From revisionist Westerns and psychological thrillers to sweeping historical epics and contemporary dramas, the Best Picture winners of 1990–2009 show how the Oscars adapted to the blockbuster age and a more global film landscape.
This era includes some of the most widely watched and debated winners in Academy history, from Dances With Wolves and The Silence of the Lambs to Titanic, The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King and Slumdog Millionaire. Below is a year‑by‑year guide to every Best Picture winner from 1990 to 2009.
Dances With Wolves (1990) is an epic Western directed by, produced by and starring Kevin Costner in his feature directing debut. Adapted from Michael Blake’s novel, it follows Union lieutenant John J. Dunbar as he’s posted to a remote frontier outpost and gradually forms a deep bond with a Lakota Sioux community.
The film grossed about 424 million dollars worldwide, becoming the fourth‑highest‑grossing movie of 1990 and the biggest hit in Orion Pictures’ history.
At the 63rd Academy Awards it received 12 nominations and won seven, including Best Picture, Best Director, Best Adapted Screenplay, Cinematography, Film Editing, Original Score and Sound Mixing. It is one of only four Westerns ever to win Best Picture, alongside Cimarron, Unforgiven and No Country for Old Men.
The Silence of the Lambs (1991) is a psychological horror‑thriller directed by Jonathan Demme, adapted from Thomas Harris’s novel. Jodie Foster plays FBI trainee Clarice Starling, who turns to imprisoned cannibalistic psychiatrist Hannibal Lecter (Anthony Hopkins) for help catching serial killer “Buffalo Bill.”
Produced for about 19 million dollars, it grossed roughly 273 million worldwide and premiered at the Berlin International Film Festival, where Demme won the Silver Bear for Best Director.
At the Oscars it became only the third film to sweep the “Big Five”—Best Picture, Director, Actor, Actress and Adapted Screenplay—and remains the only horror film ever to win Best Picture.
Unforgiven (1992) is a revisionist Western produced and directed by Clint Eastwood, who also stars as retired outlaw William Munny. Lured into one last job, Munny confronts his violent past in a story that dismantles traditional Western hero myths.
The film grossed more than 159 million dollars worldwide on a 14‑million budget and drew praise for its acting, direction, themes and cinematography.
It won four Academy Awards—Best Picture, Best Director, Best Supporting Actor (Gene Hackman) and Best Film Editing—and became the third Western to win Best Picture, following Cimarron and Dances With Wolves.
Schindler’s List (1993) is an epic historical drama directed and produced by Steven Spielberg, based on Thomas Keneally’s book Schindler’s Ark. It tells the true story of German industrialist Oskar Schindler, who saved more than 1,000 mostly Polish‑Jewish refugees from the Holocaust by employing them in his factories.
The film grossed around 322 million dollars worldwide on a 22‑million budget and received near‑unanimous critical acclaim.
Nominated for 12 Oscars, it won seven, including Best Picture, Best Director, Adapted Screenplay, Cinematography, Film Editing, Art Direction and Original Score. It is widely regarded as one of the most important Holocaust films ever made.
Forrest Gump (1994) is a comedy‑drama directed by Robert Zemeckis, adapted by Eric Roth from Winston Groom’s novel. Tom Hanks plays Forrest, an Alabama man with a simple outlook and kind heart who unwittingly drifts through several defining moments of late‑20th‑century American history.
The movie became the top‑grossing U.S. release of 1994 and earned more than 678 million dollars worldwide, second only to The Lion King globally that year. Its soundtrack album sold over 12 million copies.
Forrest Gump won six Oscars—Best Picture, Best Director, Best Actor (Hanks), Best Adapted Screenplay, Best Visual Effects and Best Film Editing—along with major Golden Globe, BAFTA and SAG honors.
Braveheart (1995) is an epic historical war drama directed by and starring Mel Gibson as Scottish leader William Wallace during the First War of Scottish Independence. Written by Randall Wallace and loosely inspired by Blind Harry’s 15th‑century poem, it dramatizes Wallace’s guerrilla campaign against English rule.
The film was praised for its large‑scale battle sequences, production values, score and performances, even as historians criticized its many liberties with the record.
It won five Academy Awards—Best Picture, Best Director, Best Cinematography, Best Makeup and Best Sound Effects Editing—cementing its place among 1990s Hollywood epics.
The English Patient (1996) is an epic romantic war drama directed by Anthony Minghella, adapted from Michael Ondaatje’s novel. It centers on a badly burned man in an Italian monastery near the end of World War II whose fragmented memories reveal his true identity and a doomed pre‑war love affair.
The film earned 12 Oscar nominations and won nine, including Best Picture, Best Director, Best Supporting Actress (Juliette Binoche), Art Direction, Cinematography, Costume Design, Film Editing, Original Dramatic Score and Sound.
It was the first digitally edited film to win the editing Oscar and also collected BAFTAs and Golden Globes, with Ralph Fiennes and Kristin Scott Thomas receiving acting nominations.
