2. Best Picture = Best Film?
This category should probably be renamed to "Academy Film Of The Year" much like the way the AFI labels their category "AFI Films Of The Year", given how little relevance the term "Best Picture" really has in relation to the Oscars. Perhaps the most classic example of a Best Picture snub is Orson Welles' Citizen Kane, which was nominated for the gong but lost out to John Ford's rather forgettable How Green Was My Valley. It seems ludicrous in retrospect that Kane, widely considered one of the best films ever made, didn't win the award, and that's precisely because of the faux-authoritative stamp these awards shows like to place on the gongs they give out, that the winner
is the best film of the year, when, of course, it is only the best film that appeals to the middling tastes of the Academy's staid demographic and met their stringent guidelines. And just why else is Best Picture a bit of a misnomer?