Every Best Picture Oscar Winner Ranked Worst To Best

Produced by a career-best Ben Affleck, Argo mixes old-fashioned moviemaking with modern politics and Hollywood satire to create an admittedly bracing but safe spectacle.

Affleck’s direction injects adequate grit and wry humour into the historically inaccurate drama, but Argo, for all its crowd-pleasing excitement, still feels like a weak victor, doing what many modern thrillers have done far better both before and since. It ticks the boxes on an entertainment level, but that’s about the cut of it.