Richard put up a post the other day about the worst films to take the Oscar, and I totally disagreed with the findings that Bravehart topped that list. I LOVED Bravehart. But I came across this little survey by the BBC on the best film to NOT win the Oscar for film of the year. The result? The Shawshank Redemption by a landslide.
I couldn’t agree more. Shawshank ranks at #4 on my all time greatest films ever made list. I always thought it was a crime that Forest Gump won the Oscar over it. I also thought it was a crime that Tom Hanks (who totally rules) won Best Actor over Tim Robbins that year. Oh well.
The good folks over at Guardian Unlimited offer us this:
The Shawshank Redemption has been voted the best film never to win a best picture Oscar. Results of a BBC radio Five Live poll announced this morning gave the prison drama 52% of the online vote, and an even clearer majority of votes cast by text message.
The film, by Frank Darabont, tells the tale of a man, played by Tim Robbins, who is wrongly imprisoned. But, after a life-affirming stretch inside, he breaks out, creating a hopeful example for the other convicts.
It easily beat what might have been thought stiff competition from Citizen Kane, Orson Welles’s masterpiece of hubris and defeat, and A Matter of Life and Death, Powell and Pressburger’s whimsical existential allegory. The two films split the remainder of the poll more or less equally.
Damn this movie is AMAZING. Now that I think about it… I think I’m gonna go throw it in the DVD player this afternoon. Now that I think about it…. I have never understood how A Beautiful Mind won best picture over Fellowship of the Ring.
I did not get to watch The Shawshank Redemption in 1994 but did watch Forrest Gump, I was 15 and I loooooooooooooved it and was most happy it took home that many awards. I would see the trailer of Shawshank Remption here and there and the line “hope can drive a man insane” and the image of some guy throwing his hands up in the air in the rain, stayed with me. I watched the movie Shawshank Redemption in 2000 and was MOVED, INSPIRED, and heck..words fail me here. I watch it for inspiration now when I feel hope is leaving me and it works. I definitely think it should have won the best picture oscar in 1994 and it is possibly one of the best movies ever made, one of the all time top 3 definitely, if not the BEST EVER. When I realise that it didn’t win the best picture and that it wasn’t a hit in the year it was released, I am disappointed in human beings. I hope someday EVERYONE understands the power of “hope”. I hope.
who the fuck says shawshank is not the best movie of all times?this person needs some ass kickin.
Triflic, thanks for the taking the time to reply.
Triflic’s A BEAUTIFUL MIND tirade:
I would not have had a big problem with A Beautiful Mind, if it was not based on a true story. There are so may liberties taken with the story over ‘the real-life story’ that any ‘complexity’ has been white-washed out of the story. Furthermore, The movie is both obvious, telegraphing nearly everything that is going to happen with amateurish foreshadowing (‘cue-ing ominous/romantic/sentimental music at every opportunity!) and sleight-of-hand with the spy-plot.
Forgive me for upsetting anyone, but it is a movie designed to let those with ‘poor taste in film’ feel like they ‘get’ an art film. Yes, I know how snobbish that sounds, and I don’t mean to be a prig, but this is my point…To appreciate most artforms (literature, poetry, cuisine, wine, cinema) you have to spend a little time thinking on things, perhaps noticing subtlety, complexity, a flourish, and some balance. OK, it’s official, I’m a snob…there is no way to communicate it (that I’m capable of) that doesn’t sound ‘elitist’…But if you watch a lot of movies (and actually look a the full spectrum, from high-culture to low-culture…Hollywood Movies to All the different World Cinema, Independant to Government Subsidized etc. etc. From 2005 to 1895, B&W to Colour, Silent to Talkie, Animated to Documentary…You get the point)…Anyway, if you watch the full spectrum of film, I think you begin distinguish between artistic quality, and sentimental hackery…
A Beautiful Mind Is Hackery (don’t get me wrong, the technical aspects of A Beautiful Mind are mosty fine… but everything else is painful…It is melodramatic, obvious (often trite)…The dialogue is bad…The acting is good, but the script is awful.
Nash isn’t a human being…he is a Saint in the film…And Jennifer Connelly (an actress I like very much) is a cipher and a more of a prop than a character. I wamt my drama to have real humanity, not cereal-box morality.
I really don’t mean to be insulting, but if you watch most of the Studio films that come out…Yes I could understand how A Beautiful Mind could stand out compared to something like “The Chronicles of Riddick” or “My Big Fat Greek Wedding”…But it’s like comparing gummy worms to gourmet jelly beans….They are still $0.25 cent candy and only make your teeth hurt after eating them.
