35 Best Picture Oscar Winners, Ranked From Worst to Best
Updated March 14, 2023 with this year's winner
Over the past three decades, we've seen a diverse range of films earn the award for Best Picture at the Oscars. The winners represent all genres and epochs, from dark thrillers to historical epics to modern westerns, offering a little something for everybody.
But with such a broad selection of films, it's tough to decide which ones are really the best of the best. Each title has earned the most prestigious award in entertainment, so it's a given that they're all great — but the reality is that some are still better than others.
To determine the ultimate hierarchy of Best Picture Oscar winners in the last 30 years, we've ranked every winner by Metascore, which represents the consensus of top professional critics.
Wondering where your favorite movie landed on our list? Scroll through the slideshow on this page to see our countdown of Best Picture winners, ranked from worst to best.
Additional content by Jason Dietz.
(2021) A crowd-pleasing drama from director Siân Heder about the sole hearing member (Emilia Jones) of a deaf Gloucester fishing family who decides to pursue her dreams of becoming a singer, CODA made an auspicious debut at Sundance, where it swept the top prizes in early 2021. Though it was nominated for just three Oscars—far short of the 12 nominations collected by one-time Best Picture favorite, The Power of the Dog—CODA won all three, including Best Picture. Apple's first-ever Best Picture nominee became the first streaming film of any kind to win Oscar's top honor in a ceremony overshadowed by an on-stage incident involving Will Smith and Chris Rock.
“The climactic emotional beats are telegraphed almost from the beginning, but they still hit hard, effectively leaving viewers who can suspend their disbelief feeling uplifted and dewy-eyed.” —Noel Murray, AV Club
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