Welcome to One Best Picture After Another – where I attempt to watch all the winners of the Academy Award for Best Picture, starting at the very beginning. And attempt to answer two simple questions – is the film still actually any good? And why did it win?

When I was watching All Quiet On The Western Front, I couldn’t shake off the incredible fact that this was made in 1930. It feels so ahead of its time, a brilliant piece of work that casts a shadow on so many films made, not just that year, but for years to come. Mentally I’ve become so accustomed to accepting a certain level of production values when it comes to films made in the first decade of sound, that the fact this film comes along and blows all of that out the water is striking.

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