Films that win Oscar Academy Awards are among the best films ever. The brightest stars in Hollywood gather once a year for a star-studded celebration to honor their many accomplishments. We are, of course, referring to Hollywood's biggest night, the Oscar Academy Awards.
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Casablanca (1943)
Among American films, Casablanca is universally regarded as the best. Featuring two of the best performers working today, this film is a masterful mash-up of romantic comedy and tense drama. No matter what you name Michael Curtiz's World War II adventure starring Humphrey Bogart and Ingrid Bergman as star-crossed lovers, you have to admit that it's entertaining to see.
Their off-set connection resulted in chemistry rarely seen in modern films and provided the picture with its most memorable sentence. Between takes, Bogart would give Bergman poker lessons, affectionately reminding him, "Here's looking at you, child."
Francis Ford Coppola's second installment in the saga of the Corleone family emphasizes loyalty, family, and sacrifice. The film bursts with self-assurance, making history as one of the first sequels to top the original. Coppola amps up the tension by taking all the elements that made the original film so shocking.
In Part II, we learn about Vito Corleone's early life in Sicily and follow his career path to his eventual rise to power in the New York City underworld. The best gangster movie ever made, starring Al Pacino, now has Robert De Niro as the youthful Don.
Lawrence of Arabia (1962)
David Lean's vast Lawrence of Arabia is one of the few movies that can be considered a true spectacle, and it has gone on to influence a new generation of filmmakers.
The photography in Lawrence of Arabia is stunning, and Peter O'Toole has a superb performance as World War One officer T.E. Laurence, striking the right mix between cockiness and genuine concern for the natives being invaded by the British. The movie's 227-minute runtime is even more astonishing than the thousands of extras it contains; to this day, it is the longest film to win the Best Picture Oscar. A work of colossal proportions.
All About Eve (1952)
All About Eve is enjoyable even now thanks in large part to the performances of Bette Davis as seasoned actress Margo Channing and Anne Baxter as her cunning ingenue Eve Harrington. Davis' acerbic delivery of Joseph L. Mankiewicz's razor-sharp dialogue makes this her best performance, as the pair are thrown together in this timeless drama about our aversion to getting old.
Channing warns his passengers to "fasten your seatbelts, it's going to be a rough night". He fails to take into account the fact that the risks of ambition without decency may call for a bit more Dutch courage.
The Silence of the Lambs (1990)
Tank the Oscars for movies about serial killers, especially ones with poetic cannibals and skin-wearing psychopaths, are a recent phenomenon. That's why the film directed by Jonathan Demme is so outstanding. Silence of the Lambs won all eight of the awards for which it was nominated for an Oscar. That includes Best Picture, which is an unprecedented feat for a genre film.
Is there a deciding factor? The fantastic script, totally eerie score, and hypnotic turns from Jodie Foster and Anthony Hopkins? It's all of that, plus the closing climax. Even after all this time it still gives me the chills as much as anything in a good horror film.
