10 Best Picture Oscar Winners That Aged Terribly

This is one of those movies that people hold incredibly dear to their hearts, as demonstrated by its cult following. That makes sense because a lot of people watch this as a kid. But if you do love this movie, then try and watch it with fresh, objective eyes. If you do, what you’ll find is that is an interminably long, tedious, and insufferably saccharine film that has not aged well.

The Sound of Music has aged poorly because it sits in an odd place chronologically. It belongs to a style of musical film that was already feeling obsolete by 1965 when it was released. In the 1960s Hollywood was in the midst of a revolution in filmmaking. Iconic films such as Bonnie and Clyde and Easy Rider tore up the filmmaking playbook in the latter half of the decade. But even by 1965, the decade had seen the likes of Psycho, Dr Strangelove, and Italian maestro Federico Fellini’s 8½.

These films would be the films that shaped the tone and style of filmmaking through to the present day. They would destroy the Hays code, and lead to an overhaul of the rating system for movies. That's why you can watch the Graduate, released only two years after The Sound of Music, and it feels sincere and fresh.

The Sound of Music, conversely, missed that sea change, and that’s why it feels so overwhelmingly ridiculous. Unlike some of the better films (and even musicals) of that era, it now only exists as a channel for soppy nostalgia, or for those looking for irony.

If your film is mainly used as a punchline, like the Sound of Music is, then it demonstrably hasn’t stood the test of time.