Every Best Picture Oscar Movie Winner Of 21st Century Ranked Worst To Best
3. Parasite (2019)
Should have won!
What director Bong Joon-ho achieves in Parasite is the cinematic equivalent of a juggling act, blending a variety of genres together to craft a film about family compassion, class inequality, and the need for contentment that drives us all.
The first foreign-language Best Picture winner, the dark comedy’s historical triumph offered a vital step forward for the Academy, but its success shouldn’t be limited to its awards. This is a film so terrifying, amusing, violent, and heartbreaking that every twist of its story - driven by the poor Kim family's ploy to infiltrate the lives of the affluent Parks - delivers a new way of looking at the world and the nature of moviemaking itself.
Alternatively slapstick and devastatingly emotional, Parasite’s themes echoed throughout the world, providing a universal treatise on human need, greed, and dissatisfaction. A strange winner it may be, but it wasn't an entirely shocking one.
Though far from an uplifting tale, Joon-ho’s masterwork remains strangely joyous; a truly unique Best Picture winner that defies genre, storytelling conventions and audience expectation to craft a drama as creative as it is life-affirming.