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.

16. ‘A Beautiful Mind’ (2002)

Best Picture, 74th Academy Awards, 2002

By the late ‘90s, it seemed the Academy had decided to avert any chance of controversy by doling out awards to the blandest, most inoffensive movie they could find (see also: ‘Shakespeare in Love’, ‘Titanic’, ‘Chicago’). The worst offender in this category has to be Ron Howard’s entirely forgettable maths ‘n’ madness biopic, a disease-of-the-week TV movie which somehow escaped into the multiplex.

It could’ve been: ‘The Fellowship of the Ring’, ‘Gosford Park’, ‘Mulholland Dr’ (not nominated).

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