1984 Alternate Oscars

Having lived through 1984 in real time, I remember there being three obvious choices for the best picture award come Oscar time — A Passage to India, The Killing Fields and the eventual winner, Amadeus, which features a sublime film score by some guy named Mozart.

But for me, the best movies of the year were and still are a couple of offbeat low-budget indie films that have become part of the popular culture in a way the Oscar contenders have not.

The Terminator was James Cameron's low-budget sci-fi film about a spunky waitress and the robot sent back from the future to kill her. What at first blush looked like the makings of a cheesy B-picture thriller turned out to be a moving love story, a tautly-told action picture and an interesting think-piece.

It was also the beginning of a lucrative film franchise and featured a career-making turn for weightlifter-turned-actor Arnold Schwarzenegger, who was never better.

The other, This is Spinal Tap, was Rob Reiner's hilarious mockumentary about a fading heavy metal band. Not only is it choke-on-your-own-breath funny, it also spawned an entire genre, both Christopher Guest mockumentaries and such television shows as The Office and Modern Family.

Movies like these two classics never seem to win any awards, but they've won legions of loyal fans over the intervening decades. Count me among them.

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 ✱.