I'm not a big fan of Gandhi. Admirable, yes, but conventional, although Kingsley is very good. He can keep his Oscar, but those Best Picture and Best Director Oscars belong to Spielberg (I agree this is his best film).

I made clear at the start that I didn't necessarily mean the films that won were bad. The Sting and Annie Hall are both favourites of mine too. But I think the films that should have beaten them are better.

And I'm sorry, but I really can't abide your rather snooty take on Star Wars. It's a remarkable piece of work that took so many influences - The Wizard of Oz, westerns, samurai films, Flash Gordon, the Arthur legends, The Lord of the Rings, Greek mythology, etc - and remixed them into an electrifying modern fairy tale with visual effects light years ahead of their time, tremendous sound, and a music score for the ages (John Williams firing on all Wagnerian cylinders). It's absolutely brilliant, dammit.

I cannot even begin to tell you what a profoundly important film this was for me as a child. The fact that it has had a similar impact on every subsequent generation proves Lucas's mythmaking is really something quite transcendent. Even if you hate it (and frankly I pity anyone who does), you have to objectively see that it is a singular and outstanding piece of work that stands as an epoch dividing line in cinema history, BC/AD style - for better and worse, I agree, but mostly for better.

Yes, Star Wars brought about a slew of second-rate imitators (not Lucas's fault), and some of what you say about "infantilising" is true (though great family friendly films have always had an important place in cinema and many of them are classics, even if I agree they shouldn't dominate at the expense of all else). However, without Star Wars there is no Alien, Raiders of the Lost Ark, Blade Runner, E.T. The Extra-Terrestrial, Gremlins, The Terminator, Back to the Future, Aliens, Jurassic Park, Forrest Gump, Men in Black, The Lord of the Rings trilogy, and all the Pixar films (Toy Story, Monsters Inc, Finding Nemo, The Incredibles, Up, Wall-E, Inside Out, etc, etc). I doubt we'd have Christopher Nolan's outstanding body of work either (Inception, Interstellar, Dunkirk, Oppenheimer, etc). Or Guillermo Del Toro's. That's just scratching the surface. Most recently, Denis Villeneuve's outstanding (and definitely grown-up) Dune adaptation wouldn't exist either. Would I want to exist in a misery-guts universe where none of those existed? Hell, no. Blaming Lucas for pollution is a bit much too (besides, I can assure you, most of us kept our Star Wars figures).

Glad we agree about The Searchers though. :)