Oscar’s Best Pictures Set in Texas (Or The Lack Thereof)

Looking at the list of Best Picture honorees over the past 87 Academy Awards ceremonies, it became very clear very quickly that some pictures set in Texas were nominated, very few actually set in the Lone Star State actually won Best Picture honors. Indeed a lot of pictures set in Texas weren't even nominated.

This is to be expected.The pictures are made in Hollywood and financed by people in New York. Even one of the three Best Picture winners set in Texas hightails it to New York in the first few minutes of the movie. Not that New York looks attractive in Midnight Cowboy.

Ewww! Even the Texas in the old diner is gross! Nothing less for the first X-rated film to win Best Picture. So this one doesn't really count.

Academy Members being wealthy do respond to period pieces, costume dramas and foreign films. There are more foreign-set Best Pictures than those in Texas. The Last Picture Show is both, where Texas isn't just a whole other country, it's a whole other planet, a different place in time called North Texas, 1951.

The third film deserves it's own post. It's setting is Texas, only brutal.Tune in tomorrow, Texas!