The Best of the Best

EW ranks all the Best Picture Oscar winners

And the winner is... or is it? Every year one movie out of hundreds takes home Hollywood's most coveted award, the Best Picture Oscar. And any picture that earns that lofty accolade surely must be flat out great, right? Nonsense. The Academy sometimes goofs and gives the golden statuette to a less than sterling feature. (And then there are the now classic flicks that didn't even receive a nom -- such as ''Some Like It Hot'' -- but that's another story.)

So, to set the record straight at the commencement of this, the real millennium, EW offers this list of all the Best Picture winners from the last century ranked in order of artistic merit. Read about the top 10 here. Or look at the entire list and let the debates begin...

1. ''The Godfather''
1972 •••••DIRECTED BY Francis Ford Coppola • STARRING Marlon Brando, Al Pacino • NOMINATIONS 10 • WINS 3 • STIFFEST COMPETITION ''Cabaret''•••
If this were a list of the best movies, period, regardless of Oscar pedigree, Coppola's Mob family saga would still sit at the top. By sticking to his creative tommy guns and keeping his vision dark (literally as well as figuratively) right to the bitter end, Coppola turned pulp into the cinematic equivalent of great opera.

2. ''All About Eve''
1950 •••••DIRECTED BY Joseph L. Mankiewicz • STARRING Bette Davis, Anne Baxter • NOMINATIONS 14 • WINS 6 • STIFFEST COMPETITION ''Sunset Boulevard''•••
No aliens, explosions, or snazzy special effects here. Just a bunch of talky sophisticates sparring, conniving, and backstabbing in one of the most sublime entertainments ever concocted. If only real life were this witty and well written.

3. ''The Godfather Part II''
1974 •••••DIRECTED BY Francis Ford Coppola • STARRING Al Pacino, Robert De Niro • NOMINATIONS 11 • WINS 6 • STIFFEST COMPETITION ''Chinatown,'' ''The Conversation''•••
To follow ''The Godfather'' with a sequel that digs even deeper -- and just as satisfyingly -- into family karma must have taken a pact with the devil. Powerful beyond dreams but eternally damned, Michael Corleone matches Shakespeare's tragic figures. This is also the first and only time a film and its sequel have taken home Best Picture Oscars.

4. ''Lawrence of Arabia''
1962 •••••DIRECTED BY David Lean • STARRING Peter O'Toole, Alec Guinness • NOMINATIONS 10 • WINS 7 • STIFFEST COMPETITION ''To Kill a Mockingbird''•••
With its ravishing wide screen desert vistas and Robert Bolt's ambitious, literate script, Lean's biopic is that rare Hollywood thing: an epic with a brain. It also helps that the enigmatic hero is played by an impossibly handsome O'Toole.

5. ''On The Waterfront''
1954 •••••DIRECTED BY Elia Kazan • STARRING Marlon Brando, Eva Marie Saint • NOMINATIONS 12 • WINS 8 • STIFFEST COMPETITION ''The Caine Mutiny''•••
Black and white and grimy, like a neorealist version of a '30s Warner Bros. gangster flick, ''On the Waterfront'' starts fast and never lets up. At the epicenter there's Brando, all tics, scratches, and aside glances, crackling like emotional Morse code as he brilliantly transforms his Terry Malloy from dim-witted ''bum'' to empowered ''rat.''

6. ''Casablanca''
1943 •••••DIRECTED BY Michael Curtiz • STARRING Humphrey Bogart, Ingrid Bergman • NOMINATIONS 8 • WINS 3 • STIFFEST COMPETITION ''The Ox-Bow Incident''•••
It's remarkable that this film ended up as one of the most revered of all time -- considering the production was utterly chaotic. But once the on set dust settled, what remained was a script that rivaled ''All About Eve,'' and Bogart and Bergman at their glam peak in a timeless romance. Here's looking at you, kids.

7. ''Gone With the Wind''
1939 •••••DIRECTED BY Victor Fleming • STARRING Clark Gable, Vivien Leigh • NOMINATIONS 13 • WINS 8 • STIFFEST COMPETITION ''Mr. Smith Goes to Washington,'' ''Ninotchka''•••
Producer David O. Selznick once fretted that he'd be remembered only for ''GWTW.'' He was right -- but every producer should be so unlucky. His baby, which he nursed to Technicolor perfection, is one of the few Golden Age films (that year's other nominee ''The Wizard of Oz'' is another) that have captivated generation after generation.

8. ''The Best Years of Our Lives''
1946 •••••DIRECTED BY William Wyler • STARRING Fredric March, Dana Andrews • NOMINATIONS 8 • WINS 7 • STIFFEST COMPETITION ''It's a Wonderful Life''•••
The story of three WWII vets facing the uncertainties of civilian life could have been a mawkish land mine. Instead, Robert E. Sherwood's Oscar winning script and Wyler's sensitive direction are models of restraint. In today's era of manipulative trifles, here's a reminder that films can sometimes earn our tears.

9. ''Schindler's List''
1993 •••••DIRECTED BY Steven Spielberg • STARRING Liam Neeson, Ralph Fiennes, Ben Kingsley • NOMINATIONS 12 • WINS 7 • STIFFEST COMPETITION ''The Fugitive,'' ''The Piano''•••
A Hollywood movie about the horrors of the Holocaust? It still seems like a contradiction. And yet Spielberg pulled off the unimaginable, using his ferocious filmmaking talent to make something visually spare and ghostly -- and emotionally wrenching.

10. ''The Apartment''
1960 •••••DIRECTED BY Billy Wilder • STARRING Jack Lemmon, Shirley MacLaine • NOMINATIONS 10 • WINS 5 • STIFFEST COMPETITION ''Elmer Gantry''•••
Wilder followed the hilarious ''Some Like It Hot'' with this not so hilarious (but often funny) tale of corporate cutthroats, urban angst, adultery, and suicide. And we're still seeing its influence today: Director Sam Mendes cited ''The Apartment'' as a major inspiration while making last year's Best Picture winner, ''American Beauty.''

Look at our entire list of Best Picture winners, ranked from best to worst, or go straight to the scribbleboard.