Ok, here is the second list in the run up to the Oscars this Sunday.  We're looking at years that the winners faced unusually strong competition.  Years when you could look at the list of nominees and say, "Wow, they could have picked movies X or Y and nobody could really complain about that."  The kind of years that remind you of the '27 Yankees lineup or the Big Red Machine of the 70s, if you're a baseball fan.  The kinds of years you look at and do a double take because you're shocked and saying "I can't believe that movie didn't win a Best Picture, or that one, or that one..."  Again all of these can be found on IMDB.com's awards page.

Honorable Mentions (Chronological):
1941
Winner: Rebecca
Nominees: All This and Heaven Too, Foreign Correspondent, The Grapes of Wrath, The Great Dictator, Kitty Foyle: The Natural History of a Woman, The Letter, The Long Voyage Home, Our Town, The Philadelphia Story
1951
Winner: All About Eve
Nominees: Born Yesterday, Father of the Bride, King Solomon's Mines, Sunset Blvd.
1962
Winner: West Side Story
Nominees: Fanny, The Guns of Navarone, The Hustler, Judgment at Nuremberg
1973
Winner: The Godfather
Nominees: Cabaret, Deliverance, Sounder, The Emigrants
1974
Winner: The Sting
Nominees: American Graffiti, The Exorcist, A Touch of Class, Cries and Whispers
1978
Winner: Annie Hall
Nominees: The Goodbye Girl, Julia, Star Wars, The Turning Point
1981
Winner: Ordinary People
Nominees: Coal Miner's Daughter, Elephant Man, Raging Bull, Tess
1990
Winner: Driving Miss Daisy
Nominees: Born on the 4th of July, Dead Poets Society, Field of Dreams, My Left Foot: The Story of Christy Brown
1998
Winner: Titanic
Nominees: As Good As It Gets, The Full Monty, Good Will Hunting, L.A. Confidential

TOP 10:
10. 1972
Winner: The French Connection
Nominees: A Clockwork Orange, Fiddler on the Roof, The Last Picture Show, Nicholas and Alexandra

9. 1942
Winner: How Green Was My Valley
Nominees: Blossom in the Dust, Citizen Kane, Here Comes Mr. Jordan, Hold Back the Dawn, The Little Foxes, The Maltese Falcon, One Foot In Heavan, Sargeant York, Suspicion

8. 1976
Winner: One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest
Nominees: Barry Lyndon, Dog Day Afternoon, Jaws, Nashville

7. 1963
Winner: Lawrence of Arabia
Nominees: The Longest Day, The Music Man, Mutiny on the Bounty, To Kill a Mockingbird

6. 2008
Winner: No Country For Old Men
Nominees: Atonement, Juno, Michael Clayton, There Will Be Blood

5. 1977
Winner: Rocky
Nominees: All the President's Men, Bound for Glory, Network, Taxi Driver

4. 1975
Winner: The Godfather: Part II
Nominees: Chinatown, The Conversation, Lenny, The Towering Inferno

3. 1995
Winner: Forrest Gump
Nominees: Four Weddings and a Funeral, Pulp Fiction, Quiz Show, The Shawshank Redemption

2. 1968
Winner: In the Heat of the Night
Nominees: Bonnie and Clyde, Doctor Dolittle, The Graduate, Guess Who's Coming to Dinner

1. 1940
Winner: Gone With the Wind
Nominees: Dark Victory, Goodbye, Mr. Chips, Love Affair, Mr. Smith Goes to Washington, Ninotchka, Of Mice and Men, Stagecoach, The Wizard of Oz, Wuthering Heights

~Moose