This Oscar Winner for Best Picture Was Released in 2020 But It’s Already Forgotten

The highest honor in the film industry is to win an Academy Award. Every award is prestigious but the top three – Best Actor, Best Actress, and Best Picture – are the highlights of the Oscars Ceremony. In a typical save-the-best-for-last unveiling, it is Best Picture that ends the show, regaling viewers with a triumphant moment for those involved in its creation.

Being named the best movie in a given year, in a field where there are typically over 400 films to choose from is a surefire ticket to film immortality. The Oscars are consistently one of the most-watched TV programs of the year, and Best Picture is the show's crowning glory, an honor and opportunity to ensure that your film will be remembered for all eternity. But as it turns out, some Best Picture winners, from both the distant and not-so-distant past, have been all but forgotten.

Best Picture is oftentimes the most contentious and fraught of all major Oscar categories. A significant amount of campaigning occurs every awards season as studios jockey to get their films nominated. The film that wins Best Picture is usually the one that everyone's expecting, a film that was a massive success, and also universally beloved by both audiences and critics.

At other times, the winner is a controversial choice, but it's still a film that's well-remembered today ("Shakespeare in Love" winning over "Saving Private Ryan" comes to mind). Then there are the films that win but simply don't stand the test of time. (Of course, some movies aren't even nominated but are still remembered for their light-hearted fun, like "How to Lose a Guy in 10 Days" which has stars Kate Hudson and Matthew McConaughey agreeing on a potential sequel.)

Some of the films on this list are simply so old that time has passed them by. These older films may be remembered by those who came of age during the era, but not by others as they are not generally regarded as all-time classics. Some were major upsets, winning over films that should have won an Oscar but didn't, but are far more memorable. Others were just overlooked by people upon their release and have since faded from memory. But for whatever reason, these Best Picture winners have been largely forgotten.

• Director: William A. Wellman
• Starring: Clara Bow, Charles "Buddy" Rogers, Richard Arlen

This silent film is a romantic action-war film about two World War I combat veterans and their romantic rivalry over a woman. The movie was praised for its realistic sequences of air combat. Today, however, if it's remembered at all, it's for being the first film to win Best Picture.

• Director: Harry Beaumont
• Starring: Charles King, Anita Page, Bessy Love

MGM's first musical and Hollywood's first all-talking musical is a film about two chorus girls trying to hit the big time on Broadway. While it's largely regarded as being hugely influential in the development of the concept and structure of movie musicals, and was the year's top-grossing film, modern critics find it to be too melodramatic, with subpar acting. The then-popular hit "You Were Meant for Me" was written for the film; it was later included in "Singin' in the Rain."

• Director: Wesley Ruggles
• Starring: Irene Dunne, Richard Dix, Edna May Oliver

An epic Western based on the Edna Ferber novel of the same name, RKO's "Cimarron" also won Oscars for Best Adapted Screenplay and Best Production Design. The sprawling film spans 40 years, following a couple from the Oklahoma land rush of 1889 to 1929. Though well-reviewed at the time, modern critics have found it to be slow, uneven, and riddled with offensive stereotypes.

• Director: Frank Lloyd
• Starring: Diana Wynyard, Clive Brook, Una O'Connor

Based on the 1931 Noël Coward play of the same name, "Cavalcade" follows a group of well-to-do Londoners through the first 30 years of the 1900s, showing how their lives are affected by historical events like the sinking of the Titanic and World War I. It's still generally well-regarded, but modern critics have found that it lacks cohesion.

• Director: William Dieterle
• Starring: Paul Muni, Gloria Holden, Joseph Schildkraut

Considered in its day to be the greatest biographical film ever up to that time, "The Life of Emile Zola" was unanimously praised at the time, but today it's best-remembered for failing to mention French antisemitism (even though it factored largely into a prominent plot point, the Dreyfus affair), and how studio head Jack Warner had the word "Jew" removed from the script amid an over-cautiousness among studios towards antagonizing Nazi Germany.

• Director: John Ford
• Starring: Maureen O'Hara, Roddy McDowall, Walter Pidgeon

This film tells the story of a hard-working Welsh mining family during the late Victorian era from the point of view of the youngest son. It's still widely regarded to be a good movie, but today it's best remembered for beating two far-superior films: "The Maltese Falcon" and "Citizen Kane."

• Director: William Wyler
• Starring: Greer Garson, Walter Pidgeon, Teresa Wright

The highest-grossing film of 1942 and the first Best Picture winner to center around World War II, this romantic war drama illustrates how the war affects the life of an unassuming British housewife. It had a huge effect on British audiences at the time and helped to rally American support for the war, and while overtly propagandistic, it's still regarded as a powerful, well-made, and well-acted film.

