5 Great Movies That Should've Won the Best Picture Oscar, Ranked

Shakespeare in Love vs. Saving Private Ryan. Crash vs. Brokeback Mountain. Oppenheimer vs. Barbie. Every year, the race for Best Picture boils down to a fierce contest between two movies vying for the Oscars’ top prize. This year is no different, with One Battle After Another engaged in a fierce — well, battle — with Sinners.

Sometimes, the Academy picks the right winner. Other times, well, they don’t. Watch With Us has looked at all the previous 97 winners of the Best Picture prize and ranked the five films that should’ve won the statuette.

5. ‘The Sixth Sense’ Instead of ‘American Beauty’ (1999)

Let the record show that I’ve always hated American Beauty. Sam Mendes‘ stale critique of American suburbia doesn’t offer any new insights, and its depiction of a dysfunctional upper-middle-class family is as obvious as it is paper-thin. Time has proven me right, and you’d be hard-pressed to find anyone in 2026 openly loving the Kevin Spacey-led drama.

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So which film should’ve won? Of the nominees, The Insider is technically the most accomplished film of them all, but I’d pick The Sixth Sense. The late-summer horror hit broke box office records, and with Haley Joel Osment and Toni Collette’s terrific, Oscar-nominated performances, it broke plenty of people’s hearts, too. The film is one of those rare horror movies that packs a dramatic punch, with director M. Night Shyamalan conjuring as many tears as he does scares. Most importantly, it still holds up today — and you can’t say that about a lot of Best Picture winners.

4. ‘E.T.’ Instead of ‘Gandhi’ (1982)

What was the Academy thinking in 1983 when it chose to honor Gandhi instead of another movie that won the hearts and minds of everyone who watched it? E.T. was loved by audiences and critics alike, with the notoriously hard-to-please New Yorker critic Pauline Kael gushing about Steven Spielberg’s magical story about a young boy befriending an orphaned alien. The Oscars are commonly criticized for ignoring popular movies, but they had their chance in 1983 to honor the No. 1 hit of the year, and no one would’ve complained.

Instead, they honored Gandhi, a massively boring three-hour biopic about the Indian leader, Mahatma Gandhi. Too often, voters think they need to honor a film that tackles important subject matter, and Gandhi certainly checks that box. But being “the best picture” doesn’t mean a film has the best intentions — it means it’s the best result of a group of artisans working together to create movie magic. Gandhi doesn’t do that, but E.T. does, which is why it should’ve won the Oscar.

3. ‘The Shawshank Redemption’ Instead of ‘Forrest Gump’ (1994)

I understand why the Academy chose Forrest Gump. A huge box office hit, the film had enough goodwill with audiences and critics to make it a popular winner. But the film has aged poorly over the years, whereas other nominees that year have only gotten better.

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A lot of people would now pick Pulp Fiction as the winner, and while Quentin Tarantino’s post-modern masterpiece is a worthy winner, I’d pick The Shawshank Redemption. Ever since its modest box office success in 1994, Frank Darabont’s prison drama starring Morgan Freeman and Tim Robbins has accumulated a devoted fan base that regularly rates it as the best movie ever made on IMDb. I wouldn’t go that far, but it’s the one 1994 film I watch over and over again. The movie manages to balance its sentimental depiction of two prisoners’ unlikely friendship over the years with a realism that never becomes too harsh. The result is an enduring classic that the Academy should’ve honored when it had the chance.

2. Any Nominee Instead of ‘The Shape of Water’ (2017)

Don’t get me wrong — I enjoyed The Shape of Water and was glad Guillermo del Toro received the recognition he deserved from the Academy. But 2017 was a great year for film, and you can pick almost any other Best Picture nominee and make a convincing case that it deserved a statuette, too. (The one exception? The dry-as-sandpaper biopic Darkest Hour, which arguably didn’t even deserve to be nominated.)

Jordan Peele’s critically acclaimed horror flick Get Out was one of the year’s breakout hits, and its clever blend of social satire and genuine scares cemented its status as one of the decade’s defining films. Christopher Nolan won his Oscars for the World War II drama Oppenheimer in 2024, but he could’ve — and should’ve — won earlier for his other great WWII flick, Dunkirk. And Call Me by Your Name’s tender love story, coupled with a pair of outstanding performances from Best Actor nominee Timothée Chalamet and non-nominee Michael Stuhlbarg, deserved to make history as the first openly gay love story to claim the Academy’s top prize — and make up for the Oscars’ snubbing of Brokeback Mountain two decades ago.

Lady Bird, The Post, and Phantom Thread — these nominated films have their legions of fans and showcase famous actors, writers, cinematographers and directors working at the top of their craft. Against this formidable competition, The Shape of Water feels slight, like a loose remake of Creature from the Black Lagoon that’s not even del Toro’s best creature feature. (That honor still goes to Pan’s Labyrinth.)

1. ‘2001: A Space Odyssey’ Instead of ‘Oliver!’ (1968)

I’m cheating a bit by selecting 2001: A Space Odyssey to win the Best Picture Oscar in 1969 over the popular musical Oliver! since it wasn’t even nominated in that category. But 2001 is too groundbreaking and too memorable to ignore. Stanley Kubrick’s sci-fi masterpiece did what few movies did before or since — it threw out conventional narrative and character development in favor of a one-of-a-kind sensory experience.

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You probably have heard some hack critics testifying that a lame film is an “experience,” but in 2001’s case, it’s true. In chronicling the birth of mankind and humanity’s quest to conquer outer space, Kurbirck expanded what film could do to showcase new levels of consciousness. Oliver! is a well-done musical with terrific song-and-dance numbers, but it pales in comparison to Kubrick’s monumental technical achievement. 2001 pushed filmmaking as an art form forward, and if that doesn’t qualify it for a Best Picture Oscar, nothing will.

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By: Jason Struss
Title: 5 Great Movies That Should've Won the Best Picture Oscar, Ranked
Sourced From: www.usmagazine.com/entertainment/news/5-movies-that-shouldve-won-the-best-picture-oscar-ranked/
Published Date: Fri, 13 Mar 2026 18:30:59 +0000