We’re not saying any of these films are bad, but we do reckon there are times when the Academy bottle it completely.
GoodFellas, Pulp Fiction, The Shawshank Redemption and Munich are just four absolute classics that lost to inferior films on Oscar night.
With that in mind, we take a look back at seven of the least deserving winners of the biggest prize in the movie industry since the late 1980s.
Driving Miss Daisy (1989) – beat My Left Foot, Born on the Fourth of July and Dead Poets Society
Driving Miss Daisy is a nice film, one that you might follow for half an hour or so on a Sunday afternoon before the dinner or the football, but it was far from the best film of 1989.
The honour should have gone to Dead Poets Society, the magic of which can still be felt almost three decades after its release, even ahead of the brilliant My Left Foot and Born on the Fourth of July.
Driving Miss Daisy is arguably the least memorable Best Picture winner of the 20th (or 21st) century, a safe choice among far more worthy and epoch defining films.
Dances With Wolves (1990) – beat GoodFellas
Kevin Costner’s epic captured some stunning cinematography and was certainly among the best films of 1990, but it beat GoodFellas to the Best Picture Academy Award.
GoodFellas.
Martin Scorsese’s organised crime classic remains, arguably, the greatest film not to have taken home the Best Picture prize as the Academy went for the po-faced, slow-paced Western instead.
Ask yourself two questions:
When was the last time you watched Dance With Wolves?
When was the last time you watched GoodFellas?
QED.
Forrest Gump (1994) – beat Pulp Fiction and The Shawshank Redemption
Mostly any other year and you’re talking about a deserving winner. Forrest Gump has its detractors but it’s one of the most engaging and enjoyable films of the 1990s, with a cracking soundtrack and memorable performances from Tom Hanks and Robin Wright.
But.
Is it better than Pulp Fiction and The Shawshank Redemption? One completely changed the language of modern cinema, the other is arguably the most complete and perfect film in the history of the medium. Forrest Gump is better than its detractors would have you believe, but it can’t compare to two genuine modern classics.
Shakespeare In Love (1998) – beat Saving Private Ryan and The Thin Red Line
Frivolous nonsense trumps the pain and squalor of war every time. So it went that John Madden’s tribute to the Bard took home seven Oscars, including the big one.
It was a triumph of mediocrity.
Neither Saving Private Ryan and The Thin Red Line were perfect, but Steven Spielberg’s World War II should have taken home the statuette for that opening salvo alone.
Chicago (2002) – beat The Pianist, Gangs of New York and Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers
Not a classic year by any means. Gangs of New York suffered under the weight of some dodgy Oirish accents and never rising to meet the performance of Daniel Day-Lewis; The Two Towers was a bridge between two bigger, better films and The Pianist was just too bleak to win the popular vote.
That left Chicago to win purely for the novelty of being a musical in an era of pure talkies.
Crash (2005) – beat Brokeback Mountain, Capote, Good Night, And Good Luck and Munich
Arguably the strongest line-up for Best Picture in the last quarter of a century, and the poorest of the lot took home the prize.
That Paul Haggis’s simplistic, manipulative look at the racial divide in Los Angeles beat any of the following films to the Best Picture prize is questionable to say the very least.
- Brokeback Mountain: Ang Lee’s masterpiece; Heath Ledger’s greatest performance (including the Dark Knight); one of the greatest tragic dramas in recent cinema history.
- Capote: Bennett Miller’s look at the life of Truman Capote during the writing of In Cold Blood. Philip Seymour Hoffman would win the Oscar for his performance.
- Good Night, And Good Luck: George Clooney directs David Strathairn in a sober and startling look at journalism during the era of McCarthyism.
- Munich: Steven Spielberg’s greatest film since Schindler’s List.
Yet Crash won.
The King’s Speech (2010) – beat The Social Network, Inception and True Grit
Talk about the safe option.
Try and tell us The King’s Speech is better than The Social Network or True Grit with a straight face, let alone Christopher Nolan’s mind-bending Inception.
We’d struggle to remember a single memorable moment from The King’s Speech, a film that you might describe as ‘y’know, grand’ if pushed.
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