Titanic (1997) is an epic romantic disaster film directed, written, co‑produced and co‑edited by James Cameron. Blending historical detail with fictional characters, it dramatizes the 1912 sinking of RMS Titanic through the love story of Jack (Leonardo DiCaprio), a poor artist, and Rose (Kate Winslet), an upper‑class passenger.
The film was nominated for 14 Oscars and won a record‑tying 11, including Best Picture, Best Director, Art Direction, Cinematography, Costume Design, Film Editing, Original Dramatic Score, Original Song, Sound, Sound Effects Editing and Visual Effects.
Titanic became the first film to cross 1 billion dollars worldwide and ultimately grossed over 2.2 billion, holding the all‑time box‑office record for 12 years until Cameron’s Avatar surpassed it.
Shakespeare in Love (1998) is a period romantic comedy directed by John Madden. It imagines a fictional love affair between William Shakespeare (Joseph Fiennes) and Viola de Lesseps (Gwyneth Paltrow) as he struggles to write Romeo and Juliet, weaving in playful nods to his plays and London theatre culture.
The film grossed about 289 million dollars worldwide and ranked among the top ten box‑office performers of 1998.
It earned 13 Oscar nominations and won seven, including Best Picture, Best Actress (Paltrow), Best Supporting Actress (Judi Dench), Best Original Screenplay, Original Musical or Comedy Score, Art Direction and Costume Design, plus Golden Globes, SAG Awards and BAFTAs.
American Beauty (1999) is a psychological dark comedy‑drama directed by Sam Mendes in his feature debut and written by Alan Ball. It satirizes suburban ennui, midlife crisis and the pursuit of happiness in the American middle class, exploring desire, repression and self‑reinvention.
The film became one of the year’s most acclaimed releases, grossing over 350 million dollars worldwide on a 15‑million budget. DreamWorks backed it with a strong awards campaign after Saving Private Ryan lost Best Picture the year before.
American Beauty won five Oscars—Best Picture, Best Director, Best Actor (Kevin Spacey), Best Original Screenplay and Best Cinematography—securing its status as a defining late‑’90s Oscar winner.
Gladiator (2000) is an epic historical drama directed by Ridley Scott, with a script by David Franzoni, John Logan and William Nicholson inspired by Daniel P. Mannix’s book Those About to Die. Russell Crowe stars as Maximus, a betrayed Roman general who becomes a gladiator seeking revenge on the emperor who murdered his family.
The film grossed about 465 million dollars worldwide—the second‑highest total of 2000—and is widely credited with reviving the sword‑and‑sandals genre for modern audiences.
It won five Oscars, including Best Picture, Best Actor (Crowe), Costume Design, Sound and Visual Effects, and later influenced a wave of historical epics, eventually leading to the sequel Gladiator II in 2024.
A Beautiful Mind (2001) is a biographical drama directed by Ron Howard, adapted by Akiva Goldsman from Sylvia Nasar’s biography of mathematician John Nash. Russell Crowe plays Nash, tracing his rise as a brilliant but socially awkward theorist, his battle with mental illness and his eventual recognition with the Nobel Prize in Economics.
The film received generally positive reviews and grossed more than 313 million dollars worldwide.
It won four Academy Awards—Best Picture, Best Director, Best Supporting Actress (Jennifer Connelly) and Best Adapted Screenplay—while Crowe and several technical categories also received nominations.
Chicago (2002) is a musical black comedy crime film directed by Rob Marshall in his feature debut, adapted by Bill Condon from the stage musical (itself based on a 1926 play). Set in Jazz Age Chicago, it explores celebrity, scandal and corruption through the intersecting stories of murderesses Roxie Hart and Velma Kelly.
The film was the tenth‑highest‑grossing U.S. release of 2002 and helped bring the movie musical back into mainstream favor.
Chicago earned 13 Oscar nominations and won six, including Best Picture—making it the first musical to win the top prize since Oliver! (1968). Catherine Zeta‑Jones won Best Supporting Actress, and the film picked up Golden Globes and other major awards for its cast and choreography.
The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King (2003) is an epic fantasy adventure directed by Peter Jackson, adapted with Fran Walsh and Philippa Boyens from J. R. R. Tolkien’s novel. As the final chapter of the trilogy, it concludes Frodo and Sam’s journey to destroy the One Ring and Aragorn’s ascent to the throne of Gondor.
The film grossed over 1.1 billion dollars worldwide, becoming 2003’s top‑grossing release and, at the time, the second‑highest‑grossing film ever.
At the Oscars it achieved a historic 11‑for‑11 sweep, winning every category in which it was nominated—including Best Picture and Best Director—and tying Ben‑Hur and Titanic for the most Academy Award wins. It was also the first fantasy film to win Best Picture.
