After the Academy Awards this past Sunday, many viewers immediately made plans to see The King's Speech, the Oscar winner for Best Picture. Since the turn of the millennium, a number of fantastic films have captured hearts, minds and gold-plated statuettes of knights standing on film reels. So where does The King's Speech fit into this group of Oscar-winning motion pictures? Here are my top five Best Picture winners of the past decade.
5. The King's Speech (2010) is the latest addition to the Best Picture Club. The film tells the story of King George VI and his attempt to thwart a painful stutter. Casting Colin Firth in his best role to date - he won the Oscar for Best Leading Actor - along with the skilled Helena Bonham Carter and Geoffrey Rush, The King's Speech is entertaining with a special taste of British comedy. Tom Hooper's attention to detail and clever directing earned him the Oscar for Best Director. This film is superb all around, but lacks the je ne sais quoi of the top four.
4. No Country for Old Men (2007) is the second best film from the acclaimed Coen brothers (the first being The Big Lebowski). Many have argued that P.T. Anderson's There Will Be Blood was more deserving of the Oscar. How would I determine the winner? We should pit No Country's "oil man" Daniel Plainview (Daniel Day-Lewis) against Blood's killing machine Anton Chigurh (Javier Bardem) in a head-to-head battle of villains. Here's what would happen: Plainview starts a seemingly endless monologue about drinking Chigurh's milkshake while Chigurh looks on with a stoic visage. Chigurh calmly proceeds to kill Plainview with a cattle gun. Enough said.
3. The Hurt Locker (2009) earned Kathryn Bigelow the first Oscar for Best Director ever given to a female director. I'm sure some people are still bummed that Avatar didn't win the Oscar that year. Here's my take: Avatar was all flash. The Hurt Locker was the whole shebang. End of story. The great attention to detail was complemented by gut-wrenching scenes and a few Michael Bay-esque blowups. I honestly can say this was one of the only war movies that left me satisfied on every level. Also, Jeremy Renner (The Town) brought an unprecedented level of coolness to defusing huge bombs in Iraq.
2. Million Dollar Baby (2004) packs a triple punch with stars Hilary Swank, Clint Eastwood and Morgan Freeman. When you combine Eastwood and Freeman, you either get a movie about two old geezers (think The Bucket List) or pure excellence. Luckily, this particular result was the latter. Baby follows the story of a prodigious boxing trainer and his star female boxer. The movie simultaneously satisfies blood lust a la Fight Club and reaches the tear-jerking level of Nicholas Sparks novels. From now on, I vow to watch every movie that features Hilary Swank beating up women or Morgan Freeman narrating - although my second goal may not be realistic.
1. The Departed (2006) is the top winner of the decade. Is anything missing from this gangster flick? It has violence, sexuality, romance, deception, friendships, Nicholson, DiCaprio and Damon? Yep, all there. Oh yeah, and throw some drugs, Mark Wahlberg, Boston accents and Ray Winstone on top. This Martin Scorsese masterpiece is the kingpin of gangster movies, outdoing Scorsese's own Goodfellas and Mean Streets. Why does this top the rest of the decade's winners? Because The Departed combines every great element of those movies: it has brilliant acting, chilling twists, character depth, emotional roller-coasters and the same intensity of an epic tale. As a side note, Marky Mark's tirades of insults and f-bombs deserved an Oscar nomination by themselves. Thrilling and captivating on multiple levels, The Departed left no holes to be filled and set the bar for future gangster films.
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