Best Picture nominees:
Casablanca
For Whom the Bell Tolls
Heaven Can Wait
The Human Comedy
In Which We Serve
Madame Curie
The More the Merrier
The Ox-Bow Incident
The Song of Bernadette
Watch on the Rhine
What won: Casablanca
Although Bernadette won the most awards of the ceremony, Casablanca took home the top two prizes - Best Picture and Best Director. It also earned another major award with Best Screenplay to boast an impressive trio of above-the-line wins. Its legacy stands among the elite group of American classics and is an essential viewing for anybody who likes romance, war pictures, or just movies in general. The drama of the letters of transit holds up and is downright thrilling to the end. The screenplay is host to an endless amount of unforgettable quotes and the rotating cast of characters that interact with Humphrey Bogart's Rick makes the film whiz by. The themes of standing up for what's right in a Nazi-occupied location stands today but had to be even more impactful in 1943. We won't see another Warner Bros. film win Best Picture until the 37th Awards with My Fair Lady (1964).
What should have won: Casablanca
Come on, where you expecting something different? Casablanca is one of my favorite films of all time and I am glad to see it win Best Picture, especially considering how early in the year it was released. This baby was wide released in January of 1943 and had to wrap all the way around the calendar to win in March of 1944. You can see my rankings below so this isn't a slight on Bernadette but holding off the momentum of that film must have been quite the feat. But there's something magical about Casablanca - the music ("As Time Goes By"), the chemistry of not only Bogart and Ingrid Bergman but Bogart and Claude Rains, the emphasis on the need to sacrifice to join the fight against the evils of the world, the memorable lines, and the exquisite cinematography in which Bergman never looked more stunning. Timely for World War II but timeless for future generations, everybody must go to Rick's Cafe at least once.
My Best Picture nominee rankings:
1. Casablanca (10/10)
2. The Song of Bernadette (8/10)
3. The Ox-Bow Incident (8/10)
4. The More the Merrier (8/10)
5. In Which We Serve (7/10)
6. Madame Curie (7/10)
7. Heaven Can Wait (7/10)
8. Watch on the Rhine (6/10)
9. For Whom the Bell Tolls (6/10)
10. The Human Comedy (6/10)