Oscars: Every Best Picture Winner Ever Ranked From Worst To Best
32. Marty (1955)
From the pen of screenwriting genius Paddy Chayefsky (Network), Marty is a no-bulls*** Best Picture winner, a snappy, 90-minute romantic drama with no fancy tricks: just a wonderfully earnest, charming script and a deeply affecting, Oscar-winning Ernest Borgnine performance.
Sometimes it's the smallest pictures that hit home the hardest, and Marty certainly qualifies. Perhaps in a stronger year the Academy might've opted for something a little more "substantial", but Chayefsky's masterful screenplay makes a proud, powerful humanist statement and leaves audiences on a fuzzy high without talking down to them or trading in platitudes.
By turns sad, honest and joyful, it feels like a real slice of life more than most Best Picture winners of its era or, really, ever.