the idea, but had no clue as to how fixated I would get. He knew I was into the Academy Awards, but this turned me into a damn junkie.

Every month or so, we would slowly go through each and every winner. We would sometimes wait until the day of recording to say how we felt about the films we watched. We sometimes couldn’t hold it in, and had to text right after viewing a masterpiece (or a travesty). Going about the assignment this way guaranteed that we had to go about every Best Picture winner in chronological order, which was an eye opening experience. It introduced us to the many ways film evolved before our very eyes, what society was going through during those moments, and truly how some films held up against the test of time.

It’s been years since this idea was conceived, but it’s a concept I am still fascinated by. I have reviewed every single Best Picture winner before on various social media accounts since, but this is the time we turn this into something truly major. Since Films Fatale is now up and running, and since we’re celebrating the Academy Awards every year anyway, it only seemed fitting that I bring my past experiences to you through this venue.

Believe it or not, I have seen every Best Picture winner multiple times. I own every single one of them. Yes. Even the garbage ones. Even the ones that I will be trashing in the very near future. Again, I find value in critiquing the headspace of the Academy each and every single year. The Academy’s been doing this for nearly one hundred years. That has to amount to something, right? Did the same members that elected How Green Was My Valley ever expect a film like The Shape of Water would win? Were the members that championed a socially groundbreaking film like Moonlight aware of how far we have come from previous films that either raised the awareness of marginalized voices (Gentleman’s Agreement, In the Heat of the Night), or implored the words of bigots (Cimarron)? Is anyone willing to admit that Ordinary People is no where near better than Raging Bull, but it’s still a highly solid film?

Once again, we’re going to look at one Best Picture winner every day (except for the very first day, since the first Academy Awards ceremony technically had two winners. More on that tomorrow). Even if I have covered a film before (Green Book), I will write a new review to better fit this section of the website. That means, yes, much to my chagrin, I will write another Green Book review. I will also do this for every future entry in this section (so, if Parasite pulls off a miraculous Oscar win, I will write it a new hindsight review).

As you have probably noticed with my other reviews, some analyses will be long, and some will be short. I obviously operate by writing what I feel is necessary. Not every film — good or terrible — needs a whole spiel. Believe it or not, that goes for Best Picture winners as well. Besides, it might be hard to juggle all of my journalistic duties, since I’ll be working on a multitude of things at once while this is going on for over ninety days.

So, what will still be happening on the website? Well, standard movie reviews of current films will still be churned out. We’re still releasing our own various best-of-the-decade lists very soon (sometime next month), and we will be releasing your own selection of your favourite (and least favourite) films of the decade (we’re still accepting entries here). We will also have a smaller list to end off this year (sometime in December). We will be putting news related insights, On-This-Day Thursday, Post Script, and our other series on hold (they will have new life next year). Our interviews will also return next year.

If you are reading this article on the day it got published, I hope you are excited for the Best Picture Project. I’ve been champing at the bit to get to this marathon. If you are reading this in the future (once this section of the site has been established, or even partway into the experiment), I hope you have an idea as to why I saw fit to do this in the first place. Either way, things are going to get golden around here.

Get ready to celebrate film, learn about these past winners, discover some new films you may have never checked out, and gawk at some of the more questionable choices.

And the winner is…

Andreas Babiolakis has a Masters degree in Film and Photography Preservation and Collections management from Ryerson University, as well as a Bachelors degree in Cinema Studies from York University. His favourite times of year are the Criterion Collection flash sales and the annual Toronto International Film Festival.

Introducing the Best Picture Project