Here are my subjective choices as to what I would have voted for.

	What Won	What Should Have Won
1928	Wings	The Circus
1929	Broadway Melody	Steamboat Bill, Jr.
1930	All Quiet on the Western Front	All Quiet on the Western Front
1931	Cimarron	City Lights
1932	Grand Hotel	Scarface
1933	Calvacade	King Kong
1934	It Happened One Night	It Happened One Night
1935	Mutiny on the Bounty	Mutiny on the Bounty
1936	The Great Ziegfeld	Modern Times
1937	The Life of Emile Zola	Lost Horizon
1938	You Can't Take it With You	The Adventures of Robin Hood
1939	Gone With the Wind	The Wizard of Oz
1940	Rebecca	The Grapes of Wrath
1941	How Green Was My Valley	Citizen Kane
1942	Mrs. Miniver	Sullivan's Travels
1943	Casablanca	Casablanca
1944	Going My Way	Double Indemnity
1945	The Lost Weekend	Spellbound
1946	The Best Years of Our Lives	It's a Wonderful Life
1947	Gentleman's Agreement	Monsieur Verdoux
1948	Hamlet	The Treasure of the Sierra Madre
1949	All the King's Men	All the King's Men
1950	All About Eve	Sunset Boulevard
1951	An American in Paris	An American in Paris
1952	The Greatest Show on Earth	Singin' in the Rain
1953	From Here to Eternity	From Here to Eternity
1954	On the Waterfront	Rear Window
1955	Marty	Mister Roberts
1956	Around the World in 80 Days	The Searchers
1957	The Bridge on the River Kwai	Witness for the Prosecution
1958	Gigi	Touch of Evil
1959	Ben-Hur	Some Like it Hot
1960	The Apartment	Psycho
1961	West Side Story	Judgment at Nuremberg
1962	Lawrence of Arabia	Lawrence of Arabia
1963	Tom Jones	Tom Jones
1964	My Fair Lady	Dr. Strangelove
1965	The Sound of Music	The Sound of Music
1966	A Man for All Seasons	A Man for All Seasons
1967	In The Heat of the Night	Bonnie and Clyde
1968	Oliver	2001: A Space Odyssey
1969	Midnight Cowboy	Butch Cassidy & The Sundance Kid
1970	Patton	M*A*S*H
1971	The French Connection	A Clockwork Orange
1972	The Godfather	The Godfather
1973	The Sting	American Graffiti
1974	The Godfather Part 2	The Godfather Part 2
1975	One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest	One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest
1976	Rocky	Taxi Driver
1977	Annie Hall	Annie Hall
1978	The Deer Hunter	The Deer Hunter
1979	Kramer verses Kramer	Apocalypse Now
1980	Ordinary People	The Empire Strikes Back
1981	Chariots of Fire	Raiders of the Lost Ark
1982	Gandhi	ET
1983	Terms of Endearment	The Right Stuff
1984	Amadeus	Amadeus
1985	Out of Africa	Brazil
1986	Platoon	Platoon
1987	The Last Emperor	Empire of the Sun
1988	Rain Man	Rain Man
1989	Driving Miss Daisy	Do The Right Thing
1990	Dances with Wolves	Goodfellas
1991	The Silence of the Lambs	The Silence of the Lambs
1992	Unforgiven	Malcolm X
1993	Schindler's List	Schindler's List
1994	Forrest Gump	Pulp Fiction
1995	Braveheart	The American President
1996	The English Patient	Fargo
1997	Titanic	Amistad
1998	Shakespeare in Love	Saving Private Ryan
1999	American Beauty	American Beauty
2000	Gladiator	Crouching Tiger Hidden Dragon
2001	A Beautiful Mind	The Fellowship of the Ring
2002	Chicago	The Two Towers
2003	The Return of the King	The Return of the King
2004	Million Dollar Baby	Kill Bill 2
2005	Crash	Munich
2006	The Departed	The Departed
2007	No Country for Old Men	No Country For Old Men
2008	Slumdog Millionaire	The Dark Knight
2009	The Hurt Locker	Inglorius Basterds
2010	The King's Speech	The Social Network
2011	The Artist	Hugo

As a disclaimer, I must admit that I have not seen all the films on the "what won" list ... but based on what I have read, I can't imagine that, for instance, "The Greatest Show on Earth" is better than "Singin' in the Rain."

