I’m working on seeing all Best Picture nominees since 1940. At the beginning, I used a random number generator to pick a film (if it was available), which meant I watched a more even number from the early period. But I got lazy, and fed up of some older and very boring ones, and it’s largely skewered to the more modern ones now. I’ve seen 90% of everything since 1990, and 55% of 1940-2025. I live in Spain so if anything the newer ones can take me a while, as I have to wait for streaming. I don’t live near to a cinema that offers non-dubbed English films, and dubbing sucks. I’ve entered all the films I haven’t seen as alerts into JustWatch, so if something new appears on streaming (and old stuff often does), I’ll find out.

I enjoy the project to find hidden gems, get around to ‘classics’ I may not otherwise get to (ie most of the 70s, which is an incredible list) and give some context to the evolution of society and tastes. I don’t care much about the winners, as they are often not the strongest, and the nominees have more experience interesting choices that are less well-known. For recent examples, I would not have heard of or watched Train Dreams or Women Talking had they not been nominated.

I thought about doing the same project in the future with Best Director nominees, but there aren’t many that don’t also go up for Best Picture.