Best Oscar Year (10th Decade) (so far)

[Heksagon]

Easy choice with 2019.

[OscarGuy]

I'll admit that the reason I started these polls was to pinpoint a year in each decade that is superior and try to catch up with everything from that year.

1996, the year I started my site, was the first one I tried this with and have ended up seeing 93.62% of the total nominations that year. Oddly, I have seen all of the Oscar-winning films (not including documentary and short film categories) in 2003 and 2018. Not sure why those years, but that's where they stand.

Of the 93 Oscar years, I've seen more than half the nominations worth of films in 33 years, but more than half the winners in 68 years.

And by that I mean that I have weighted films by their total number of nominations. I'll use 1996 as an example. Of the 94 nominations going to films in that year, I've seen 88 nominations-worth of films. The 6 I'm missing are Angels & Insects, Fly Away Home, Kolya, The Other Side of Sunday, and Prisoner of the Mountains, so I only have two films to catch up with that weren't foreign language film-only nominees. I had trouble finding either of them on streaming or DVD services and I'm trying to avoid buying films for said project.

[mlrg]

Voted for 2019.

[Big Magilla]

2019 for the reasons already stated by others.

[Mister Tee]

For me, it's 2019 by a country mile. 2020 was at best 2/3 of a normal-output year, and the voters did a decent job of culling the best of what there was, but some of it is second-tier. I said last year that I'd pick five movies from 2019 (The Irishman, Little Women, Parasite, Marriage Story, Once Upon a Time in Hollywood) over anything from 2020, and I think I'd say the same about 2018, which to me was a weak year -- Roma has its exceptional qualities but also deficiencies, and it's the only nominated best film I even think would qualify in a decent year.

I don't agree with Sabin about all the acting categories in 2019 -- both male acting slates are pretty stellar and left excellent contenders boxed out (DeNiro in lead, Chalamet and Alda in support), and supporting actress is solid enough. The best actress group is obviously the disappointment of the group, but not because any of the performers are sub-par (beyond maybe Erivo, who's fine in a dull role), but because none of them, including the winner, have the special luster to be a winner. Switch out Ronan's Lady Bird performance for her Little Women work, and the group as a whole is elevated. 2020 had a better slate in that one category, and 2018 had a better winner, but to me that's the only area in which 2019 doesn't dominate.

[gunnar]

I went back and averaged out my personal ratings for the films for all three years and the feature films for years 2018 and 2019 were basically neck and neck with 2019 having a very tiny edge. 2020/2021 actually got the edge in short films for me with 2018 second and 2019 a little way behind them so I used that to break the near tie and gave it to 2018.

2018 also had a slight edge in the highest rated films for me with Capernaum, Never Look Away, RBG, Roma, and Spider-Man Into the Spider-Verse at the top for that year.

The ones at the top for 2019 for me were Jojo Rabbit, 1917, and Joker. 2019 had more films just a notch below the top than 2018 for me, though.

One caveat is that I still need to watch 3 documentaries from 2019 and 4 from 2018, but I don't think that would change my rankings significantly.

[Sabin]

I'm guessing you mean the quality of all of the combined nominations?

I would have to choose 2019. I just found the overall crop of films more exciting, even the ones I didn't quite like or love. And as I've mentioned before, the 2019 nominations were abnormally consolidated around a handful of films. It was the only time in history where four movies got double-digit nominations. But the overall presence of Parasite just pushes it over the top for me.

The only caveat is that I wasn't terribly excited about any of the acting categories. If pressed, I might choose Joe Pesci as my favorite nominated performance. The song nominations are a notable nadir as well.

2018 and 2020 have stronger acting lineups, especially for Best Actress.

[OscarGuy]

Based on the totality of nominations, which Oscar year within this decade is best (so far)?