Million Dollar Baby (2004) is a boxing drama directed, produced, scored by and starring Clint Eastwood, adapted from F.X. Toole’s story collection Rope Burns: Stories from the Corner. It follows aspiring fighter Maggie Fitzgerald (Hilary Swank) and veteran trainer Frankie Dunn (Eastwood) as their professional partnership evolves into a surrogate family bond.
Made for about 30 million dollars, it grossed roughly 217 million worldwide and was named one of the year’s best films by several critics’ groups.
The movie received seven Oscar nominations and won four: Best Picture, Best Director, Best Actress (Swank) and Best Supporting Actor (Morgan Freeman), and is often ranked among the strongest films of the 2000s.
Crash (2004/2005) is an ensemble crime drama directed by Paul Haggis, who co‑wrote and co‑produced it with Robert Moresco. Set in Los Angeles, it interweaves multiple storylines about race, class and social tension, partly inspired by Haggis’s own experience of being carjacked.
Produced for around 6.5 million dollars, the film grossed close to 98 million worldwide and found a larger audience after a strong home‑video run.
It received six Oscar nominations and, in one of the Academy’s most debated outcomes, won three: Best Picture, Best Original Screenplay and Best Film Editing. It also earned two BAFTAs, including Best Original Screenplay, and several other awards.
The Departed (2006) is a crime thriller directed by Martin Scorsese, written by William Monahan as an English‑language remake of the Hong Kong film Infernal Affairs and partly inspired by Boston’s Winter Hill Gang. It follows an undercover cop in a crime syndicate and a mob mole in the police, each racing to uncover the other’s identity.
Starring Leonardo DiCaprio, Matt Damon, Jack Nicholson and Mark Wahlberg, the film grossed about 292 million dollars worldwide on a 90‑million budget and was widely acclaimed for its direction, performances and taut construction.
It won four Oscars—Best Picture, Best Director (Scorsese’s long‑awaited first win), Best Adapted Screenplay and Best Film Editing—and picked up multiple Golden Globe and BAFTA nominations.
No Country for Old Men (2007) is a neo‑Western crime thriller written, directed, produced and edited by Joel and Ethan Coen, adapted from Cormac McCarthy’s novel. Set along the Texas‑Mexico border in 1980, it follows a hunter who stumbles onto drug money, a relentless hitman (Javier Bardem) and an aging sheriff trying to make sense of escalating violence.
The film grossed about 171 million dollars worldwide on a 25‑million budget and collected 76 wins from more than 100 major nominations.
It won four Academy Awards—Best Picture, Best Director (shared by the Coens), Best Adapted Screenplay and Best Supporting Actor (Bardem)—and is one of only four Westerns to win Best Picture, alongside Cimarron, Dances With Wolves and Unforgiven.
Slumdog Millionaire (2008) is a British drama directed by Danny Boyle, co‑directed in India by Loveleen Tandan, loosely adapted from Vikas Swarup’s novel Q & A. It follows Jamal Malik (Dev Patel), an 18‑year‑old from the slums of Mumbai who appears on the Indian version of Who Wants to Be a Millionaire? and is interrogated by police about how he knows the answers.
Shot extensively on location in India, the film uses Jamal’s life story to explain each quiz question and blends romance, crime and social commentary.
Slumdog Millionaire received ten Oscar nominations and won eight—Best Picture, Best Director, Best Adapted Screenplay, Cinematography, Film Editing, Original Score, Original Song and Sound Mixing—along with seven BAFTAs and four Golden Globes. Its portrayal of poverty drew acclaim in the West and mixed reactions in India.
The Hurt Locker (2008/2009) is a war action‑thriller directed by Kathryn Bigelow and written by Mark Boal, based on Boal’s reporting with an Explosive Ordnance Disposal unit in Iraq. It follows an elite bomb‑disposal team whose members face constant danger and psychological strain as they defuse improvised explosives.
The film earned nine Oscar nominations and won six, including Best Picture, Best Director, Best Original Screenplay, Film Editing, Sound Editing and Sound Mixing.
Bigelow became the first woman ever to win the Academy Award for Best Director, a landmark widely covered in the press. Although it grossed only about 49 million dollars worldwide, The Hurt Locker is now considered one of the defining Iraq War films.
From Dances With Wolves and Unforgiven reviving the Western to megahits like Titanic and The Return of the King dominating both the box office and the Oscars, this 20‑year run shows how often the Academy aligned itself with large‑scale event movies. At the same time, smaller or riskier titles—The Silence of the Lambs, American Beauty, The Hurt Locker—proved that darker or more intimate stories could still claim the top prize in a blockbuster age.
By 2009, Best Picture winners had become a mix of global co‑productions, awards‑season dramas and genre films elevated by critical acclaim, reflecting a more international marketplace and a more fragmented movie culture. Part 5 will carry the story into the 2010s and 2020s, as streaming, social media and new voting rules reshape what it means to be an Oscar “Best Picture.”
