81 Days With Oscar And Me

One of the reasons why I created this website is to analyze movies and create objective stats from the data. To my knowledge, no one has ever done this before, at least not to this extent.

Another reason was to determine which of the 81 movies I consider my favorites, and which I consider my least favorites. My wife watched them all with me. So her Best and Worst movies are reflected here as well. It’s interesting to note that she and I agreed on all of the movies we liked least, even down to the order in which we disliked them. Our Top 20 Best list differed in the order in which we ranked them, but 14 of the 20 movies we chose were in common to both lists.

Bill’s and Beth’s Top 20 Least Favorite Movies (in order):
20. The Departed (2006)
19. Ordinary People (1980)
18. The English Patient (1996)
17. Terms of Endearment (1983)
16. Hamlet (1948)
15. Going My Way (1944)
14. Mrs. Miniver (1942)
13. Cimarron (1930)
12. American Beauty (1999)
11. The Deer Hunter (1978)
10. West Side Story (1961)
9. Around the World In 80 Days (1956)
8. Gigi (1958)
7. The Best Years Of Our Lives (1946)
6. Crash (2005)
5. Platoon (1986)
4. Broadway Melody (1928)
3. The Greatest Show On Earth (1952)
2. Oliver! (1968)
1. Tom Jones (1963)

Bill’s Top 20 Favorite Movies (in order from last to first):
20. The Last Emperor (1987)
19. It Happened One Night (1934)
18. Marty (1955)
17. On the Waterfront (1954)
16. Rain Man (1988)
15. Shakespeare In Love (1998)
14. All About Eve (1950)
13. Slumdog Millionaire (2008)
12. Mutiny On the Bounty (1935)
11. Titanic (1997)
10. The Apartment (1960)
9. Forrest Gump (1994)
8. My Fair Lady (1964)
7. The Sting (1973)
6. Driving Miss Daisy (1989)
5. Silence Of the Lambs (1991)
4. Annie Hall (1977)
3. Gone With the Wind (1939)
2. The Godfather (1972)
1. Casablanca (1943)

Beth’s Top 20 Favorite Movies (in order from last to first):
20. On the Waterfront (1954)
19. The Godfather (1972)
18. Gone With the Wind (1939)
17. Mutiny On the Bounty (1935)
16. A Beautiful Mind (2001)
15. It Happened On Night (1934)
14. Slumdog Millionaire (2008)
13. Driving Miss Daisy (1989)
12. Annie Hall (1977)
11. The Sting (1973)
10. Braveheart (1995)
9. An American In Paris (1951)
8. Titanic (1997)
7. Rain Man (1988)
6. My Fair Lady (1964)
5. Chariots of Fire (1981)
4. Forrest Gump (1994)
3. Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King (2003)
2. The Sound of Music (1965)
1. Casablanca (1943)

Okay, now for the really cool part: the stats, represented by the charts Elisabeth spent hours making.

If you want to know the secret to picking Oscar-winning movies, these stats will give you the material on which to base your guesses. So, for example, if your local newspaper holds such a yearly contest, prepare to reap the rewards of my nearly three months and hundreds of hours of effort.

DISCLAIMER: We are not statisticians. We are not infallible. So don’t look for perfection in these stats. In fact, when you find errors, please call them to our attention. We’ll make corrections. In other words, the following information is provided for educational purposes only. Enjoy!

THE STATS
Adaptations: One of the most surprising discoveries I made during the past 81 days is that Hollywood is big on making Adaptations (movies based on material from other sources, as opposed to writing what I termed “Original Screenplays“), and then – 70% of the time! – choosing them as Best Picture winners. That means nearly three out of four Best Picture winners were based on books, short stories, plays, newspaper articles, musicals, or other media.

Here are breakdowns by decade, by every few decades, and overall:

The 1920s

The 1930s

The 1940s

The 1920s – 1040s

The 1950s

The 1960s

The 1970s

The 1950s – 1970s

The 1980s

The 1990s

The 2000s

The 1980s – 2000s

Okay, here’s the Big Kahuna of charts, the one that amazed me most:

THE STATS
Runtimes: Another interesting statistic to examine is a movie’s runtime, how many minutes it runs. This stat is particularly interesting in this context: Which movies were the longest? Which decade featured the longest movies?

