Best Pictures from the Outside In: The Tournament
 

Before the 2003 awards got bumped up to February, the Oscars used to constitute their very own March Madness. To this day, there's an obsessive-compulsive tournament inside the Oscars just dying to get out! And with such a bracket-friendly figure of 80 winners thus far—that is, 16 qualifying heats of 5 pictures apiece—we just couldn't resist. After every five roundtables, Goatdog, Nathaniel, and I privately rank the winners in relation to each other, collate these scores, and thus privately arrive at our consensus pick from that historical period. (For example, All Quiet on the Western Front and The Departed have emerged as our collective pets from the first five years of Oscar and the most recent five years, respectively.) Once these first-round contenders have been established, we'll have a series of grueling face-offs until we discover our collectively preferred Best Picture winner. Stay tuned!

Cuz this is much more fun than, you know, just calling each other up and deciding what we like over the phone.
(The numbered listings in gray let you know where each picture placed in our internal balloting.)

Qualifying Rounds
Boldfaced titles are your winners!
(The numbered listings in gray let you know where each picture placed in our internal balloting.)		 Quarterfinals Semifinals Finals Champ




Reader Poll		 1928–1932
All Quiet on the Western Front (1)
Wings (2)
Grand Hotel (3)
The Broadway Melody (4)
Cimarron (5)









Reader Poll		 1933–1937
It Happened One Night (1)
Mutiny on the Bounty (2)
The Great Ziegfeld (3)
The Life of Émile Zola (4)
Cavalcade (5)





Reader Poll		 1938–1942
Gone with the Wind (1)
Rebecca (2)
How Green Was My Valley (3)
Mrs. Miniver (4)
You Can't Take It with You (5)









Reader Poll		 1943–1947
Readers' Pick TBA
Casablanca (1)
The Best Years of Our Lives (2)
Gentleman's Agreement (3)
The Lost Weekend (4)
Going My Way (5)







1948–1952







1953–1957



1958–1962







1963–1967



1968–1972







1973–1977



1978–1982







1983–1987





Reader Poll		 1988–1992
Readers' Pick TBA
The Silence of the Lambs (1)
Unforgiven (2)
Dances with Wolves (3)
Rain Man (4)
Driving Miss Daisy (5)









Reader Poll		 1993–1997
Schindler's List (1)
Titanic (2)
The English Patient (3)
Braveheart (4)
Forrest Gump (5)




Reader Poll		 1998–2002
Shakespeare in Love (1)
American Beauty (2)
Chicago (3)
A Beautiful Mind (4)
Gladiator (5)









Reader Poll		 2003–2007
The Departed (1)
The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King (2)
Million Dollar Baby (3)
No Country for Old Men (4)
Crash (5)


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