MovieChat Forums > Sunrise: A Song of Two Humans (1927) Discussion > Why is this never on "Best Picture" list...

Why is this never on "Best Picture" lists?


Both Sunrise and Wings are fantastic pictures and I doubt mean this to diminish the quality of either. Yet I find myself confused why this is never on the list of films that won Best Picture.

Best Production and Best Artistic Production seem to have been merged into one category that encompasses both aspects (large scale production that produced a quality film and also artistic merit and storytelling), so why do nearly every list of winners show Wings as being the only one from that year? Why did that start given the fact there were clearly two winners in a category that was later merged into one? Seems only right both are included.

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One would expect the Academy to happily push a film as magnificent as Sunrise as an Oscar-winner but the fact is that while the two categories were indeed conceived as equals, official Academy records list Wings as the first Best Picture winner. I agree that this is odd - although by the standards of some of the early winners, Wings is a fine choice in its own right.

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Never heard of it !

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Because it was the equivalent of an Honorary Oscar

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AFI named it to the List of 100 Greatest Films of All-Time (#82)

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