By 
Josh Becker 
and 
Rick Sandford 

      The authors of this list both work in varying capacities in the film industry and have both been fascinated by the Academy Awards since they were young children.  Rick can recall the awards of 1957 (for the films of 1956) where Ingrid Bergman won Best Actress, but had Cary Grant accept the award for her since she had left the country in shame nine years earlier bearing Roberto Rosellini's illegimate child (Isabella's older brother).  Josh, being eight years younger than Rick, can only remember back to 1969 (for the films of 1968), with Barbra Striesand saying to her Best Actress award (in a tie with Kathrine Hepburn), "Hello gorgeous."  Rick has in fact made it a life goal to see all of the Academy Award nominated films.  The winners would be 
approximately twenty-two categories multiplied by sixty-three years.  That's thirteen hundred and eighty-six movies.  The nominees, however, makes it twenty-two times sixty-three times five!  That's six thousand nine hundred and thirty films!  And he's over three-quarters of the way there (he's actually over four-fifths of the way there in the feature catagories, it's the short subjects that are messing up his average).  In the course of the past fifteen years Rick has dragged Josh to innumerable dull, nominated films.  The authors speculate constantly about the Academy Awards even though they are both no longer interested in either what's nominated or what wins.  Old habits apparently do die hard. 
      Here is a list of all the Best Picture winners, the films that the authors would have chosen of the nominees, and the films they would have chosen of the eligible films released that year. 
  Rick happens to have all of the Academy Award reminder lists, the lists of all the eligible films in each given year going all the way back to 1927.  Quite handy, really. 
 
 
 
 

Postscript: 
 
 

When I got the assignment to write the lead article for FILM THREAT's Oscar issue, the first thing that I did was get together with Rick Sandford, my friend the Oscar expert.  We sat around for an afternoon discussing the Academy Awards and pretty quickly I knew what my article would be about.  Since Rick was unemployed at the time and had a particular ax to grind with the Academy (the fact that young attractive males don't win Oscars), I suggested that he write his own article which I would see if I could get published as a side-piece to my article (FILM THREAT regularly included short articles printed along side of the main article). 
Then, since we were on a roll, I suggested that we make the "what could've won, what should've won" list.  By 1936 we were already in a disagreement: Rick thought SWING TIME was a much better movie than DODSWORTH, which I don't agree with.  1938 we disagreed again, then 1944, then 1953, then 1955 . . .  By the end we were sick of making the list, sick of the Academy Awards and sick of each other. 
I wrote my article, Rick wrote his, and I turned them both in. 

Later . . . 
Rick:  So, what did you think of my article? 

Josh:  It was great.  I turned in mine and your's. 

Rick: You did what?!!  But It wasn't done! 

Josh:  It wasn't?  It sure seemed done. 

Rick:  Well it wasn't!  I would have gone back and double-checked some of the facts again. 

Josh:  Do it.  If there's any changes I'll phone them in. 

Rick:  I can't believe you just went and turned them both in without talking to me.  I'm so insulted I don't even know what to say. 

Josh:  Insulted?  Didn't you write it for the explicit purpose of giving it to me so I could give it to them? 

Rick:  I'm talking about your article. 

Josh:  You've got nothing to do with my article. 

Rick:  I would have proof-read it for you. 

Josh:  I didn't need you to proof-read it for me.  It met my standards which are much higher than FILM THREAT's standards, and that's enough for me. 

Rick:  But it may not have met my standards. 

Josh:  It probably didn't, but there's only one of you. 
At which point he hung up on me. 

A couple of weeks later, when all seemed to have settled down on this front (Rick double-checked his statistics and they were all correct), the Oscar issue of the magazine came out.  I snagged two early copies and left one in Rick's mailbox.  Later that evening, I called him and asked what he thought of seeing his article in print? 
"I'm too bust making my notes on your article." 
"Who asked for notes?" 
"You should've had me proof-read this before it was published." 
"Well, it's published, so I don't need your notes." 
"I'll do them anyway." 
I received his notes -- five, single-spaced typed pages -- in the mail a few days later.  He used every uncomplimentary adjective he could come up: "Stupid, lazy, ridiculous, etc." 
I thought of many witty retorts, then finally settled for, "Rick, you are my friend.  This gives you the ability to hurt me if you want.  Please don't take advantage of that ability.  Your friend, Josh." 

I then received yet another five page, single-spaced salvo taking on my whole life in the same terms he took on my article.  "Now," I said to myself, "all bets are off."  I wrote back every bit as strong and insulting of a letter as he had sent me twice. 
That was that.  Rick and I did not speak for over a year. 
A mutual friend informed me that Rick has been diagnosed HIV positive.  I dropped over his place and we picked right back up like nothing had happened and only a week had gone by.  After a couple of pleasant visits, Rick said he wanted to discuss our fight, just to settle a single point. 
"When did you get mad at me?" he asked. 
"A year ago." 
"No, I mean the specific moment?" 
"Well," I thought, "when I got your first letter." 
"Ah-ha!" he proclaimed.  "I was mad at you before you were mad at me!" 
He had gotten mad at me when I wouldn't let him proof-read my article. 
And so I acquiesced.  "Fine." 
Rick and I became very good friends again. 
As I held his hand on the way to his radiation and chemo therapy treatments, very soon before he lapsed into a coma he never came out of, he asked through tears: 
"Have we left any of our personal problems unresolved?" 
"No, I don't think so." 
"Good." 

Rick died soon thereafter.