Best Picture of 1978

The Winner: The Deer Hunter

The Other Nominees: Coming Home, Heaven Can Wait, Midnight Express, and An Unmarried Woman.


My Choice: Coming Home. This was a particularly strong year for movies. All of the nominated films are excellent, but Coming Home has always resonated with me because of the relationship between Jane Fonda's Sally and Jon Voight's Luke. This is a mature film for grown-ups. It makes its viewers consider the repercussions of war, but it does so without ever taking us to the battlefields in Vietnam. By suggesting that the war doesn't end when the soldiers return home, Coming Home manages to demonstrate that the United States in 1978 still had a lot of unfinished business regarding the Vietnam War. The film also shines a light on an issue that became a national disgrace, the treatment of the veterans when they got back home. I realize that many people might consider this film to be unpatriotic, particularly given the final speech Luke delivers, but what is more patriotic than asking for your country to be a better place for everyone? And it's also an intensely romantic film with an emotionally satisfying relationship between the two main characters. I truly admire all five of the nominees for Best Picture of 1978, but I have to go with the film that has the most courage and the greatest heart, and that is Coming Home.