They overlooked the Hobbit trilogy several years ago after giving a Best Picture Oscar to the third installment of The Lord of the Rings, over a decade ago. Those are quality films the will live forever on cable.
Gladiator was historically ridiculous but immensely entertaining. I rewatch it from time to time. What recent winner can you say that about?
I barely made it through the Hobbit films. I probably would have loved them if they'd simply followed the book, but by padding the story into three films in an attempt to make The Hobbit as epic as Lord of the Rings they lost me. All they did was add endless Orc battles to each film. I think if they edited the films down to 1 or 2 films they'd have something. To me they were yawners. I can't imagine what the "extended editions" must be like.
Loved the LOTR trilogy, though. A bit of padding there, too (notably in The Two Towers), but over-all, quite well done.