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

By Jack Pooley / March 6, 2018

48. Argo (2012)

It's fair to say that some Best Picture winners stand the test of time and others quickly cool with audiences. Argo, though a highly entertaining historical thriller, would fall into the latter camp.

Wildly heralded as the height of Ben Affleck's directorial prowess on release - and in fairness, his Best Director snub was a bit baffling - Argo is a cute mix of period thriller and Hollywood satire, such that it's easy to see why the navel-gazers among the Academy sprung for it so feverishly.

It unfortunately plays fast and loose with the truth and is a little too safe at times, but the ensemble cast crackles - especially John Goodman and Alan Arkin - and it's efficiently suspenseful when it needs to be, even as it throws veracity to the wind.