Top 20 "Best Picture" Winners

Yeah, the Academy Awards are a double-edged sword. Usually the nominations are spot-on (usually, I say), and the winners are hit-or-miss. Sometimes the omissions are so glaring, the ceremony becomes hard to watch. Yet regardless of its faults, this annual celebration of cinema is pure pop culture, and I'd feel remiss in my duties if I didn't comment upon it. Of the 85 films that have won "Best Picture," I've seen 44 so far. Although this is only half, I nonetheless feel compelled to quickly jot down what I consider to be the "best" of what I've seen.

Presented hastily and in chronological order, here is the list of my personal top 20 "Best Picture" winners. As I continue to see more, I'll be sure to update! 

- 1927: Sunrise: A Song of Two Humans* 
- 1930: All Quiet on the Western Front
- 1939: Gone With the Wind
- 1943: Casablanca
- 1953: From Here to Eternity
- 1954: On the Waterfront
- 1960: The Apartment
- 1970: Patton  
- 1972: The Godfather
- 1974: The Godfather Part II
- 1975: One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest 
- 1978: The Deer Hunter
- 1982: Gandhi
- 1991: The Silence of the Lambs
- 1992: Unforgiven
- 1993: Schindler's List
- 1999: American Beauty
- 2006: The Departed
- 2007: No Country for Old Men
- 2012: Argo

*(For the first Academy Awards, the "Best Picture" category did not yet exist. Although this film did win the Academy Award for "Unique and Artistic Production," equal kudos went to the film Wings which won "Outstanding Picture." While the Academy now considers the latter to be the very first winner of "Best Picture," I can't help but disregard the prestige bestowed upon Sunrise.)