1. Ordinary People - 1980
Here it is. The big one. I repeat: The BIG ONE. The biggest Oscar travesty in the history of the awards show. Robert Redford's lifetime movie of the week known as, Ordinary People took home the award for Best Picture. What's the big deal? It beat Martin Scorsese's Raging Bull. Not only did it win the top prize but Redford himself was inexplicably awarded a statuette for best director over Scorsese. Words cannot adequately describe how insane that is. So, some of you may be wondering, what's the big deal? Redford's debut as a filmmaker told the story of an upper-middle class family falling apart after the death of one of their sons. It's a well structured, well acted, and competently directed film about loss, guilt and everything that comes in the wake of tragic loss. It also happens to be overly morose, overwrought and moves at a snail's pace. Meanwhile, Scorsese's Raging Bull tells the story of middleweight boxer Jake Lamotta. It chronicles his rise and fall not only of his career as a fighter but also as a human being and how sometimes those two things are inextricably linked for us. It's beautifully shot in black and white, vicious in its fight scenes, brutally honest everywhere else and features a performance for the ages by Robert DeNiro. The scene with Lamotta in a jail cell alone probably netted DeNiro his Oscar. I'll put this to you another way, a few years ago the top 100 film critics were asked to pick (individually) their best movies of the 1980s. Raging Bull was an almost UNANIMOUS pick for the number one spot. Those few who failed to pick Raging Bull at number one all had it listed in their top ten. Just to be clear: That's for the entire DECADE. Still, the Academy failed to recognize it as the best film of that particular YEAR.