Here are breakdowns by decade, by every few decades, and overall:

The 1920s

The 1930s

The 1940s

The 1920s – 1040s

The 1950s

The 1960s

The 1970s

The 1950s – 1970s

The 1980s

The 1990s

The 2000s

The 1980s – 2000s

Okay, here’s the wrap-up, the chart that ranks the decades according to how long their movies were:

THE STATS
Color vs. Black and White: Another interesting statistic to examine is how a movie looks, whether it was shot in black and white or color. This is an interesting stat because color film existed, from what I learned, as far back as the earliest movies. But it was too expensive – both to light and shoot as well as to project in theaters. So black and white was the standard for many decades. How many decades? Take a look.

Here are breakdowns by decade, by every few decades, and overall:

The 1920s

The 1930s

The 1940s

The 1920s – 1040s

The 1950s

The 1960s

The 1970s

The 1950s – 1970s

The 1980s

The 1990s

The 2000s

The 1980s – 2000s

Okay, here’s the wrap-up of the color analysis covering all movies from the 1920s through the 2000s:

THE STATS
Multiple Winners: Just for the fun of it, we checked to see which directors won Best-Picture Oscars more than once. Surprisingly, more won two times than I thought. But only one director won three Oscars for Best Picture. And it’s a director whose name is no longer as well known as some of the others.

THE STATS
First Names: For even more anal-retentive fun, we took a look at trends in the names of directors just to see if any patterns emerged. Sure enough, some names seemed to appear more than others.

THE STATS
Actors: Twelve actors were fortunate (and talented!) enough to appear in more than two Oscar-winning movies. As of this year (2008), no actor has appeared in four Best-Picture winners. So these 12 people are the rarest of the rare.

THE STATS
Composers: Fourteen composers created the score for two or more Oscar-winning movies. Four of those composers (Alfred Newman, Howard Shore, James Horner, Max Steiner) created the score for three Oscar-winning movies. Two of these extremely talented composers are still alive: James Horner and Howard Shore.

THE STATS
Genre: One genre towered above all others as the most popular for Best-Picture winners.

THE STATS
The Studio: Finally, we took a look at the film studios with the most Best-Picture Oscar wins. This one is a bit more subjective than the others because sometimes one studio would be listed primarily and others would be listed as distributor. Maybe two collaborated. So this stat is the most fluid of the others. But we’re not off by that much. So this stat serves as a rule of thumb, a general guidelines.

The Secret To Picking Best-Picture Winners
Okay, here’s the formula. The typical Best-Picture winner:

1. Is an adaptation (70% of the time)
2. Is well over two hours in length
3. Is a drama
4. Is released by Columbia Pictures
5. Is directed by someone named Robert/Rob or William/Billy
6. Stars Diane Keaton, Dustin Hoffman, Jack Nicholson, Meryl Streep, Morgan Freeman, or Talia Shire
7. Features music composed by Howard Shore or James Horner

There you go. Try that formula next time you have to choose Best-Picture Oscar winners.

One more comment before I fade to black…

Just as a screenplay is structured to have a Mid Point, these 81 Best-Picture Oscar winners also had a Mid Point: Midnight Cowboy (1969). That was the 42nd Best-Picture winner out of 81, which puts it as close to a perfect Mid Point as any movie could be.

Prior to Midnight Cowboy, the most swearing that occurred in a Best-Picture winner was the occasional “damn” or “hell.” After Midnight Cowboy, the floodgates were opened, not only for swearing but for sex. If I recall correctly, the first Best-Picture winner to feature the infamous F-word was The French Connection (1971) starring Gene Hackman. The movie to feature the most F-words per square inch was The Departed (2006), which was also the most violent movie of all 81 Best-Picture Oscar winners.

The decade of the 2000s is the most political, violent, and profane. Not all Best-Picture winners fit those adjectives. But the winners as well as the movies nominated trend toward Left-wing politics, violence, and more swearing than one can possibly stand in a lifetime.

I seriously hope the pendulum swings back to movies with less of all three. I don’t need Hollywood to tell me what’s right and wrong, politically. I don’t need to see the grittiest aspects of society. I don’t need to see heads blown off. And I could go a long, long time before needing to hear the F-word on the big screen. If Clark Gable, Cary Grant, Errol Flynn or other Hollywood legends didn’t need to cuss and kill, why do today’s movie stars?

Besides, if the trend established in the 2000s continues, the decade ahead could be pretty grim viewing, indeed.