Part four in 2014 Oscar Week Series: Twelve Years a Slave to History: Why Academy Voters Often Miss the Real Best Picture.
Two decades of using film in the classroom has resulted in quite a few surprises in the stories with the deepest cultural impact on this generation.
by Gary David Stratton, PhD • Senior Editor
The list below is in no way infallible, but it sure could get a good Oscar weekend conversation going. (See Deep Culture Impact Films to view my evolving DCI criteria.)
Key: Action/Adventure/Western • Comedy/Musical/Animated • Drama • Fantasy/SciFi • Thriller/Horror
* Indicates Academy Award Winner – @Indicates NEW for 2014
1933 King Kong (F)
1936 Modern Times (C)
1937 Snow White And The Seven Dwarfs (C)
1939 The Wizard of Oz (F)
1939 Mr. Smith Goes to Washington (D)
1939 Gone with the Wind (D)*
1940 Fantasia (C)
1941 Citizen Kane (D)
1943 Casablanca (D)*
1946 It’s a Wonderful Life (D)
1951 The African Queen (D)
1952 Singin’ In The Rain (C)
1954 Rear Window (T)
1954 On the Waterfront (D)*
1955 Rebel Without a Cause (D)
1954 Seven Samurai (D)@
1956 The Ten Commandments (D)
1957 The Bridge on the River Kwai (D)*
1957 12 Angry Men (D)
1958 Vertigo (T)
1959 Ben-Hur (A)*
1959 Sleeping Beauty (C)
1960 Psycho (T)
1961 West Side Story (C)*
1961 101 Dalmatians (C)
1961 Breakfast at Tiffany’s (D)
1962 To Kill a Mockingbird (D)
1962 Lawrence of Arabia (D)*
1964 Mary Poppins (C)
1964 My Fair Lady (C)*
1964 Dr. Strangelove (C)
1964 Goldfinger (A) and the entire Bond franchise, especially 1965 Thunderball (A) and 2006 Casino Royale (A)
1965 The Sound of Music (C)*
1966 The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly (D)
1967 Guess Who’s Coming to Dinner (D)
1967 The Graduate (D)
1967 The Jungle Book (C)
1968 2001: A Space Odyssey (F)
1969 In the Heat of the Night (D)*
1969 Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid (A)
1971 Fiddler on the Roof (C)
1972 The Godfather (D)* and 1974 The Godfather 2 (D)*
1973 The Exorcist (T)
1973 The Sting (C)*
1973 American Graffiti (D)
1974 Chinatown (D)*
1975 One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest (D)*
1975 Jaws (F)
1976 Monty Python and the Holy Grail (C)
1976 Rocky (D)*
1976 Taxi Driver (D)
1977 Star Wars: A New Hope (F) and 1980 The Empire Strikes Back (F)
1977 Annie Hall (C)*
1978 National Lampoon’s Animal House (C)
1979 Apocalypse Now (D)
1979 Alien (F) and 1986 Aliens (F)
1980 Raging Bull (D)
1981 Raiders of the Lost Ark (A) and 1989 Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade (A)
1981 Chariots of Fire (D)*
1982 Blade Runner (T)
1982 Tootsie (C)
1982 E. T. The Extra-Terrestrial (F)
1984 Amadeus (D)*
1984 Beverly Hills Cop (C)
1984 Ghostbusters (C)
1985 The Breakfast Club (D)@
1985 Back to the Future (C)
1985 The Color Purple (D)
1986 Top Gun (A)
1986 Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home (F) The best of the highly influential franchise… so far. (J.J. Abrams could change that.)
1986 Ferris Bueller’s Day Off (C)
1987 The Princess Bride (C)
1988 Rain Man (D)*
1989 Dead Poets Society (D)
1989 Field of Dreams (F)
1989 Do the Right Thing (D)
1989 Driving Miss Daisy (D)*
1990 Dances with Wolves (D)*
1990 Pretty Woman (D)
1991 Terminator 2: Judgment Day (F)
1991 Beauty and the Beast (F)
1991 The Silence of the Lambs (D)*
1992 A Few Good Men (D)
1992 Unforgiven (A)*
1993 Groundhog Day (C)
1993 Jurassic Park (F)
1993 Schindler’s List (D)*
1994 Forrest Gump (D)*
1994 Pulp Fiction (D)
1994 Shawshank Redemption (D)
1994 The Lion King (C)
1995 Braveheart (A)*
1995 The Usual Suspects (D) @
1995 Toy Story (C) and the entire Toy Story trilogy.
1996 Jerry Maguire (D)
1996 Fargo (D)
1998 Saving Private Ryan (A)
1996 Independence Day (T)
1997 Men in Black (C)
1997 Good Will Hunting (D)
1997 Titanic (D)*
1998 American History X (D)
1999 American Beauty (D)*
1999 Fight Club (A)
1999 The Matrix (F)
1999 The Sixth Sense (T)
2000 Gladiator (A)*
2000 Memento (D)@
2001 Shrek (C) and the entire Shrek franchise.
2001 Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone (F) and the entire Harry Potter series.
2001 Serendipity (C)@
2003 The Return of the King (F)* and the rest of The Lord of the Rings Trilogy: 2001 The Fellowship of the Ring (F) and 2002 The Two Towers (F). (Okay, it’s only been 11 years since the last LOTR film, but I think it’s safe to say that Peter Jackson’s majestic adaptation of Tolkien’s classic will hit a very high DCI mark. )
Films on the Deeper Culture Impact ‘watch list’
I suspect many of these films will grow into DCI films, but it is still too early to tell. After all, we have to wait at least twelve years!
2002 My Big Fat Greek Wedding (C)
2002 Spider-Man (F), the entire Spider-Man Trilogy and even the new franchise starting with 2012 The Amazing Spider-Man (F) series.
2003 Pirates of the Caribbean: The Curse of the Black Pearl (A) at least as part of the entire Pirates franchise.
2003 Finding Nemo (C)
2004 The Passion of the Christ (D)
2004 Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind (F)2005 Crash (D)*
2005 The Chronicles of Narnia: The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe (F) (The weakness of the other completed films in the franchise stands in the way of Chronicles (the movie) having the same high DCI as Lewis’s books.)
2006 The Departed (D)*
2007 No Country for Old Men (D)*
2007 Juno (D) (If the Juno Effect has cultural staying power this could end up being one of the top DCI films of all time.)
2008 The Dark Knight (F) and the entire Dark Knight trilogy is definitely going to make the DCI list.
2008 Slumdog Millionaire (D)*
2009 The Hangover (C)
2009 Avatar (F)
2009 The Blind Side (D)
2010 Scott Pilgrim vs. the World (C)@
2010 Inception (F)
2011 The Help (D)
2011 The Intouchables (D)@
2012 The Avengers (F) and the entire Marvel Avengers franchise, especially 2008 Iron Man (F), 2013 Iron Man 3 (F), 2011 Thor (F), and 2013 Thor II: The Dark World (F)
2012 The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey and 2013 The Desolation of Smaug (F)
2012 Django Unchained (D)
2012 Life of Pi (F)
2012 The Hunger Games (F), 2013 The Hunger Games: Catching Fire and most likely the entire series.
