The 2024 Oscars are just around the corner, to celebrate that cinema has survived — again — a complicated period. If less than five years ago, the health emergency of the pandemic caused the delay and even cancellation of projects, the writers’ strike did the same. A complicated point that the world of cinema had to face, when it was just recovering from an unexpected situation like COVID.
But in the end, both the box office successes in 2022, and the return to author-quality cinema last year, showed that the industry is recovering. Much more so, when this process implies a rescue of what the seventh art can be. Also, remember that the great honorees during the Oscar ceremony often represent the changes and points of cinema as a whole. One point that the delivery of the Oscar Awards 2024has made it clear, by paying tribute to a long tradition of films that made history. Both as elements of pop culture and as a heritage of audiovisual language.
Disney+ limited time offer: 1.99
YesSubscribe to Disney+ with a discount of up to 67%* on the monthly price for three months and enjoy the entire platform catalog, including the latest releases.
* Offer valid until 03/14/2024. Terms apply.
To explore the capacity of awards to become a mass success, we leave you 7 of the most beloved films that have won the Oscar. From the conclusion of an epic saga, to the journey through the life of a musician who is an essential part of culture. The selection makes it clear that cinema is an art capable of summarizing collective expectations. At the same time, to show the best of the identity of an era. One of its greatest attributes.
The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King
In 2003, the epic film adaptation directed by Peter Jackson, came to an end with the apotheosis of all that he did to the call Rings Trilogyan event. Under the obsessive attention of the director, JRR Tolkien’s work acquired the dimension of an unrepeatable cinematographic event, in its visual scope, attention to detail and cast. To culminate the journey, Jackson took the premise of the ultimate showdown between the forces of good and evil to a setting that raised the stakes of everything done before to its highest point. All thanks to a dazzling staging and a script that managed to tell the story without losing any detail of the literary original.
Also, it was an effort that surpassed everything narrated in the two previous films. With a final section that went down in cinema history for becoming an example of delving into fantastic plots, the film surpassed the technical and conceptual achievement of those that preceded it. That, despite the fact that The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring and The Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers They were pieces of art in themselves.. However, the conclusion to the story showed that Jackson could take considerable risks with on-screen language to achieve success.
The film was recognized not only with the Academy Award for Best Picture in 2004. Also, with ten more awards that showed that the feature film was the conclusion to an unforgettable journey in cinema. So it is still remembered as one of the most beloved films by achieving the feat.
Braveheart
Although Mel Gibson is currently facing a series of successive scandals and his film career is somewhat eroded by them, in 1990 he was a budding director. One, furthermore, that demonstrated his ambition, love of cinema and, especially, his ability to take his vision into complicated terrain. Braveheart, was a biopic that had little history and yes, a lot of elaborate reflection about time, faith and hope. That, embodied in the figure of William Wallace, a beloved figure in medieval Scottish chronicles, known for facing – and dying in the attempt – against Edward I of England.
But Gibson was not satisfied with narrating a life, which was already astonishing in historical research. Carried away by a reverence that would later become one of the film’s lowest points, the director turned his hero into a martyr. More than that, in a tragic legend that subverts not only the British line of successionbut dies in a gory and graphic way on screen.
The feature film caused a stir and opened a wide debate on the biographical topic in the film world. Even so, Mel Gibson overcame the controversy and won the Best Picture statuette for his work in 1996.
Forrest Gump
Another hero, but from pop culture, became the favorite of the Oscars in 1995. The story of a man who He looked at life through the glass of his mother’s teachings and his impossible love for a woman, captivated the public.
But, the work of Robert Zemeckis was much more than a game of references and winks. It was also a large-scale event in the collective memory of North America, which ended up captivating specialized critics.
The result was a film that paid tribute to the exceptional changes of the 20th century, using cutting-edge digital effects and a soundtrack to move. Little by little, Tom Hanks’ performance as the titular character also showed that he was the great actor of his generation and very far from the college comedies that made him known. At the 1995 Oscars celebration, both things came together to give the film — and the performer — the Academy’s highest award.
Schindler’s List
Director Steven Spielberg has an ambivalent relationship with Hollywood’s big awards. The same thing, the awards season used to ignore him, both for not including them in their lists of nominees or for not giving him awards. So despite his great successes between 1970 and 1980, by the beginning of the last decade of the 20th century he had not received Oscar recognition.
In 1994, that would change when the director left behind his sensitive blandishments and homages to pop culture, to enter fully into auteur cinema. Schindler’s List It told in a tragic, elegant and ruthless tone the story of the Nazi genocide against the Jews. A topic that Spielberg had consciously avoided, due to his family heritage. But thanks to the film, he not only reconciled with that part of his life. At the same time, he achieved his crowning work, which took him to a new stylistic and discourse level. Which earned him the Oscar Award for Best Picture in 1994.
The silence of the lambs
Thomas Harris became famous in the American literary field for his saga based on the world of the FBI and serial killers. But despite previous attempts – all failed – it was not until 1991 that his stories found a place in cinema. And they did it by making history. The silence of the lambs surprised by its aesthetically striking cruelty. At the same time, for bringing to the throne of the great Hollywood villains Hannibal Lecter, played for 15 precious minutes by Anthony Hopkins.
But it was Jodie Foster, known for her roles as a child actress and her traumatic performance in Accused by Jonathan Kaplan, the one that made history. Her Clarice Starling was fragile, firm, and at the same time, full of trauma and vulnerable humanity. What did not prevent him from putting all his efforts into catching a ruthless serial killer, while negotiating with another cannibal. The performance catapulted her to the Olympus of the great actresses of the cinema mecca and earned her her second Oscar.
In the end, The silence of the lambs achieved the feat of overcoming the Academy’s natural distrust of genre films and won every award in the main categories. However, the most important was Best Picture in 1992. Quite a triumph for a film that shows a scene with an artistically disemboweled corpse.
The last Emperor
The story of the last Chinese emperor in power, became in the hands of Bernardo Bertolucci, in a baroque reflection on evil, privilege and in the end, collective pain. Everything, in the middle of dazzling settings and with the insistent perception that the figure of Pu Yi (John Lone), as a tragic prisoner of circumstance. Also, as the man who represented China in a decadent period that turned it into a myth.
The director managed to build an epic through contrast. During the first section of the film, the narrative shows how Pu Yi was destined for power as a small child. Which turned him into a manipulable political piece that met with the worst defeat and destruction during World War II and later, during the Chinese ideological revolution.
However, the hardest point is the last sequences of the story, when the emperor, stripped of all luxury and relevance, becomes a shadow of himself. By then, the film also becomes a somber observation of emotional and cultural pain. The combination surprised critics and audiences, earning it the Oscar for Best Picture in 1988.
Amadeus
Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart is one of the most well-known and beloved musicians in world history. Miloš Forman took that worship and turned the biopic, which remembers his legacy, in the story of a pop culture figure. Tom Hulce embodied the musical prodigy with an overflowing joy and childlike charm that moved the audience. However, it was much more than a tribute, which is why he took his analysis of Mozart to his excesses, emotional pain and, in the end, disenchantment.
All of the above turned the film into a look at the world of music, its pains and regrets. Also a historical rivalry. Which gave the film a timeless tone that is still celebrated and earned it the Best Picture Oscar in 1985.