The Academy Awards aim to honor Hollywood’s best work, but it doesn’t always work out that way.
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Every year around this time, we discuss the best films at the Oscars, from what wins to what should have won, to the best films in Oscar history.
However, this is not necessarily the best option. This is the worst situation.
Sure, bad movies usually don’t have a chance at winning the top prize on Oscar night, but mediocre projects, the occasional head-scratcher, and controversial and bizarre pot-starrs do occasionally make the cut for Best Picture, and some even win. Thankfully, this year’s Best Picture selection at the 98th Academy Awards on March 15 (ABC and Hulu, 7 p.m. ET/4 p.m. PT) is pretty packed with good stuff, and none of it stinks like, say, “Bohemian Rhapsody.”
Unfortunately, the best films don’t always win, so here are the 10 worst films the Oscars have awarded, ranked according to how bad they compare.
10. “Slumdog Millionaire” (2008)
The story of a young orphan (played by the rather great Dev Patel) who rises from the slums to win the Indian version of Who Wants to Be a Millionaire? His success is questionable because of his history, but this movie is 99% very good. But the film ends with a huge song-and-dance routine that’s a shout-out to traditional Bollywood, transitioning a little too seamlessly from the final scene and yanking you away from the satisfying ending. (To be honest, this is weirdly infuriating. And now I have the words “Jai Ho” stuck in my head.)
9. “Shakespeare in Love” (1998)
Conceptually, this is a cool idea. Imagine the romance between Shakespeare (Joseph Fiennes) and a woman (Gwyneth Paltrow) who dresses as a man to audition for one of his plays, helping the Bard write Romeo and Juliet. Part romantic comedy, part experimental Shakespeare biopic, and a wealth of references, it’s a flurry of incoherent random events, but it also reminds us that the older William was something of a hipster cat.
8. “Out of Africa” (1985)
Man, this sprawling epic romance is great to watch, and there’s also an embarrassment of riches played by Meryl Streep and Robert Redford, who play a married Danish writer and a big-game hunter, respectively, who fall in love with each other in Nairobi. It’s enough to keep you awake during the slow-paced story and 160-minute running time. When you think of “Oscar movies,” you probably think of “Out of Africa,” for better or worse.
7. “The English Patient” (1996)
It takes the excessive length of “Out of Africa” and doubles down on the melodrama. congratulations. The result is an ambitious and exaggerated World War II photo. A horribly burned pilot (Ralph Fiennes), a former cartographer, tells a military nurse (Juliette Binoche) about how he fell in love with a married British woman (Kristin Scott Thomas) while mapping the Sahara desert. Naturally, her jealous husband (Colin Firth) is disappointed.
6. “Around the World in 80 Days” (1956)
The nostalgic 80 Days is a breezy, over-the-top film starring David Niven as a young British man who bets he can travel around the world in less than three months and meets an all-star cast of characters, including more than 40 cameos from Marlene Dietrich, Cesar Romero, Peter Lorre, Buster Keaton and Frank Sinatra. If that was all it took to win an Oscar, “Cannonball Run” would have been dismissed.
5. “Driving Miss Daisy” (1989)
In hindsight, perhaps the film is more despised for being a movie about a black driver (Morgan Freeman) and an elderly white flight attendant (Jessica Tandy), which won Best Picture over Spike Lee’s seminal Do the Right Thing from the same year, which didn’t even receive a nomination. Still, “Daisy” is an unforgettable emotionally manipulative drama, one might even call it hoqueum, but it never feels old.
4. “Cavalcade” (1933)
Before the Crawley family in “Downton Abbey,” there was the Marriott family, whose family, friends, and servants experienced the ups and downs of life from New Year’s Eve 1899 to New Year’s Day 1933. Looking at how the British coped with the sinking of the Titanic and World War I is interesting as a history lesson, but otherwise pretty sentimental and empty.
3. “Earth’s Greatest Show” (1952)
Legendary film director Cecil B. DeMille’s resume included “Cleopatra” and “Samson and Delilah” before winning Best Picture for “The Greatest Show.” But it was more like a career. More than an award for the actual film, it’s a flashy, haunting triple ode to PT Barnum’s circus, co-starring Jimmy Stewart and Charlton Heston. – It somehow surpassed “High Noon.” In the words of Hugh Jackman: this Is it the best show? no.
2. “Crash” (2005)
The cast is great (Sandra Bullock, Don Cheadle, Thandie Newton, Terrence Howard, etc.), but the movie is not so great. Interwoven with stories set around LA’s social and xenophobic tensions, many opportunities to truly address racism and multiculturalism are forged. Worse, it stole the Best Picture award from “Brokeback Mountain,” a heartfelt and sensitive treatment of gay romance.
1. “Broadway Melody” (1929)
It is the second film to win Best Picture, following the silent film “Wings,” and the first sound film to win an Oscar. There was also a good chance you’d get the worst photo. This musical is a novelty, but it’s a musical about two vaudevillian sisters who step onto Broadway and find show tunes, interludes between stories that come out of nowhere, and a ton of romantic antics. In fact, “Wings” is still often played. This is not the case at all. Watch “Chicago” instead.
