Where does “Spotlight” rank as a Best Picture winner?

In case you’re living under an Oscar related rock, late last month Spotlight won Best Picture at the 88th Academy Awards. I think that Oscar voters made an excellent selection, choosing the film over its closest competitors The Big Short, Mad Max: Fury Road, and The Revenant. For today, I wanted to take a look at just where Spotlight stacks up among the other winners of Best Picture to date. Is it an all time victor? A poser among true champions? Somewhere in between? I obviously have my thoughts, so I’ll share them with you below. Keep in mind though, as always with this sort of a thing, that it’s simply my opinion. Your mileage may vary, and that’s perfectly okay. In fact, it’s basically encouraged. Any, let’s get started though and try to figure out where Spotlight stacks up in the history of the Best Picture category… First off, I just want to say that I think the Academy made the best choice possible. I would have ranked the nominees in this way, on a personal preference level: 1. Spotlight 2. The Martian 3. Room 4. The Big Short 5. Brooklyn 6. Bridge of Spies 7. Mad Max: Fury Road 8. The Revenant Utilizing that logic, you can easily see that Spotlight would have the most positive ranking for me, when compared to the other winners in history. I’m using my original top 25 piece on the category for comparison, and Spotlight definitely makes it in, as you’ll see below. Had The Martian somehow won, I think it would have cracked the top 20, no question. The others? Probably not, though The Big Short or Room might have made the honorable mention section. The Revenant though? That would have been a weak winner in my eyes, but again…it’s just my eyes, as it were. As a quick reminder before we press on, in case somehow you forgot, Spotlight is a dramatized look at the Boston Globe reporters who broke the story about the Catholic Church covering up the molestations committed by priests. At the paper, an investigative section called “Spotlight” begins looking into the rumors and uncovers a huge scandal. The plot mostly follows along as the small group does the nitty gritty work of gathering indisputable evidence for the story. Tom McCarthy directs and co-writes with Josh Singer, while the cast is led by Michael Keaton and Mark Ruffalo, with the others in this top notch ensemble including Billy [...]