Every war film that has won the ‘Best Picture’ Oscar
When it comes to the Academy Awards, it’s no secret that some genres do considerably better than others. To give credit where it’s due, movies that aren’t traditionally Oscar-friendly have been doing better in recent years, offering a slight glimpse at the potential change many have been calling for. However, when considering past winners, a few key genres are overwhelmingly dominant – one of the most prominent is the evergreen war film.
Throughout the extensive history of the Oscars, voters have frequently gravitated towards serious dramas, especially those based on historical facts and those which hone in on the important societal issues of the day. War movies frequently fall into that category, and quite often, they have overlapped with other genres that have been Academy favourites, such as romance movies and biopics.
In fact, the very first ‘Best Picture’ winner, 1927’s Wings, was a war epic, and to date, no less than 16 war movies have managed to win the highly sought-after prize. The titles are an eclectic group, and they serve as vivid, tragic retellings of history’s most terrible conflicts – the Wars of Scottish Independence, Vietnam, the American Civil War, World War I, World War II and even the Iraq War.
In addition to this, many other war films have been nominated for ‘Best Picture’. In fact, there are some, like Apocalypse Now and Saving Private Ryan, that should have won the top prize in their respective years.
The second war movie to win the top prize was the 1930 work All Quiet on the Western Front, and interestingly, the 2022 German-language remake of that film was one of the big winners at the most recent Oscars. It didn’t win ‘Best Picture’, but it won four other Oscars, was nominated for nine in total, and was the second-most successful campaign at that ceremony.
These two adaptations of the same novel were released almost a century apart, but both were real Academy favourites, and this is a reminder of just how well the genre has done at the Oscars and how well it continues to do.
Throughout the 21st century, the Academy has, very refreshingly, been giving the top prizes to a wider variety of movies, and in recent years, fewer movies which fit the traditional Oscar mould have been winning ‘Best Picture’. Perhaps this is one reason why only one war flick – 2009’s The Hurt Locker – has won the award in the past quarter-century.
Every war film that has won ‘Best Picture’:
- Wings (William A. Wellman, 1927) – World War I
- All Quiet on the Western Front (Lewis Milestone, 1930) – World War I
- Gone with the Wind (Victor Fleming, 1939) – American Civil War
- Mrs. Miniver (William Wyler, 1942) – World War II
- Casablanca (Michael Curtiz, 1943) – World War II
- The Best Years of Our Lives (William Wyler, 1946) – World War II
- From Here to Eternity (Fred Zinnemann, 1953) – World War II
- The Bridge on the River Kwai (David Lean, 1957) – World War II
- Lawrence of Arabia (David Lean, 1962) – World War I
- Patton (Franklin J. Schaffner, 1970) – World War II
- The Deer Hunter (Michael Cimino, 1978) – Vietnam War
- Platoon (Oliver Stone, 1986) – Vietnam War
- Schindler’s List (Steven Spielberg, 1993) – World War II
- Braveheart (Mel Gibson, 1995) – First Scottish War of Independence
- The English Patient (Anthony Minghella, 1996) – World War II
- The Hurt Locker (Kathryn Bigelow, 2009) – Iraq War
