This begins an analysis of every Academy Award Best Picture in the 80 year history of Oscar.

This journey began about two years ago when I casually mentioned to my fellow film aficionado, Jeffery L., that I was planning to see EVERY Best Picture in Oscar history. He was fascinated by this challenge, and we compared lists on what we had to see. Over the last couple of years we would update each other on how close we were, and as the numbers dwindled, 2007 became the target film year for completing the challenge. My Oscar BP movie ride ended last weekend, with 'The Broadway Melody' (1928-29 Winner) and Jeffery's ended TODAY with his viewing of 'Wings' (1927-28).

We have broken down the films by decade and ranked them accordingly, 1-10. For the decade of the 1930's, we added the winners from the 1920s, as the Oscars were forming the basis of their identity. For instance, the Best Picture began to be designated by a single year only starting in 1934. Before that, it covered a two year period (as indicated on the chart).

In association with the printed list, Jeffery and I sat down and talked about each decade and the likes/dislikes as shown on our separate lists. We also add an OVERVIEW of the characteristics of each decade, and as a special category, THEY GOT ROBBED, the one film that each of us thought should have won best picture in the decade it was nominated.

So we begin, our worst to first Best Pictures, 1927-1939. The Last Blog in Cyberspace will be LB, and Jeffery will be JL

OVERVIEW, 1927-39

JL: The pictures had a European quality and influence, either dealing with things that happened in Europe, like WWI, or even one being made in Britain, Cavalcade (1932-33).

LB: This to me is the history of film in a nutshell. That it went from the end of the silent era, 'Wings' and 'Sunrise' being the only two silent films to win Best Picture (ED NOTE: Wings is designated in most lists to be the first Best Picture, but at the first Oscar luncheon Sunrise was also cited for 'Unique and Artistic Production,' so Jeffery and I include it in our analysis), through the heydey of the studio system in the 1930's, to the pinnacle of that golden year, 1939, which many film historians point to as a touchstone year in the modern commercial and artistic influence of the movies.

THE "BEST" BEST PICTURES, 1927-39

LB: Let's start with your number 5, fifth favorite.

JL: This would be 'Grand Hotel' (1931-32)

LB: Mine was 'Calvacade' (1932-33)

JL: That was my sixth.

LB: I was impressed, even surprised by Calvacade, it spoke of its era in contemporary terms and had a modern sensibility. It even had a cool song, the 20th Century Rag...

JL: The 20th Century Blues. It encapsulated what that film was trying to convey.

LB: And your number four is...

JL: 'Sunrise' (1927-28)

LB: Sunrise! That was my number 2. What was your impression of that film?

JL: First, visually it's a beautiful film. I haven't seen many silent films, but in this case I just thought it was a beautiful piece of film making. F.W. Murnau, the director, was really a giant in film history as far as visuals are concerned. He died young in an auto accident.

LB: His visual sense was astounding. Number 3?

JL: Number 3 is 'Wings' (1927-28). I thought it was a good American values film, very patriotic.

LB: Yet it never flinched as showing that War is Hell.

JL: It seemed to me to be an archetype for how to structure a screenplay, I see the influence even in modern film stories.

LB: My number three was 'Gone With the Wind' (1939).

JL: That was my least favorite of the era, in 13th.

LB: Wow! This really was one of my all-time favorites at one time, when I first started really getting into films in the early 1980s. It has gone downhill in the intervening years. I understand the cruel racial stereotypes presented, the soapy melodrama and severe patriarchy of Rhett Butler. But for sheer, grand film making, almost by accident considering the number of directors and writers, it became this epic motion picture. Why is it 13 for you?

JL: I laugh at moments in the film when emotions were otherwise, it just was too much, too soapy for me. I really didn't like it at all from when I first saw it in the theater on its 50th anniversary in 1989.

LB: You probably should revisit it. Number 2?

JL: 'All Quiet on the Western Front' (1929-30).

LB: Which was my number 1. When you talked about a European sensibility for films in this era, this really typifies that. And as for making a statement about the futility of war, it's as modern as today.

JL: Very powerful. Especially the last shot in the film.

LB: Which is as iconic a shot as any Best Picture in history.

JL: My number one is 'It Happened One Night' (1934).

LB: Which was my number 4!

JL: It is a perfect comedy. It swept all the top five Oscar categories and deserved it.

LB: This was a dialogue comedy, and pretty much started the reference to Frank Capra's films as "Capraesque."

JL: The dialogue was very sharp and the film was perfect in many ways.

THE "WORST" BEST PICTURES, 1927-39

LB: So what were the bottom three for you, starting with 11.

JL: Number 11 is The Broadway Melody' (1928-29).

LB: That was actually number 7 for me, and incidentally the last film I watched to complete all the Best Pictures. It was corny, but I enjoyed it, thought also that it was pretty sexual for its era.

JL: I liked its darkness, but I thought the screenplay was bad.

LB: Number 12?

JL: Number 12 is 'Cimarron' (1930-31). Again, it wasn't cohesive and it rambled.

LB: I saw Cavalcade and Cimarron very near to each other, and they cover the same period in history, except Cavalcade is Britain and Cimarron is the U.S. Weird. It was number 9 for me.

My number 12 is 'Grand Hotel' (1928-29), some film purists may blanch at that, but I really thought it meandered. Everyone's goal in that picture was different, and some stories were interesting, but the others that weren't made the whole thing not work for me.

JL: As I mentioned, Gone With the Wind is in the cellar.

LB: Mine was 'The Great Ziegfeld' (1936).

JL: That was 10 for me.

LB: It was so bloated. It was a two and a half hour advertisement for the Ziegfeld Follies.

JL: It was just a big vapid spectacle.

THEY GOT ROBBED, 1927-39

JL: 'My Deeds Goes to Town,' 1936, should have won Best Picture instead of the The Great Ziegfeld.

LB: Mine is '42nd Street,' (1932-33) over Cavalcade. This is a quintessential American musical that should have had it's props back then. But they went with the Brits.

TOMORROW: The 1940s