Best Picture of 1991

Yet another review year that I left to drag on for two years. In the time it took me to watch these five films, the Academy added another 20 to my list. Obviously, at this rate, I'll never finish this crazy assignment I've set myself. And after some quick calculations, I reached the sobering conclusion that even if I watch just one movie a week from now on, it'll still take me another eight years to finish. Well, I don't know if I'll be able to achieve that one-a-week rate consistently, but I'm certainly going to try to cram in as many viewings as I can during this current trip to LA. Anyway, enough moaning. Let's get into this current verdict.

The nominees for Best Picture of 1991 are:

• Beauty and the Beast
• Bugsy
• JFK
• The Prince of Tides
• The Silence of the Lambs

1991's nominees are definitely an interesting bunch. I'm a proud movie buff, so like always, I enjoyed each of these films, despite recognising that perhaps some of these films may not have received a nomination if they were released in another year. In fact, I'm surprised that Thelma & Louise, another classic from 1991, didn't knock one of these five aside to secure itself a nod. I think this verdict may have been a lot tougher if it had.

Entertaining as it was, The Prince of Tides will be the first to be culled. It had many beautiful and affecting moments, but its reliance on melodrama took it down a notch for me. Two films that perfectly encapsulated their respective genres - Bugsy with its moody film noir tones, and Beauty and the Beast with its exquisite musical animation - are the next to be set aside.

Thus, the showdown is between one of the most seminal films of my adolescence and one of the most seminal films of the 1990s in general. JFK was an obsession of mine as a teenager. I was engrossed in its mystery as well as the incredible artistic achievement of its cinematography and editing. However, I can acknowledge now that much of its three-hour runtime is spent in perpetual exposition. Consequently, in agreeance with the Academy, The Silence of the Lambs, a paragon of the thriller genre with its disturbing tension and gripping misdirects, will be officially named my favourite Best Picture nominee of 1991.

Best Picture of 1991
Academy's choice: The Silence of the Lambs	Matt's choice: The Silence of the Lambs

Your choice:

Feel free to let the world know your opinion using the poll above or the comments below. And now we travel back in time just a few years earlier to land on what might be one of the most homogeneous shortlists the Academy has put together. With its myriad relationship dramas, it's the nominees from 1983, a year I've chosen for what seems to be the most common reason I ever choose a review year: there's a local screening of one of the contenders.

And the nominees for Best Picture of 1983 are:

• The Big Chill
• The Dresser
• The Right Stuff
• Tender Mercies
• Terms of Endearment

Stay tuned...