20 of the worst Oscar winners in history

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Tom Huddleston sorts the least deserving Academy Award winners

It’s Oscar season once again – and while Academy members scratch their heads trying to decide which of this year’s crop of worthy titles deserves to take home the big prize, we trawl the archives to uncover the worst Oscar offences of all time. From the film that beat ‘Citizen Kane’ to Best Picture to the time ‘Harry and the Hendersons’ walked away with a handful of gold, here are all the Academy’s biggest blunders in one handy list.

This is by no means a definitive rundown of all of Oscar’s shoddy decisions – we didn’t even have room to mention Celine Dion or ’Chicago’ – so if you really, really hate ‘Titanic’ or really, really love ‘Forrest Gump’, tell us about it in the comments box below.

4. 'Around the World in 80 Days' (1956)

Best Picture, 29th Academy Awards, 1957

Sometimes the Academy don’t just get the winners wrong, but the whole damn ceremony: in 1957, while the likes of ‘The Searchers’, ‘Written on the Wind’ and ‘Forbidden Planet’ were wowing audiences at home, with ‘The Ladykillers’, ‘La Strada’ and ‘Seven Samurai’ on release worldwide, the Academy saw fit to reward this turgid family romp, while the nominees were rounded out with epically tedious crud like ‘Giant’, ‘The King and I’ and ‘The Ten Commandments’.

It could’ve been: A year to remember.




Browse through our list of Oscar blunders

Victor Fleming for 'Gone with the Wind' (1939) 'How Green was My Valley' (1941) 'The Greatest Show on Earth' (1952) 'Around the World in 80 Days' (1956) Leon Shamroy for 'Cleopatra' (1963) 'The Sound of Music' (1965) 'Une Homme et une Femme' (1966) John G Avildsen for 'Rocky' (1977) 'I Just Called to Say I Love You' by Stevie Wonder (1985) 'Out of Africa' (1986) Rick Baker for 'Harry and the Hendersons' (1988) 'Driving Miss Daisy' (1990) Anthony Hopkins for ‘The Silence of the Lambs’, Al Pacino for ‘Scent of a Woman’ Three drippy ballads from Disney 'Forrest Gump' (1994) 'A Beautiful Mind' (2002) Renee Zellweger for ‘Cold Mountain’ (2003) 'Crash' (2006) 'The Secret in Their Eyes' (2010) Mauro Fiore for 'Avatar' (2010)

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  • Hold Up! You think that The Ten Commandments was "epically tedious crud?" It is one of the greatest films of the mid-1900s. It is long but it was based off The Bible book of Exodus, which is fairly long itself. It was just staying true to the source material.

    Jackson About 10 days ago
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