After yesterday’s mandatory entry, it’s still the week before the Academy Awards ceremony, when Oscar fans have the best excuse to wax eloquent about the greatest awards show of all time. Also, they can indulge in as much hyperbole as they want without fear of retribution. ‘Tis the season.

As I mentioned yesterday, I saw all the Best Picture winners over the course of a several-year journey back in the 1990s. Some were invaluable enterprises that I’m glad I went out of my way to catch. Some…not so much. It’s been my geek experience that when you dedicate yourself to absolute completism on a given subject without fail or compromise, you find yourself having to tolerate a lot of damaged goods that you’ll regret later, in exchange for those bragging rights.

My list of the most regrettable Best Picture winners to date is thankfully shorter than my Best Best Pictures list. I’ve seen several Best Picture nominees that were far more toxic than most of these, but that doesn’t improve their own letter grades in my amateur-appreciator book.

Presented in no conscious order:

* The English Patient. Seinfeld mocked this beloved non-linear adaptation years before I saw it. I allowed it an impartial chance to stand or fall on its own merits nonetheless. I even watched it twice in order to grasp the complexities of the interwoven timelines. Despite my efforts, it never had a chance. Fun trivia: stories in which I’m expected to sympathize with adulterers will find me next to impossible to win over. It’s a sore spot inflicted by my own personal history, a flagrant bias I have no interest in setting aside. Out of Africa failed me for this same reason, though at least Meryl Streep didn’t compound her sins by abetting the Nazis in the name of lust.

* Gentleman’s Agreement. I realize it was an important film for its time about a very sensitive subject. I get that anti-Semitism is no laughing matter. But when Gregory Peck’s journalist goes “undercover” as a Jewish man to uncover bigotry among the gentile upper class, his “cover” consists of assuming a stereotypical pseudonym and telling people randomly that he’s Jewish. “Hi, how are you? I’m Jewish.” “Lovely weather we’re having. By the way, I’m Jewish.” “Please pass the peas. Did you know I’m Jewish?” As dapper men turned apoplectic and delicate matriarchs clutched their pearls in terror at this wanton display of intensively researched, authentically simulated Judaism…I tried to keep a straight face. I really tried.

* American Beauty. Welcome to happy-suburban-family-with-adulterous-secrets film #17,005. For value-added titillation, please enjoy nude scenes with disaffected teens. It wasn’t hard for Kevin Spacey’s shameless showboat of a performance to stand out from this pit of despair. To this day, whenever I pass by a plastic bag flitting around in the wind, I shudder and try to think of something actually beautiful instead.

* You Can’t Take It with You. Perhaps at the time, the notion of a normal man attempting to cope with a wild ‘n’ wacky family was an innovative concept. Today it’s the plot of a thousand sitcoms. I suppose this could be the forefather of them all, in the same way that Bullitt begat car chases. I refused to give it the benefit of the doubt anyway.

* The Deer Hunter. Make no mistake: once we arrive in Vietnam, your viewing world is turned upside-down as you’re dropped head-first into a walking nightmare where Robert DeNiro, Christoper Walken, and assorted American cannon fodder are captives of a merciless enemy and feeling all pretense of hope and happiness being forcibly flensed from their souls. That systemic shock is your reward if you manage to endure the first twelve hours of the film, in which our heroes party, hang out, enjoy small-town life, and generally zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz.

* Forrest Gump. In a year that included The Shawshank Redemption, Pulp Fiction, and director Robert Redford’s underrated Quiz Show, the trophy went to the misadventures of a simpleton growing wiser in a land of low-key special effects that would later revolutionize the world of TV commercials. My chief problem: I made the mistake of reading the book first. The original Winston Groom novel was funnier (if a little cruder) and more episodic, contained several chapters omitted from the movie, and wasn’t nearly the winsome crowd-pleaser. The transformation from one to the other felt dishonest to me, especially the part where the character who died at the end of the movie for maximum emotional impact hadn’t died in the book. I’m fine with minor course corrections in transmedia adaptations, but the Jekyll/Hyde difference between the source and the reboot drove me buggy.

* Around the World in 80 Days. In a year that saw John Ford’s devastating Western The Searchers garner exactly zero nominations, the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences instead celebrated a gallivanting world tour staged as a brazen celebration of the invention of Technicolor, packed with dozens of cameos by people no longer famous, and costarring whatever a “Cantinflas” was. Truth be known, by the time the movie ended, I’d already forgotten most of it. I can recall the latter-day Steve Coogan/Jackie Chan flop version better than I can this “winner”.

Honorable mentions: Several Best Picture winners I know I watched years ago (my best friend at the time, now my wife, will testify to this), but I couldn’t tell you a thing about them today without Googling for hints — Cavalcade, Tom Jones, A Man for All Seasons, The Life of Emile Zola, and The Last Emperor. If I can’t remember anything good or bad about your film, something went wrong with one of us. Admittedly, it could be me.