Best Picture: #19Original Release Date: December 18, 1946Rating: ApprovedRuntime: 2 hours, 50 minutesDirector: William Wyler Quick Impressions:After loving William Wyler’s Mrs. Miniver so much, my daughter and I were quite excited to see the same director’s The Best Years of Our Lives, also co-starring Theresa Wright. When we discovered the …
Best Picture: #18Original Release Date: December 1, 1945Rating: Not RatedRuntime: 1 hour, 41 minutesDirector: Billy Wilder Quick Impressions:The Lost Weekend made quite a lasting impression on my grandmother. When mentioning it, she would always wince, shiver in dread, and say, “Ooh! It was a horrible thing!” That particular phrase “a …
Best Picture: #17Original Release Date: May 3, 1944Rating: PassedRuntime: 2 hours, 6 minutesDirector: Leo McCarey Quick Impressions:My daughter is now beside herself trying to rank these Best Picture winners. (I haven’t even attempted it!) After much agonizing, her top five now looks like this 1) Wings 2) Casablanca 3) Gone …
Best Picture: #16Original Release Date: January 23, 1943Rating: PGRuntime: 1 hour, 42 minutesDirector: Michael Curtiz Quick Impressions:When I woke up this morning, I thought in shock, “Oh that’s right! I’m supposed to write a review of Casablanca!” What a strange undertaking! As I told my daughter, of all the usual suspects—movies …
Best Picture: #15Original Release Date: June 4, 1942Rating: Not RatedRuntime: 2 hours, 14 minutesDirector: William Wyler Quick Impressions:Neither my daughter nor I could muster much enthusiasm for the idea of watching Mrs. Miniver, which sounded like just another tedious, black-and-white, war-related film standing between us and Casablanca. Then we watched …
Best Picture: #14Original Release Date: November 26, 1941Rating: Not RatedRuntime: 1 hour, 58 minutesDirector: John Ford Quick Impressions:This Best Picture project I’m doing with my daughter has revealed staggering gaps in my own film viewing history. I honestly never realized before how many Best Picture winners I had not seen. …
Best Picture: #13Original Release Date: April 12, 1940Rating: PassedRuntime: 2 hours, 10 minutesDirector: Alfred Hitchcock Quick Impressions:My daughter and I already watched Rebecca together two years ago when her summer project was Alfred Hitchcock. (We had intended to watch classic films of a variety of stars and directors, each in …
Best Picture: #12Original Release Date: December 15, 1939Rating: PassedRuntime: 3 hours, 58 minutesDirector: Victor Fleming (and George Cukor) Quick Impressions:Probably the biggest mistake the South ever made was fighting to preserve a way of life that was not sustainable through moral methods. The second biggest mistake the South ever made …
Best Picture Winner: #11Original Release Date: September 29, 1938Rating: PassedRuntime: 2 hours, 6 minutesDirector: Frank Capra Quick Impressions:I first saw Frank Capra’s You Can’t Take It With You when I checked it out of the public library at seventeen, and I hated it. Here’s why. When I was fifteen, I …
The Life of Emile ZolaBest Picture Winner: #10Original Release Date: October 2, 1937Rating: PassedRuntime: 1 hour, 56 minutesDirector: William Dieterle Quick Impressions:This film fell flat for us, and I’m still struggling to figure out why. It isn’t a bad movie, by any means. The thing is, you watch and think, …