Also, don’t get me wrong, there are plenty of fantastic American (even Hollywood) Films (take this years Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind, for example, or even last years Master and Commander (which starred two of the actors from A Beautiful Mind: Russell Crowe and Paul Bettany)
Wow this has been a long rant…Sorry to have bored you with my ‘pretentions’…I’m not trying to offend anyone really, It just rankles me that “A Beautiful Mind”, “The English Patient”, “Shakespeare in Love”, “Titanic”, and friggen “Braveheart” are considered the ‘best pictures’ of their year by an academy of film professionals…
Is that all that can be said about it? That it sucked? It was boring?
What other films could have been nominated that year (2001) that would have deserved the Best Picture award?
one word on a beautiful mind: boring.
and some more words. Look it would have been alright if the guy had made some sort of innovation in an area that matters, but game theory? that’s boring and useless.
yay!
They set it up like it was going to be all cloak and dagger and interesting and then it was like “Just kidding, he’s just crazy.”
Beautiful Mind simply sucks. That’s what it is.
To those who didnt like “A Beautiful Mind”, can you tell us why you hated this movie?
Glad to see that I’m not alone in my hatred of A Beautiful Mind!! Should have never been made.
I absolutely love The Shawshank Redemption, it was so moving. It really should have won best picture. Also, Morgan Freeman finally won an oscar last night for best supporting actor in Million Dollar Baby, but if you ask me, he should have gotten one a looooooong time ago.
Which ironically received the oscar for it’s bafflingly chopped-to-hell “Return of the King” theatrical cut…easily the worst of the trilogy…Things were massively improved by the Recent Extended cut of the third film…
That is if you can sit down for 4 hours to watch it all.
For me, however, the best film not to win an Oscar is “FARGO”…and the oscar went to THE ENGLISH PATIENT…WTF? dumbest movie ever.
And for the record (see also one of the other movie blog threads…Braveheart is also deserving of the “Worst Best Picture Oscar Ever Awarded” But there are at least 20 pictures which fall under that category…
John: Let’s just amend your comment: “I have never understood how A Beautiful Mind won best picture over Fellowship of the Ring.”
to:
“I have never understood how A Beautful Mind won best picture” and leave it at that…shall we?
While I agree that Fellowship is waaay better than a beautiful mind, it was more vastly improved as the extended cut. And it is difficult to judge Lord of the Rings as any of its separate three parts…best just to look at the film as a 12hour (and change) single film…which is deserving of a best picture oscar.
Shawshank is just a brilliant piece of film. I’d always thought it was one of my private little gems (like Searching for Bobby Fischer and The Paper). I’m so glad to see it so well-loved by so many!
Just a correction John, Tom Hanks beat Morgan Freeman for the Oscar. Robbins wasn’t even nominated for the Oscar that year (what a shame).
That movie was only good if you’ve actually read the books.
Never read books. Have no desire to. Loved film.
A Beautiful Mind was just to dumb a film to be worthy of anything much, though.
I think in recent years, LA Confidential is the best Oscar-type film to not win Best Picture. Obviously, I think there’s been so many brilliant films that haven’t won BP, but I’d not seriously argue that Donnie Darko, Being John Malkovitch or even Fargo are films with the widespread popularity that would justify an Oscar. They’re niche films (to different degrees), and that’s OK. But LA Confidential did all the things Oscar-winning films are supposed to, brilliantly. But there was a film about a big boat in the same year, so it got overlooked.
I agree on SHAWSHANK, but FELLOWSHIP? That movie was only good if you’ve actually read the books. If not, then it was an ass-numbing 3 hour ordeal. You should not have to read the book to know wtf is happening in the movie. As such, BEAUTIFUL MIND deserved the Oscar hands down.
Much as I loved “Fellowship of the Ring”, IMHO, “A Beautiful Mind” deserved to win the award nonetheless.
I cannot comment on “The Shawshank Redemption” as I have not had the pleasure to watch it yet, although at that time, I also couldnt understand the fuss about “Forrest Gump”, after seeing it 3 years later, (yes, it took me that long to want to watch it) I became a big fan, and my respect for Mr. Hanks renewed.
I have no idea why there is so much “A Beautiful Mind” bashing. The movie is simply amazing, easily my #3 of all time. Although I really liked Fellowship, I think that if it won Best Picture, it would have meant Two Towers and ROTK would have to win by default too. I was happy with the Academy’s decision to celebrate the trilogy by giving it to the final film only. It seemed to be an all-encompassing award that way.
But as for Shawshank over Forrest Gump, heck yeah.
I always considered “The Shawshank Redemption” the most overrated movie ever made… that year must had won “Pulp Fiction”… and the best film ever to not win oscar: Citizen Kane (it’s only one poll!!)