The Nighthawk Awards: 1930-31

That wonderful final shot.

You can read more about this year in film here.  The Best Picture race is discussed here, with reviews of all the nominees.  First there are the categories, followed by all the films with their nominations, then the Globes, where I split the major awards by Drama and Comedy, followed by a few lists at the very end.  If there’s a film you expected to see and didn’t, check the very bottom – it might be eligible in a different year.  Films in red won the Oscar in that category.  Films in blue were nominated.  But remember, there’s still only eight categories at this point.

Nighthawk Awards:

• Best Picture

1. City Lights
2. Dracula
3. The Public Enemy
4. Le Million
5. Earth

 

The Nighthawk Awards: 1927-28

You can read more about this year in film here.  The Best Picture race is discussed here, with reviews of all the nominees.  There are the categories, followed by all the films with their nominations, then the Globes, where I split the major awards by Drama and Comedy, followed by a few lists at the very end.  If there’s a film you expected to see and didn’t, check the very bottom.  Films in red won the Oscar in that category.  Films in blue were nominated.  But remember, there were only a handful of Oscar categories in this, the first year of the Oscars.

Nighthawk Awards:

• Best Picture

1. Sunrise
2. Metropolis
3. The Man Who Laughs
4. The Circus
5. 7th Heaven

 

The Nighthawk Awards: 1912-26

You can read more about this year in film here.  Since this is the pre-Oscar era, clearly there are no Best Picture reviews to link to.  So, without further ado, here are the initial Nighthawk Awards, covering the entire pre-Oscar era.  There are the categories, followed by all the films with their nominations, then the Globes, where I split the major awards by Drama and Comedy, followed by a few lists at the very end.  If there’s a film you expected to see and didn’t, check the very bottom.

Nighthawk Awards:

• Best Picture:

1. Greed
2. The Battleship Potemkin
3. The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari
4. The Gold Rush
5. The Phantom of the Opera

note:  A good year for films because there are so many.  The next five, in order, are The Hunchback of Notre Dame, The Birth of a Nation, Faust, The Last Laugh and Foolish Wives and the **** films go all the way down to #16.

 

The 100 Greatest Directors of All-Time 2.0: The Complete List

George Lucas and Steven Spielberg present a special Oscar to their hero: Akira Kurosawa

So, does this supersede my original list?  Well, lists are always organic – they grow and evolve over time.  I’ve fiddled with some of the categories and new films have come out and I’ve seen more films from some directors.  So, my original list was what it was in October of 2009.  This is where I am now, two years later, and one year overdue.  The list will continue to evolve over time.  The list never quite stops.  But here’s where I put it up.

I will remind people again that if you don’t see a director and you’re wondering why, please check the Introduction first.  It became clear on the original list that people didn’t read that instruction.  Please don’t repeat that.  And don’t ask about Godard.  See the Intro.

Also, we’ll again find out who reads this part, the film in parenthesis is not necessarily their best film (hell, with Mankiewicz, it’s his worst).  But it is the film I chose to write about, for whatever reason.

 

The History of the Academy Awards: Best Picture – 1940

David O. Selznick triumphs again with Joan Fontaine and Laurence Olivier in Alfred Hitchcock's Rebecca (1940)

The 13th Academy Awards, for the film year 1940.  The nominations were announced on February 10, 1941 and the awards were held on February 27, 1941.

Best Picture:  Rebecca

• The Grapes of Wrath
• The Philadelphia Story
• The Great Dictator
• The Letter
• The Long Voyage Home
• Foreign Correspondent
• Our Town
• Kitty Foyle
• All This and Heaven Too

Most Surprising Omission:  Arise My Love

Best Film Not Nominated:  His Girl Friday

Rank (out of 82) Among Best Picture Years:  #50

 

The Best of the Nighthawk Awards: The 1930′s

The animated film that really started it all: Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs

Before diving into the Best Pictures of 1939, I’ll cover the decade at a glance with my own awards.

1930 – 1939

Total Films I’ve Seen:  460

Films That Make the Top 5 in a Category:  35

Best Film Not to Make the Top 5 in Any Category:  Scarface

Film of the Decade:  The Wizard of Oz

Worst Film of the Decade:  Oliver Twist (1932)

Worst Best Picture Nominee of the Decade:  Cleopatra

Worst Film of the Decade made by a Top 100 Director:  Jamaica Inn

 

The History of the Academy Awards: Best Picture – 1936

"I must have more steps" - the vision of Florenz Ziegfeld in The Great Ziegfeld (1936)

The 9th Academy Awards, for the year 1936.  The nominations were announced on February 7, 1937 and the awards were held on March 4, 1937.

Best Picture:  The Great Ziegfeld

• Mr. Deeds Goes to Town
• A Tale of Two Cities
• Dodsworth
• Libeled Lady
• The Story of Louis Pasteur
• Romeo and Juliet
• Three Smart Girls
• Anthony Adverse
• San Francisco

Most Surprising Omission:  My Man Godfrey

Best Eligible Film Not Nominated:  Modern Times

Rank (out of 82) Among Best Picture Years:  #74

 

The Best of the Nighthawk Awards: The 1920′s

One of the amazing surreal scenes in The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari (1919)

As I have gone through each year in film, both in covering the year, and later, in covering the Oscar nominees for Best Picture, I have included very little of my own nominees.   Partially it’s because I don’t want to throw too much of my own stuff in these and partially because I included all of my own nominees in my History of the Academy Awards series as I covered each category.

But, as I finish each decade, I’d like to take a look back and cover the best of each decade in each category.  So, I’ll go with each current Oscar category (other than documentaries and shorts) and I’ll list my top 5 covering an entire decade (in this case, covering all of film history up until 1929).

Because I’m covering a whole decade at a time, I am doing away with my requirement to keep to Academy eligible years and I just go with the original release date.

 

The History of the Academy Awards: Best Picture – 1930-1931

Richard Dix and Irene Dunne were both Oscar nominated for Cimarron (1931) which won Best Picture. None of it was deserved.

The 4th Academy Awards, for the year of August 1, 1930 to July 31, 1931, with the nominations announced on October 5, 1931 and the awards ceremony held on November 10, 1931.

Best Picture:  Cimarron

• The Front Page
• Trader Horn
• Skippy
• East Lynne

Most Surprising Omission:  A Free Soul

Best Eligible Film Not Nominated:  City Lights

Rank (out of 82): Among Best Picture Years:  #81

 

The History of the Academy Awards: Best Picture – 1927-1928

The 1st Academy Awards – for the film year of August 1, 1927 to July 31, 1928 – awards held on May 16, 1929

Best Production: Wings

Wings: the first Best Picture winner (1927)

• 7th Heaven
• The Racket
  

Formerly Listed as Nominees:

• The Last Command
• The Way of All Flesh

Best Artistic Quality of Production:  Sunrise

• Chang
• The Crowd

Most Surprising Omission:  The Circus

Best Eligible Film Not Nominated:  Metropolis

Rank (out of 82) Among Best Picture Years:  #72