Oscars: 10 Best Pictures That Actually Were The Best

10. Casablanca - 1944

It took until the 16th Academy Awards to get an unequivocally correct choice for Best Picture and, indeed, a true classic that could easily make the case for being the best Best Picture of them all. A war time drama that's the perfect balance of cynicism and sentiment, Casablanca is one of those films where everything comes together just right. The script is endlessly quoted and referenced and Humphrey Bogart is at his grizzled romantic best. Other nominees: 1944 was last Academy Awards ceremony for another 66 years to choose between 10 nominees for the big prize and some were obviously just there to make up the numbers (The Ox-Bow Incident was only nominated for this single award, the last Best Picture nominee to pick up no other nominations). The war understandably cast its shadow over Hollywood at this time and the other fancied nominees, For Whom the Bell Tolls and Watch On the Rhine, shared Casablanca'a anti-fascist theme, but without its spark or charm. Britain's best hope, meanwhile, was the full on war propaganda of Noel Coward's In Which We Serve. Other deserving contenders: The war also played a significant part in the year's other noteworthy productions, like Billy Wilder's Five Graves to Cairo. Perhaps the best of the bunch was a British picture much more subtle, nuanced and emotionally satisfying than In Which We Serve, Powell and Pressburger's The Life and Death of Colonel Blimp. Unfortunately the war audience were so unreceptive to its sympathetic portrayal of a German army officer that it wasn't released in the US until two years later, and only then in a recut form, making it ineligible for Best Picture anyway.