6. Gladiator
Oscar attention can do different things to different people. For Halle Berry and Cuba Gooding Jnr, the highest accolade in American film industry was pretty much a kiss of death, as neither has made anything like a good film since winning, but for others, the award can kick off bigger and better things. Ridley Scott on the other hand has been nominated as Best Director on three separate occasions, and though he failed to win any of them, each subsequent nomination was for a superior film. The middle film in the sequence was of course Gladiator, the grandiose tale of Russell Crowe's general turned slave turned hero, which ranks as one of the director's best ever. It is artfully crafted, well acted and a spectacle worthy of the blockbuster title, standing head and shoulders over the 1992 film of the same name, which focuses on illegal underground boxing, and features a cast that reads like a Where Are They Now? hall of fame. Justifiably panned, and commercially shunned, the film is cliché-laden, inauthentic and seems loaded with self-conscious weight that just doesn't really come across.
Handy Watching Tip With Russell Crowe, good. With Cuba Gooding Jnr, bad.