Nolte: Movies that Should Have Won the Best Picture Oscar – Part 2 Photo by Hulton Archive/Getty Images 17 Apr 2021 Yesterday we looked at the very first years of Best Picture winners, 1927 to 1930. Today, as we march through the decades, we look at 1931 to 1939. Let’s begin… Grand Hotel Hard to argue with a picture that proves, once again, that MGM did indeed have more stars than were found in Heaven: Greta Garbo, John Barrymore, a gorgeous Joan Crawford (who steals the movie), Wallace Beery, Lionel Barrymore, and so on… It’s all elegant and melodramatic and more than little stagey, but nearly 90 years later, outside of some draggy parts, it still entertains.