Best Pick

A fascinating history of motion pictures through the lens of the Academy Awards, Best Pick provides a decade-by-decade look at the Oscars by examining the Best Picture winners, highest-grossing films, and biggest misses alongside a discussion of the trends, innovations, and stories that defined the decade.

A fascinating history of motion pictures through the lens of the Academy Awards, the Best Picture winners, and the box-office contenders.

In Best Pick: A Journey through Film History and the Academy Awards, John Dorney, Jessica Regan, and Tom Salinsky provide a captivating decade-by-decade exploration of the Oscars. For each decade, they examine the making of classic films, trends and innovations in cinema, behind-the-scenes scandals at the awards ceremony, and who won and why. Twenty films are reviewed in-depth, alongside ten detailed “making-of” accounts and capsule reviews of every single Best Picture winner in history. In addition, each Best Picture winner is carefully scrutinized to answer the ultimate question: “Did the Academy get it right?”

Full of wonderful stories, cogent analysis, and fascinating insights, Best Pick is a witty and enthralling look at the people, politics, movies, and trends that have shaped our cinematic world.

Acknowledgements

Foreword

Introduction

A pedantic note about years

Chapter 1: The 1920s

Chapter 2: The 1930s

Chapter 3: The 1940s

Chapter 4: The 1950s

Chapter 5: The 1960s

Chapter 6: The 1970s

Chapter 7: The 1980s

Chapter 8: The 1990s

Chapter 9: The 2000s

Chapter 10: The 2010s

Afterword

Appendix: Our cinematic journey

Notes

Index

About the Authors