10 Best Picture Oscar Winners That Aged Terribly

The Best Picture of 1988, Rain Man, is a bit different to the other films on this list. Rain Man is a good film that has aged poorly, due to increasing medical knowledge, and social understanding of a condition we now know is quite common.

For those unfamiliar, Dustin Hoffman plays Ray Babbitt, a man who has the condition Savant Syndrome, which is a disorder related to the autism spectrum. Essentially, Babbitt is a superpowered genius, who is seriously hampered by his condition’s negative features. He is confined to an institution until the younger brother he didn't know he had, played by Tom Cruise, shows up and they go on a Road Trip doing all kinds of neat tricks.

The film feels dated now because our understanding of spectrum disorders has expanded so massively in the past thirty years. In 1988 spectrum disorders were largely still a mystery to most people, so the film was kind of groundbreaking. It was really the first film to feature a leading character with a disorder like this.

However, most spectrum disorders aren’t like Savant syndrome, which is presented in the film as a kind of superpower. Audiences today are much more aware of spectrum disorders, and almost everyone knows that the vast majority don’t manifest themselves like this.

You only have to look at the lukewarm reaction that the producers of the film The Accountant had last year when that film used autism as a sort of superpower. The film wasn’t completely savaged, but Ben Affleck’s autistic killer led to a significant amount of eye rolling.

Rain Man is a good film, but it is a text from another medical era. The fact that it does feel like it has aged poorly is only something to celebrate.