The Oscar Quest: Best Picture – 1953
I consider 1953 on of the golden years of cinema. It is one of the strongest years for film ever. And that’s reflected in the Best Picture nominees (mostly). Even though the five they chose might not have been the best five from the year, they were a nice representation of the year from an Oscar standpoint. So I like that.
From Here to Eternity wins Best Picture, Best Director for Fred Zinnemann (talked about here), Best Supporting Actor for Frank Sinatra (talked about here) and Best Supporting Actress for Donna Reed (talked about here). The great thing about all of those is that you could vote for someone else, but the year is so strong that it doesn’t matter because nearly everyone was deserving. (Also, of those, Zinnemann deserved it the most after being horribly snubbed for High Noon the year before this.) Then, Best Actor went to William Holden for Stalag 17 (talked about here), which, while it wasn’t an amazing performance, Holden is great and deserved an Oscar and the film is great. So it works. And Best Actress was Audrey Hepburn for Roman Holiday (talked about here), which — oh, I love her. I love the film. It’s one of my top twenty favorite films of all time.
I love this year so much. Even though you could vote for one film over another, every winner definitely deserved it. It’s so nice to have the luxury of multiple good choices.
BEST PICTURE – 1953
And the nominees were…
From Here to Eternity (Columbia)
Julius Caesar (Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer)
The Robe (20th Century Fox)
Roman Holiday (Paramount)
Shane (Paramount) (more…)
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