1990 Goodfellas
1991 The Silence of the Lambs
1992 Unforgiven
1993 Schindler's List
1994 Pulp Fiction (toss up with FG since both stand the test of time so far)
1995 Bravehear (American President? Who even remembers that film?)
1996 Fargo
1997 Titanic (AmiNO)
1998 Saving Private Ryan
1999 American Beauty
2000 Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon (no Doubt!)
2001 The Fellowship of the Ring (yes!)
2002 Chicago (I agree with this)
2003 The Return of the King
2004 Sideways (love this film)
2005 Brokeback Mountain (EZ)
2006 The Departed
2007 No Country for Old Men
2008 The Dark Knight (snubbed but Yes)
2009 Avatar (no one saw THL and it made nothing) 2.7 Billion to Nothing. Money Matters...
2010 Inception
2011 The Artist (no qualms after I watched it)


On another note, I watched the Midnight Cowboy today and while it was certainly interesting and Voight gave a wonderful performance. It was up against Butch Cassidy...C'mon MAN!

Of the films that were nominated:

1990 Dances with Wolves
1991 The Silence of the Lambs
1992 A Few Good Men
1993 Schindler's List
1994 Forrest Gump
1995 Braveheart
1996 Jerry Maguire
1997 L.A. Confidential
1998 Saving Private Ryan
1999 American Beauty
2000 Gladiator
2001 Moulin Rouge!
2002 The Pianist
2003 The Return of the King
2004 Sideways
2005 Munich
2006 The Departed
2007 Atonement (though this is a three-way toss-up)
2008 Slumdog Millionaire
2009 The Hurt Locker
2010 Inception
2011 Hugo

Pre-1970, I couldn't give a rat's ass. Of the post-1970 nominated films, I would have chosen:

1970-1974 Null vote

1975 Jaws
1976 Rocky
1977 Annie Hall
1978 The Deer Hunter
1979 Kramer vs. Kramer
1980 The Elephant Man
1981 Raiders of the Lost Ark

1982-1987 Null vote

1988 Rain Man
1989 Field of Dreams
1990 Goodfellas

1991 Null vote

1992 A Few Good Men
1993 The Fugitive
1994 Forrest Gump
1995 Braveheart
1996 Jerry Maguire
1997 As Good As It Gets
1998 Saving Private Ryan
1999 The Green Mile
2000 Gladiator
2001 The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring
2002 The Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers
2003 The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King
2004 Ray
2005 Brokeback Mountain
2006 The Departed
2007 No Country For Old Men
2008 The Curious Case of Benjamin Button
2009 Inglourious Basterds (flip a coin scenario; Up in the Air lost)
2010 The Fighter
2011 The Descendants

But seriously, all of the movies that did win, should have won.

Crash?

All movies. If a movie won, then it deserved it. These awards are voted on. If Crash won, then it won fair and square, therefore in my mind; yes it should have won. I wouldn't have chosen Crash if it were up to me, but it wasn't.

You do realize that a lot of votes are made not on the merits of the movie, but on names, friendships, etc.? That's why lobbying is a very important part of an Oscar race.

I do. My opinion still stands.

Perhaps you hold the Oscars in higher regard to me. The integrity of the Oscars should be called into question, not the deservedness of the winners. If they get enough votes, they deserve to win.

No matter what our opinions on Oscar are, it's still the highest honor in the movie world today.

I'd compare the fact that some movies come into the race with bigger chances for winning due to their pedigree and not due to their comparative quality to a race where an athlete has an advantage over the others due to using some drugs. It might not be enough to win every time, but sometimes that extra push can just skew things into a completely unfair direction.

It is regarded highly, but I've never cared much about it. Reputation is much more important, in my opinion. That level of respect a film gains that cannot be quanitified, but you just know it's well-loved .. that's important and a bigger statement of a films' quality than any Oscar win. And the best thing is that it's different for every person.

Then comes Oscar. Then box office. User grading sites, RT, imdb etc. all come a distant fourth. That's the way I see it.

You have to also realize that with five nominees, that means a film can win with only 21% of the voters thinking that it's "best". Even less with nine nominees.

That's hardly a consensus.

So to say a film "deserved" to win doesn't always square with me.

That's the system that the Oscars uses, so if a movie wins with 21% of the votes, then it is deserved. It's not like this is a new system.