In both cases the eventual winner is both a) universally acclaimed by critics with an average 8.7/10 rating and b) easily within the margin of error from the top position. The English Patient and Shine (tied) - 87 That's only one person's opinion, so suppose we sort the Best Picture nominees by their composite scores on Metacritic.

With respect to quality, film legend Roger Ebert gave both movies stellar 4-star reviews. Every studio markets their movies aggressively and Weinstein's marketing is neither abnormal not particularly effective compared to anybody else.

Both are pretty clearly untrue - for instance, Roberto Benigni's party antics in the months leading up to the 1998 Oscar season have since become one of the best examples of self-promotion in Hollywood. One of the allegations commonly levelled against both of them is that Harvey Weinstein mounted a really aggressive marketing strategy, as though nobody else was doing this for their nominees and as if neither had the acclaim to stand on their own two feet otherwise.

(Disclaimer: neither of this is actually my favourite movie of their respective years however, I do genuinely think they were perfectly reasonable results for Best Picture and certainly no worse than any other recent year.) The fact that these two are among the most oftenly-claimed examples of bad winners indicates that the disdain may come partially down to some combination of irrational dislike of the Weinstein company, the 'romance' genre and possibly of literature. However, I do think it is possible to make a good argument against the equally common claim, on Reddit and elsewhere online, that these movies 'should not have won' as though that personal opinion was more well-supported than any other. It's also commonly accepted that the Oscars in general are silly. Obviously, taste in movies is very subjective, and it would be nigh-impossible to 'prove' that any movie was the best of the year.

Shakespeare in love common sense media