If I remember right Ryder’s the one who brought the project to Coppola, so from the start I don’t think he had an option to make it without her as the female lead. I’ve heard him talk about deciding on his own to cast Reeves for the box office / star power, but that also seems like the kind of thing you say when…

I get why people don’t like it, but I think it’s really good. It looks great and has an amazing score. I think the tone is intentional, and I appreciate that the movie’s an insanely over-the-top gothic horror melodrama. Most of the performances are pitched appropriately for the kind of movie it is—Oldman and Hopkins…

I’m going to somewhat disagree. It’s visually gorgeous and it’s over the top in some really fun ways. Perhaps more significantly, it made it so monsters in movies were no longer considered to be just for campy, low-budget movies. Without Dracula, we probably don’t get The Shape of Water, or really just about anything…

Not to mention The Matrix, Toy Story 2 and South Park: Bigger, Longer and Uncut.

I would have been much happier with a Boyhood, Grand Budapest, or Whiplash win.

A million times yes to Breaking the Waves. With the exception of Fargo, it could have handily beat all others in 1996.

Wasn’t convinced at first, but on the third read through of your comment you’ve sold me.

It’s not surprising that so many of these are non-English films — the Best Foreign Picture nominees are routinely better than most, and sometimes even all, of the Best Picture nominees, as it’s a decidedly less political nomination process for that category — they don’t get there off hype and Oscar bait, they get…

I don’t think anyone suggested that Edward Scissorhands is better than Goodfellas.

Man did Stanley Kubrick get robbed.

Logan was really satisfying, especially after a decade of bloodless superhero films, but I don’t get the hype for it. Yeah, it was good, but it wasn’t mind blowing.

Thank you for making this “shoulda noms” instead of “shoulda wons”. I whole-heartedly agree with every choice here - especially 2001 - but I’m also glad you don’t spend a ton of energy shitting on the original Best Picture winners.

so happy to see rushmore on this list. it is a perfect comedy. a story about plays filmed like a play.

This is a pretty excellent list of films. Some Best Picture winners were questionable (Cimarron and Crash, for example) but the suggestions here are fun. I’m not entirely against Bram Stoker’s Dracula like many here are. It swept the visuals that year for a reason. It’s incredibly stylish and as an operatic quality…

It’s weird how I love or really appreciate almost every nominee during the 70s and early 80s, but I can’t say the same about subsequent decades. I wonder if that’s me/my personal tastes, or cinema in general.

1999 could fill its own alternate all-timer list of rejects (though I would be sad to exclude The Insider from it):

Correct list:

I think it also caused them to somehow conclude that if people loved Nolan’s Batman, they’d also love if another visually distinctive filmmaker (Snyder) was in charge of everything! Whereas to me the lesson of Nolan’s Batman movies is: Let different filmmakers approach different superheroes different ways! WB could…

City Girl is so good. Especially its first half is one of the greatest onscreen depictions of romance ever.

They’ve always been eligible, though only one was ever nominated. The separate category was only added in 2002.