Oscars: Every Best Picture Winner Ever Ranked From Worst To Best

By Jack Pooley / March 6, 2018

72. Tom Jones (1963)

Tony Richardson's adaptation of Henry Fielding's classic 1749 novel prevailed in an extremely soft year for the Oscars, where it ended up going head-to-head with the interminable, four-plus-hour Cleopatra of all movies.

What makes this picaresque adventure fly is Albert Finney's stonking central performance, an agreeably meta-tone which offsets a lot of the potential narrative stodge, and Walter Lassally's marvellous cinematography.

It's a Best Picture winner that's basically just "there", but a solid entertainment all the same, if perhaps too slight for its own good at times. Still, it holds a special place in Academy history for being the only film to ever receive three (!) Best Supporting Actress nominations. Bravo for that.