2025 Best Picture Bracket Challenge-Round 2-Week 4
Once this set of matchups is complete, we'll already be halfway done with round 2!
We have reached the midway point of round 2 so make sure you are voting for your favorites to stay in the bracket.
If you want to see the full bracket, check it out here.
Round 2 Week 2 Recap
Round 2 had one fairly close matchup and several blowouts. The closest matchup of the week was (8) Lawrence of Arabia knocking out (72) Rocky 58%-42% (sorry, the joke had to be made whenever Rocky lost). Next closest was (9) The Silence of the Lambs taking down (56) West Side Story 75%-25%. Finally, neither (40) The Artist nor (41) Slumdog Millionaire stood a chance, going down to (25) Rebecca and (24) No Country for Old Men respectively by a margin of 92%-8% of the vote.
Round 2 Week 4 Matchups
Here is this week’s segment of the bracket!
#5 Casablanca (1943) vs #60 The Sound of Music (1965)
In an interesting turn of events, both of the films in this week’s first matchup take place around the time of WWII and both include acts of resistance against the Axis powers. I’d never really thought of this as a double bill, but it could be an interesting pairing at some point. Curiously, The Sound of Music was nominated for more Academy Awards (ten to Casablanca’s eight) and won more (five to Casablanca’s three), but it comes in much lower in the seedings for this challenge. I know which of these two films I would pick, but it will be interesting to see who you decide is worthy of continuing on to round 3.
#28 Platoon(1986) vs #37 The Lost Weekend (1945)
Another war film drops in here at #28, but now we’ve moved forward in time to the Vietnam War in Platoon. The first in Oliver Stone’s trilogy about the war faces off against the Billy Wilder noir classic The Lost Weekend. I think I mentioned in the first round post that include The Lost Weekend, but the film is one of only four to win Best Picture and the Grand Prix at Cannes (the others being Marty, Parasite, and Anora). In terms of nominations and wins, they are pretty evenly matched with Platoon edging out The Lost Weekend eight nominations to seven, and both films won four awards including Best Picture and Best Director.
#12 The Best Years of Our Lives (1946) vs #53 Gandhi (1982)
William Wyler re-enters the fray with this matchup of two films that nearly swept their year at the Oscars. The Best Years of Our Lives was nominated for eight competitive awards and won seven, but added an honorary award for Harold Russell (who also won for Best Supporting Actor) and the Irving G. Thalberg Memorial Award that went to producer Samuel Goldwyn. Gandhi was nominated for 11 awards and took home eight including Ben Kingley’s Best Actor win and a Best Director win for Richard Attenborough. Could we be looking at an upset here (at least according to the seeding) or will Wyler, Myrna Loy, and Fredric March win the day?
#21 Unforgiven (1992) vs #44 Argo (2012)
I can’t say that it gets much better than Gene Hackman, Morgan Freeman, Richard Harris, and Clint Eastwood starring in a film also directed by Eastwood, but that’s exactly what you get in Unforgiven. Few directors have had such a legendary career as Eastwood, currently spanning six decades and while his latest film Juror #2 was supposedly his last, I wouldn’t be surprised if he gives us one more. On the flip side, Ben Affleck’s career hasn’t been nearly as successful behind the camera as Eastwood, but in front of the camera he is a bona fide star. One director tries to stay out of the spotlight while the other is constantly front and center (can we say “J. Lo”?) so which of these two do you prefer?