• Director: Leo McCarey
• Starring: Bing Crosby, Barry Fitzgerald, Jean Heather

A musical comedy that follows a young, unconventional priest who's sent to revitalize a struggling parish in New York City. "Going My Way" is a sweet, likable film that's buoyed by a great performance by Crosby. It's a rather slight film, however, and two other Best Picture nominees have had a far greater shelf life: the thrillers "Double Indemnity" and "Gaslight."

• Director: Robert Rossen
• Starring: Broderick Crawford, John Ireland, Mercedes McCambridge

The political drama, "All the King's Men" gave audiences an idealistic but ruthless Southern politician who was modeled after Louisiana Governor Huey Long. Crawford also won Best Actor for his performance, and it still holds up to this day as a noir study of corruption, love, and betrayal, with great dialogue.

• Director: Tony Richardson
• Starring: Albert Finney, Susannah York, John Osbourne

Based on Henry Fielding's classic 1749 novel The History of Tom Jones, a Foundling, the British comedy "Tom Jones" is a fun, lighthearted romp that was one of the most successful movies of the year, but it remains more of a classic in England instead of the U.S.

• Director: Fred Zinneman
• Starring: Paul Scofield, Robert Shaw, Orson Welles

A British historical drama based on the play of the same name, "A Man For All Seasons" is about the final years of Sir Thomas More, the 16th-century Lord Chancellor of England, during the reign of King Henry VIII. It also won Oscars for Director, Actor, Adapted Screenplay, Cinematography, and Costume Design. It still holds up, especially Scofield's powerful performance.

• Director: Bernardo Bertolucci
• Starring: John Lone, Joan Chen, Richard Vuu, Peter O'Toole

An epic biographical drama about the final emperor of China, Puyi, "The Last Emperor" was adapted from Puyi's 1964 autobiography and was the first Western film to be authorized by China to be filmed in Beijing's Forbidden City. It received universal critical praise and won nine Academy Awards, but two other fellow Best Picture nominees – "Fatal Attraction" and "Moonstruck" – are perhaps better remembered by audiences.

• Director: Paul Haggis
• Starring: Jennifer Esposito, Matt Dillon, Michael Peña, Sandra Bullock, Don Cheadle

In a year that also saw "Brokeback Mountain", "Capote", "Munich", and "Good Night and Good Luck" nominated for Best Picture, the win for the independent "Crash" still has folks scratching their heads nearly two decades later. A crime drama about racial and social tensions in Los Angeles with a large ensemble cast, the film received positive reviews but was criticized for its lack of subtlety in its portrayal of race relations.

• Director: Michel Hazanavicius
• Starring: Jean Dujardin, Bérénice Bejo, James Cromwell, Missi Pyle

This silent, black-and-white French comedy-drama centers on an older silent film star and a young actress in 1920s-era Hollywood, during the decline of silent cinema. The first French film to win Best Picture and the first silent film to do so since "Wings," it was well-reviewed and well-respected, but isn't exactly well-remembered. Dujardin also took home the trophy for Best Actor.

• Director: Alejandro G. Iñárritu
• Starring: Michael Keaton, Alejandro González Iñárritu, Edward Norton, Emma Stone

This film gives us a washed-up Hollywood actor who's attempting to stage a comeback by writing, starring in, and directing a Broadway Play. "Birdman" was critically praised for its unique storytelling format (made to look like it was filmed in one continuous take), its enigmatic ending, and Keaton's performance. Nowadays, however, it's mostly remembered for sparking Keaton's ongoing comeback.

• Director: Chloé Zhao
• Starring: Frances McDormand, Gay DeForest, David Strathairn

Written, produced, edited, and directed by Chloé Zhao, "Nomadland" takes us on a journey with a widow who decides to travel around the country in a van. Even though it won Best Picture, Best Director, and Best Actress, and was hailed by critics as a great film, it never really was considered a "must-see" by audiences.

It was alleged that the film was only elevated because so many other movies were delayed or canceled due to Covid-19, and has largely fallen off the radar since its win.

• Director: Sian Heder
• Starring: Emilia Jones, Troy Kotsur, Marlee Matlin

This is another film that won during the Covid-19 period. It is a coming-of-age comedy-drama of a child of deaf adults (CODA) and the only hearing member of her family who's attempting to help her family's struggling fishing business while trying to make it as a singer.

Critics gave it positive reviews and the film also picked up Best Supporting Actor honors, but with a box office take of only $2.2 million, it was seen by too few people to make any real cultural impression. With a budget of $10 million, it's one of just a handful of Best Picture Oscar nominees that actually lost money.