Best Picture Winners 1970 - 1974

The seventies are an amazing time for the Oscars. Not only did a lot of great films get nominated. A lot of great films actually won.

1970 - Patton was the winner of Best Picture, and the other nominees are Airport, Five Easy Pieces, Love Story. and M*A*S*H. Patton is a flat out great war film and deserved to win. It was written by Francis Ford Coppola. His name might come up again in this post.

1971 - The winner was The French Connection, a great cop film. The other nominees were A Clockwork Orange, Fiddler on the Roof, The Last Picture Show and Nicholas and Alexandra. I would have voted for Clockwork, but Connection was a decent choice.

1972 - There are a few winners, like, say, Casablanca, that no one disputes. This is another year like that. Cabaret, Deliverance, The Emigrants and Sounder are all great films. But The Godfather, written and directed by Coppola, was the best film made that year.

1973 - The Sting was the winner, which brought me some satisfaction for Butch and Sundance's loss back in the day. The other nominees were American Graffiti, Cries and Whispers and The Exorcist, all great films. Oh, and Touch of Class which sucks. But The Sting is worthy as a great entertainment.

1974 - The Godfather II was the winner, a film that often appears on all time great film lists. But another of the nominees was Chinatown and it would have got my vote. Lenny and The Towering Inferno were nominees, but it would be hard to find someone to argue that either of those films should have won. You can find people would would argue for another nominee, The Conversation. That film was written and directed by Francis Ford Coppola, as wss The Godfather II.

A streak of five, not just respectable, but very good choices brings the total to 27 out of 46.