The Best Picture Expansion Project: 1982

By DOUG STRASSLER

Happy Friday, everyone! It’s been a while since I’ve written a Best Picture Expansion, so I thought I would write about 1982, a year suggested by reader Stacy in the comments to my last Oscar column. See, readers? I truly take everything you guys say to heart!

1982 was a fascinating year, producing several of my favorite movies of all-time. Below are the movies that made Oscar’s final cut:

Actual Best Picture Nominees

E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial

Gandhi (winner)

Missing

Tootsie

The Verdict

In Retrospect: Richard Attenborough’s Gandhi is a fitting tribute to one of the most important world leaders, and pretty much sets the template for standard biopics. Ben Kingsley is terrific in his Oscar-winning role, showing the man’s compassion and discipline.

But is Gandhi the year’s Best Picture? I’ll say no, especially since three of my all-time favorite movies also got nominated that same year. Verdict, about a down-and-out alcoholic lawyer representing the case of his life, marks a high point in the careers of star Paul Newman and director Sidney Lumet.

Tootsie is, to me, the single best comedy I’ve ever seen, better even than that other gender-swapping classic, Some Like It Hot. Dustin Hoffmann is an arrogant actor so impossible to cast that he disguises himself as a woman to play a role on a soap opera. With a superb cast that includes Jessica Lange (who won an Oscar for her performance), Dabney Coleman, Teri Garr, Charles Durning, Bill Murray, and director Sydney Pollack, this movie is not only hysterical, but also makes important statements about relationships and gender equality. Plus, it’s a total love letter to show business and 1980s-era New York City. What’s not to love?

And then there’s the movie that reduces me to awestruck childlike glee every time I see it: E.T.. Make no mistake: this is one of Steven Spielberg’s all-time masterpieces, no matter what other more serious subjects he went on to address. The Golden Globes named this Best Picture, and they got it right. E.T. is, at its very large heart, about the longing to connect to someone else, and the heartbreak of having to say goodbye. Like the titular visitor, E.T. is unforgettable, from John Williams’ brilliant score to the director’s many indelible images. There’s a reason why Spielberg preserved that image of Elliott and E.T. silhouetted against the moon as the logo for Amblin Entertainment. Watching E.T., you soar every time.

As for Missing, it’s a fine political movie, but I’m more partial to the titles below:

The Expansion Pack

6. Blade Runner

Ridley Scott followed up Alien with this sci-fi cult classic, albeit one that has amassed a huge following over time. Harrison Ford is a bounty hunter in a dark, futuristic Los Angeles, who begins to question the corporation for whom he works and, ultimately, himself. It’s a complex movie, worth multiple viewings. Perhaps the scariest part? That setting that once seemed so far in the future is less than a decade away.

7. Sophie’s Choice

Meryl Streep may currently be having a great time singing ABBA songs and digging into sole meunière, but she made her biggest mark in heavy period dramas at the beginning of her career; Sophie (for which Meryl received the Best Actress Oscar) may have been her most harrowing role of all. Alan Pakula was an actor’s director, and gets nuanced work from Streep and Kevin Kline as Holocaust survivors and Peter MacNicol as the Southern naïf who befriends them. It’s a devastating look at difficult choices and consequences – and it’s also the first movie to take viewers inside a concentration camp.

8. Fanny and Alexander

This may be Ingmar Bergman’s final masterpiece. This semi-autobiographical work takes place in a provincial Swedish town about a century earlier. After the death of their father, the two young children of the title get bounced around and have a series of enlightening encounters. This is a long movie (the original Swedish version runs longer than 5 hours), but if you can make the time, it’s worth it.

9. Fast Times at Ridgemont High

Simply put, it’s another one of the great comedies of all time. Writer Cameron Crowe went undercover as a Southern California high school student for a Rolling Stone article, and later turned what he witnessed into a screenplay. Director Amy Heckerling (who later provided the voice of a generation in Clueless) nails both the humor (Sean Penn’s pothead Jeff Spicoli and the heartache (Jennifer Jason Leigh’s lost Stacy Hamilton) of the high school experience. Ridgemont is so sharply observed, it’s a perfect time capsule. Fun fact: co-stars Nicolas Cage, Penn, and Forest Whitaker all went on to win Best Actor Oscars.

10. Shoot the Moon

This is a perfect movie about how divorce is actually a process, and a messy one at that. Albert Finney is a famed author and Diane Keaton, his dutiful wife. After his affair comes to light, both embark on a life without the other, trying to do right by their four young daughters. Alan Parker directs from a script by master Bo Goldman that stings with emotional truth.

The Snubs

48 Hrs.
Diner
Frances
My Favorite Year
An Officer and a Gentleman
Poltergeist
The Thing
The World According to Garp

Let me know what you guys think!