Helen Mirren says no one remembers which films won the Oscar for best picture. Do you?

Michael Sun
·3-min read
<span>Helen Mirren with her Oscar. Take the Guardian’s quiz on the Academy Awards Best Picture winners from over the years.</span><span>Photograph: Sipa Press/REX</span>
Helen Mirren with her Oscar. Take the Guardian’s quiz on the Academy Awards Best Picture winners from over the years.Photograph: Sipa Press/REX

Do you know your Moonlight from your Spotlight? Do you know your Birdman from your Irishman from your BlacKkKlansman? Do you remember the Matt Damon movie The Martian? (If so, you may be entitled to compensation.)

According to Helen Mirren, it doesn’t matter anyway. The Academy award-winning actor and Barbie narrator isn’t losing any sleep over Oscar snubs, especially when it comes to Greta Gerwig’s billion-dollar doll-a-thon, up for eight awards including best picture – though it notably missed out on best director and best actress for its star Margot Robbie.

“You can’t get upset about things like that, honestly,” Mirren told Entertainment Tonight. “What is fantastic is that Barbie was the highest-grossing film that Warner Bros has ever had in their lives and do you remember who won best film of the year before last?”

Is that a challenge? Probably not, but here it is, anyway. Do you remember your award-winners of yore?

  1. Let’s begin with – per Mirren – the year before last. Which film won best picture in 2022?

    1. The Power of the Dog

    2. Don't Look Up

    3. Coda

    4. Dune

  2. What about a little further back – in 2019?

    1. Black Panther

    2. Parasite

    3. Nomadland

    4. Green Book

  3. The year 2017 was the famous envelope fiasco – but which film emerged victorious?

    1. La La Land

    2. Moonlight

    3. Hidden Figures

    4. Manchester by the Sea

  4. Mirren won her first and only Oscar for best actress in 2007. But which film took the top gong that year?

    1. The Queen

    2. Little Miss Sunshine

    3. Letters from Iwo Jima

    4. The Departed

  5. Another Mirren film, The Madness of King George, became her first Oscar nomination in 1995 – for best supporting actress. It wasn’t recognised in best picture but one of these four was:

    1. Forrest Gump

    2. Pulp Fiction

    3. The Shawshank Redemption

    4. Babe

  6. Barbie director Greta Gerwig scored her first best picture nomination for Lady Bird in 2018. But did it win – or did one of the following?

    1. The Shape of Water

    2. Call Me By Your Name

    3. Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri

    4. Lady Bird

  7. A 22-year-old Margot Robbie broke out in a much-feted role in The Wolf of Wall Street, nominated for best picture in 2014. But which film succeeded?

    1. American Hustle

    2. Birdman or (The Unexpected Virtue of Ignorance)

    3. Gravity

    4. 12 Years a Slave

  8. America Ferrera scored her first Oscar nomination for her supporting role in Barbie. It wasn’t her first brush with the Academy, though: she also voiced a love interest in How to Train Your Dragon, which earned two nods in 2011. Which film won best picture that year?

    1. The King's Speech

    2. The Help

    3. The Artist

    4. The Social Network

  9. Time to cast your mind back even further. The 1962 awards was the year the category was shortened from “best motion picture” to simply best picture. Which film was the last winner of best motion picture?

    1. Ben-Hur

    2. My Fair Lady

    3. The Apartment

    4. West Side Story

  10. And which film won best picture (then “outstanding picture”) at the very first Oscars ceremony in 1929?

    1. All Quiet on the Western Front

    2. Wings

    3. Citizen Kane

    4. Casablanca

Solutions

1:C, 2:D, 3:B, 4:D, 5:A, 6:A, 7:D, 8:A, 9:D, 10:B

Scores

  1. 1 and above.

    Almost as bad as Crash (best picture winner 2006)

  2. 2 and above.

    Almost as bad as Crash (best picture winner 2006)

  3. 3 and above.

    Almost as bad as Crash (best picture winner 2006)

  4. 4 and above.

    Like many best picture winners, a slightly middling result

  5. 5 and above.

    Like many best picture winners, a slightly middling result

  6. 6 and above.

    Like many best picture winners, a slightly middling result

  7. 7 and above.

    Pretty good!

  8. 8 and above.

    Pretty good!

  9. 9 and above.

    Best best picture expert goes to ... you!

  10. 10 and above.

    Best best picture expert goes to ... you!

  11. 0 and above.

    Almost as bad as Crash (best picture winner 2006)

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