Each February, the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences presents a
statuette to the film it feels embodies the finest in cinema from the previous year.
But despite all the prestige surrounding Oscar, he isn't perfect; many of the
Academy's selections through the years have sparked vigorous water cooler
debates. And every year, we take a fond (and occasionally, not-so-fond) look
back at Best Picture winners of Oscars past, as compiled by the typically strict
and rigorous standards of Tomatometer science. From the undisputed
classics (Casablanca, Lawrence of Arabia) to the dubious selections
( The Broadway Melody), we’ve ranked every Best Picture winner from
Wings to Slumdog Millionaire. How many have you seen? Where do
your favorites rank? Check out RT’s Best of the Best Pictures to find out!

• Each critic from our discrete list gets one vote, all weighted equally.
• Reviews without ratings are not counted toward the results.
• Because reviews are continually added, manually and otherwise, we have a cutoff
  date at which new reviews are not counted. The current cut off date is 2/22/2009.
• We use a weighted formula to account for variation in the number of reviews
  per movie per year. The winners are determined by the rankings,
  designated as the "adjusted score," after applying said formula:

  t + ((r-a) ÷ a) if number of reviews > average number of reviews for
  corresponding year.
  t * (r ÷ a) if number of reviews < average number of reviews for
  corresponding year
  t if number of reviews = average number of reviews for
  corresponding year
  with "r" representing the number of rated reviews, "t" the
  Tomatometer score, and "a" the average number of reviews
  per movie for corresponding year