If you are running a movie marathon, you only want to include the best of the best movies. One shortcut to success is to go straight to the list of Academy Award winners for Best Picture. Below you’ll find my handy academy award best picture checklists. There are 86 films that have won the academy award for best picture, so I have broken up the list into multiple handy checklists.
The Best of the Best Pictures Checklist
Films with an Academy Award for Best Picture which are also in the American Film Institute’s Top 100 Films
- It Happened One Night (1934)
- Gone with the Wind (1939)
- Casablanca (1943)
- The Best Years of Our Lives (1946)
- All About Eve (1950)
- On the Waterfront (1954)
- The Bridge on the River Kwai (1957)
- Ben-Hur (1959)
- The Apartment (1960)
- West Side Story (1961)
- Lawrence of Arabia (1962)
- The Sound of Music (1965)
- Midnight Cowboy (1969)
- The French Connection (1971)
- The Godfather (1972)
- The Godfather Part II (1974)
- One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest (1975)
- Rocky (1976)
- Annie Hall (1977)
- The Deer Hunter (1978)
- Platoon (1986)
- The Silence of the Lambs (1991)
- Unforgiven (1992)
- Schindler’s List (1993)
- Forrest Gump (1994)
- Titanic (1997)
- The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King (2003)
Other Best Pictures – Before 1970
Not quite the best of the best – but they won the best picture award, and they are classic movies – seems like a good bet to me.
- Wings (1927-1928)
- The Broadway Melody (1928-1929)
- All Quiet on the Western Front (1929-1930)
- Cimarron (1930-1931)
- Grand Hotel (1931-1932)
- Cavalcade (1932-1933)
- Mutiny on the Bounty (1935)
- The Great Ziegfeld (1936)
- The Life of Emile Zola (1937)
- You Can’t Take it With You (1938)
- Rebecca (1940)
- How Green Was My Valley (1941)
- Mrs. Miniver (1942)
- Going My Way (1944)
- The Lost Weekend (1945)
- Gentleman’s Agreement (1947)
- Hamlet (1948)
- All the King’s Men (1949)
- An American In Paris (1951)
- The Greatest Show on Earth (1952)
- From Here to Eternity (1953)
- Marty (1955)
- Around the World in 80 Days (1956)
- Gigi (1958)
- Tom Jones (1963)
- My Fair Lady (1964)
- A Man for All Seasons (1966)
- In the Heat of the Night (1967)
- Oliver! (1968)
Other Best Pictures – After 1970
Also not quite the best of the best – but they won the best picture award, and they are relatively new. Newer is better, right?
- Patton (1970)
- The Sting (1973)
- Kramer vs. Kramer (1979)
- Ordinary People (1980)
- Chariots of Fire (1981)
- Gandhi (1982)
- Terms of Endearment (1983)
- Amadeus (1984)
- Out of Africa (1985)
- The Last Emperor (1987)
- Rain Man (1988)
- Driving Miss Daisy (1989)
- Dances with Wolves (1990)
- Braveheart (1995)
- The English Patient (1996)
- Shakespeare in Love (1998)
- American Beauty (1999)
- Gladiator (2000)
- A Beautiful Mind (2001)
- Chicago (2002)
- Million Dollar Baby (2004)
- Crash (2005)
- The Departed (2006)
- No Country for Old Men (2007)
- Slumdog Millionaire (2008)
- The Hurt Locker (2009)
- The King’s Speech (2010)
- The Artist (2011)
- Argo (2012)
- 12 Years a Slave (2013)
