1994 Oscars: Who should have won Best Picture and Director?

Why is this man running?

Here is the last installment of my flashback to the Oscars honoring films of 1994. This has retroactively come to be seen as particular strong, game-changing year and it's hard not keep harping on the Pulp Fiction of it all.

It's simply, for better or worse, the most influential movie to be released that year and arguably the one that has held up the best. But there are other worthy pictures from that year, too.

I've already weighed in on the acting races, now let's look at  two of the last major categories: Best Picture and Best Director.

Don't expect many surprises here...

Best Picture
Forrest Gump
The Shawshank Redemption
Quiz Show
Pulp Fiction 
Four Weddings and Funeral

Who won: Forrest Gump
What should have won: Pulp Fiction

All things considered this is a pretty strong field, and I don't hate Forrest Gump. It certainly charmed me 25 years ago. It's just not a movie that has aged particularly well. What was quaint in 1994 is a bit off putting now. Meanwhile, Four Weddings and Funeral feels like the kind of high class comedy that can break into races like these every so often.

Again, not a perfect movie -- a lot depends on how charmed you are by Hugh Grant's stammering routine.

Quiz Show is a real underrated gem which is probably overlooked because its more ornate and old fashioned. I think it may be Redford's best film as a director and a really fascinating story about one of the first big TV scandals. Probably if it had been a bigger commercial success it could have rivaled Gump, but alas the latter film was too much of a behemoth to overcome.

The Shawshank Redemption may be a tad sentimental and hokey for some people, but it's hard to deny how effective it is. There's a reason it's become such a stable of cable television -- it's episodic, it's engrossing and it has a very satisfying pay-off. One will never know if the film could have been a hit with a better, more familiar name... but it's clearly held up all these years later.

But for me, the answer is Pulp Fiction. Again, it's not Tarantino's best film or my personal favorite -- but it is the one that he will probably always be best remembered for. I sometimes think the timeline stuff in the movie is well-done but not entirely necessary.

However, the performances, dialogue and atmosphere are special. It seems to take place in both the past and in a contemporary setting (a feeling only further informed by an extended sequence in a 1950s theme bar).

Its loses points for a particularly tasteless cameo from Tarantino itself -- but it's one of those movies that people are going to be watching and quoting for 100 years.

Best Director
Robert Redford, Quiz Show
Robert Zemeckis, Forrest Gump
Quentin Tarantino, Pulp Fiction
Krzysztof Kieślowski, Red
Woody Allen. Bullets Over Broadway

Who won: Ronbert Zemeckis
Who should have won: Quentin Tarantino

I guess one of these days I need see Bullets Over Broadway, if for other reason that I'm curious about why it got such a rapturous reception from the Academy. For a period Allen was almost always assured a Best Screenplay nomination but he's only gotten director noms a handful a times (still, an impressive feat). It goes without saying that his best work is behind him and his reputation has been permanently sullied, but this nomination is testament to his respect within industry since it came just two years after a scandal that should probably have derailed his career.

Kieślowski's Red is one of three films (the others' Blue and White) in a series providing a mosaic of life in France. I have only seen it once and recall it being my favorite of the three,  but I can't remember it well enough to make the case for him winning here.

Redford already had an Oscar for his underrated Ordinary People. He's largely fallen off as a director since this high point. Other than The Horse Whisperer I don't think his latter works have really worked, but he's clearly a smart, thoughtful actor and filmmaker and this movie reflects that.

Zemeckis has always been like a Spielberg, Jr., he's capable of wonderful pop entertainment with the Back to the Future trilogy and Who Framed Roger Rabbit?, but sometimes his work can get overwhelming by his preoccupation with tech. When he's earthbound -- like with Flight -- he can make interesting movies, but by and large he doesn't seem interested in that. For its flaws, Forrest Gump is an ambitious movie, and he pulls it off, he just wouldn't have been my choice.

Tarantino was very young, very obnoxious and very overexposed following the success of Pulp Fiction, so I get why there would be a resistance to honoring him with the Best Director Oscar this early in his career. He wouldn't be nominated again for 15 years and he lost out on a deserving bid of Inglourious Basterds. But ten years after that, I think he'll have the best shot of winning in his controversial career with Once Upon a Time in Hollywood, which is perhaps his best reviewed film since Pulp Fiction.