Introduction

oscarsThis is a companion piece to three different series.  The first is The History of the Academy Awards, in which I covered each category in individual posts.  This was originally done in 2009 and additions were included in 2010.  You can find links to all of these pieces in each individual category.  I have grouped all of the categories together for the same reason that I did so originally – because most pieces on the Oscars don’t approach the awards through the categories, but through the years.  This specific piece is designed to take a closer look at the decade and how I think the Academy did in those years.

The second series is my Year in Film series.  That is mentioned here because in those pieces I included paragraphs about the Oscars as a whole for each year and included a considerable amount of trivia.  Since I had based my Year in Film series and eligibility as such on the Academy calendar, it all seemed very relevant.  Also, I include various prizes (Worst Oscar, Worst Nomination, Worst Omission, etc) and I didn’t want to repeat myself, so following the links will bring you there.  Those links are at the end of this piece, where I do a brief summation of each year and how the Academy did.  One note on the Year in Film posts – I did those before Oscars.org started putting up official information about release dates.  Several films have been moved from the years where they appeared in those posts – see the Nighthawk Awards posts for more accurate placement – I have included links in the years. (more…)

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The darkness of the winter light perhaps lit by the illumination of God, depending on how you look at it.

The darkness of the winter light perhaps lit by the illumination of God, depending on how you look at it.

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 (or Globe, in the Globes section).  Films in blue were nominated.  Films with an asterisk (*) were Consensus nominees (a scale I put together based on the various awards) while those with a double asterisk (**) were the Consensus winners.

I’m listing the top 10 in the categories but only the top 5 earn Nighthawk nominations.

Nighthawk Awards:

  • Best Picture
  1. Winter Light
  2. The Great Escape
  3. Stray Dog
  4. Tom Jones  **
  5. Ivan’s Childhood
  6. The Bad Sleep Well
  7. Shoot the Piano Player
  8. Knife in the Water
  9. 8 1/2
  10. Hud  *

Analysis:  In one sense a very strong year, as there are three more **** films: White Nights, The Leopard and The Birds.  On the other hand, notice anything about those films?  Of those 13 films, 9 of them are Foreign films.  There are only 4 English Language films (my #14 is an English Language film: Love with the Proper Stranger).  This doesn’t get a lot better in my ***.5 films that round out my Best Picture list: Love with the Proper Stranger, Sundays and Cybele, The Four Days of Naples, This Sporting Life, The Sword in the Stone and Death in the Garden.  That’s 19 films, 12 of which are Foreign films, and another two (Tom Jones, This Sporting Life) which are British, so it’s really a damn weak year for Hollywood.  And 7 of these films aren’t originally from 1963 (the full list is way down below).
Tom Jones doesn’t just win the Consensus Best Picture – it sweeps the awards, the last film to win all the available awards until Schindler’s List. (more…)

101 Dalmations - the best of a weak decade for animation

1960 – 1969

Total Films I’ve Seen:  801

Films That Make the Top 5 in Any Category:  40

Best Film Not to Make the Top 5 in Any Category:  Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid

Film of the Decade:  Bonnie and Clyde

Worst Film of the Decade:  Horrors of Spider Island

Worst Best Picture Nominee of the Decade:  Doctor Dolittle

Worst Film of the Decade Made by a Top 100 Director:  Tonight for Sure (more…)

Tom Jones won Best Picture in 1963 and made Albert Finney a star.

The 36th Academy Awards for the film year 1963.

Best Picture:  Tom Jones

  • Lilies of the Field
  • America, America
  • How the West Was Won
  • Cleopatra

Most Surprising Omission:  Hud

Best Eligible Film Not Nominated:  The Great Escape

Rank (out of 82) Among Best Picture Years:  #78 (more…)

the magnificent jump in The Great Escape (1963)

My Top 20:

  1. The Great Escape
  2. Stray Dog
  3. Winter Light
  4. High and Low
  5. Tom Jones
  6. Ivan’s Childhood
  7. Knife in the Water
  8. Hud
  9. 8 1/2
  10. The Leopard
  11. The Birds
  12. Love with the Proper Stranger
  13. Sundays with Cybele
  14. The Idiot
  15. Four Days of Naples
  16. Sanjuro
  17. The Music Room
  18. This Sporting Life
  19. Dr. No
  20. Il Diavolo (more…)