1975 Alternate Oscars

A year ago, Sight & Sound magazine came out with its once-a-decade list of the greatest movies ever made, passing over the likes of Dr. Strangelove, Double Indemnity and Pulp Fiction, which didn't make the top 100, and skipping over past winners Citizen Kane and Vertigo as well, before settling on Jeanne Dielman, 23, quai du commerce, 1080 Bruxelles, a French art film about a woman silently peeling potatoes for three and a half hours.

I've seen Jeanne Dielman and I've gotta tell you, its appeal mystifies me. But if by some miracle it really is the best movie ever made, then Delphine Seyrig definitely deserves the Oscar for best actress because she's on screen every single minute — the movie lives or dies on her performance.

Me, I'm going with Ann-Margret in Tommy. I can't say with 100% confidence that it's the best performance of 1975 but she had a great career, was a wonderful singer-dancer and deserves some kind of award for letting that lunatic of a director, Ken Russell, hose her down with a swimming pool's worth of Heinz baked beans.

As always, though, the choice is yours.

My choices are noted with a ★. A tie is indicated with a ✪. Historical Oscar winners are noted with a ✔. Best foreign-language picture winners are noted with an ƒ. A historical winner who won in a different category is noted with a ✱.