18 times the Razzies got it wrong

Going back to the very first Razzies (which to be fair were held in a late-night, post-Oscars drunken haze), founder John Wilson and his friends nominated the classic slasher Friday The 13th for Worst Picture as well as Worst Supporting Actress (for Betsy Palmer, who played Mrs. Voorhees). While the original may be a campy, low-budget horror film that has grown in stature over the years, even in 1980 it performed miraculously well, earning nearly $60 million on a $500,000 budget. For a film with no known stars to become such a phenomenon signals some redeeming qualities that clearly the Razzies missed. Friday The 13th lost Worst Picture to Can’t Stop The Music, a disco film that starred the Village People and a then-post Olympics Caitlyn Jenner, so they weren’t completely wrong.

Perhaps the more egregious nomination at the first Razzies was their decision to take a potshot at then 12-time Oscar nominee Stanley Kubrick for The Shining, a film that was generally well-regarded and stylistically interesting. Razzie voters (like Stephen King himself) may not have liked how the book was adapted, but it’s a big swing to watch the elevator-full-of-blood shot and say “bad directing.” Then again, Kubrick might be worthy of the “Worst Director” moniker since his abusive treatment of star Shelley Duvall led the Razzies to retroactively rescind her nomination in the Worst Actress category for the year.

At the second Razzies (in which Ronald Reagan earned the Worst Career Achievement Award and Mommie Dearest was the star of the night with nine nominations and four wins), voters understandably set their sights on Heaven’s Gate. The epic Western, which earned five Razzie nominations (Picture, Director, Actor for Kris Kristofferson, Screenplay, and Score) was a production nightmare, going way over budget, shooting for months longer than planned, and enduring a swath of on-set animal-abuse allegations. Multiple cuts of the film were made, one of which was pulled from theaters after a week, and the final release was panned, earning its swath of Razzie noms and a win for Worst Director to Michael Cimino. However, decades later, when a much longer cut was released, opinions about the film changed, with some critics even lionizing Heaven’s Gate as a masterpiece.

Perhaps the Razzies’ worst trait is its frequent urge to “punch down” stars, especially young actors early in their careers. While the first film adaptation of the stage musical Annie received mixed reviews from critics and became a beloved favorite later (thanks to campy performances from Carol Burnett, Tim Curry, and Bernadette Peters), it was always intended to be a children’s movie. Not only did the Razzies slap it with Worst Picture, Director, and Screenplay nominations, but they double nominated 11-year-old Aileen Quinn for Worst New Star and Worst Supporting Actress (in which her win is made more confusing because she plays Annie in Annie, which is obviously a lead role). The Worst New Star category was finally eliminated in 1999, but only after dozens of poor kids were nominated for not being trained actors.

At the fourth Razzies, in which the 0% Rotten Tomatoes-score holder The Lonely Lady was nominated in 11 categories, the event moved from John Wilson’s living room to an elementary school auditorium. Perhaps the most glaring nominee of the year was Brian De Palma, whose film Scarface was panned as being too violent and profane. As time went on, this critique held less and less water, and today the film is widely regarded as one of the best gangster movies of all time, thanks in part to one of Al Pacino’s best performances. Thankfully Razzie voters opted to give the worst director award to Peter Sasdy, who helmed The Lonely Lady.

At the ninth Razzies (now being held at a theater), voters aimed their sights on Cocktail, which in addition to winning Worst Picture and Worst Screenplay, was nominated in the Director and Lead Actor (Tom Cruise) categories. While the rom-com about a business school student making ends meet by working at a bar was savaged by critics, it grossed $170 million at the box office, meaning that people saw it and liked it. Cruise’s star appeal was relatively fresh at the time (Cocktail premiered only two years after Top Gun), so it had appeal beyond his stardom. Plus the film has an incredibly strong soundtrack. So was it the worst movie of the year (and worse than its competitor, Rambo III)? Not by a longshot.

At the 10th Razzies (where the “Worst of the Decade” awards made their first appearance), voters dished out five nominations to this campy action film starring Patrick Swayze as the bouncer of a bar in Missouri. Road House is a prime example of the “so bad it’s good” genre of film, and the fun, cheesy action sequences grounded in Swayze’s charisma have certainly earned it a following in the decades of cable-viewing since its premiere. Did it deserve to be nominated alongside the likes of Star Trek V, The Karate Kid III, and A Nightmare On Elm Street 5? Probably not, but we can forgive the Razzies this time for not being able to immediately register high camp.

Of all the Razzies’ screwups, no year stands out quite so glaringly as 1993. Between three nominations for Basic Instinct, six for Newsies, and a whopping seven for The Bodyguard, they went hard after films that would establish themselves as all-time favorites. The Razzies often take potshots at pop stars turned actors, but Whitney Houston can cover a multitude of acting sins with her shining charisma and once-in-a-generation voice. The film received Oscar nominations, won Grammys, and became the second-highest grossing title of the year, so obviously it was beloved by a large swath of the population. Its mixed reviews with the critics did not warrant a Worst Picture nomination, and nominating Houston for the performance that contains “I Will Always Love You” seems laughable. Kevin Costner’s crew cut (up for Worst New Star), however, is not great.

Sometimes the Razzies are just a bit behind when it comes to film innovation. That seems to be the case with the extremely sexual Basic Instinct. Not only did they find a way to nominate Sharon Stone for her infamous leg-uncrossing scene (Worst New Star for her “tribute to Theodore Cleaver” aka the Beaver), but they also-nominated Michael Douglas for his lead performance. Douglas is of course outshined by Stone in the film, but he is by no means awful. The zeitgeisty flick obviously made many feel uncomfortable, and perhaps, that uncomfortableness was directed at Douglas by default.

Coming off of his success on In Living Color, Jim Carrey starred in Ace Ventura: Pet Detective, Dumb And Dumber, and The Mask in 1994, a trifecta of which earned him the Worst New Star nomination. While some people don’t like Carrey’s outlandish humor, there’s no denying he’s a talented comedian. Plus, all three of his films did extremely well at the box office, a rare feat for a single year in Hollywood. Nominating Carrey alongside Anna Nicole Smith and Shaquille O’Neal seems absurd, especially considering that Carrey went on to stack his career with incredible performances.

Showgirls is widely considered one of the worst movies of all time, and it’s for that reason that it might actually be great. The bombastic, erotic, uncomfortable noir about strippers was largely panned by critics, did horribly at the box office, and perhaps rightfully took home seven Razzies (out of 13 nominations). Only in later years did it become a so-bad-it’s-good cult classic like The Rocky Horror Picture Show, which in turn prompted a reevaluation. Upon closer inspection, it was then lauded as a biting satire so bold and brave that no one realized what it was doing at the time it was released. You can’t really blame the Razzies for this one since, though, it took the whole world years to figure out what was happening.

The 17th Razzies brings one of the most head-scratching nominations on this list as animated characters Beavis and Butt-head were nominated for both Worst Screen Couple (alongside Pamela Anderson’s boobs) and Worst New Star (where they lost to Pamela Anderson’s boobs). With strong box office and a 71% on Rotten Tomatoes, Beavis and Butt-head Do America is certainly not bad. It’s unclear why they were labeled as a bad couple aside from the fact they’re unsavory characters. As the main characters of a long-running hit television show, they also aren’t really “new stars.” It should also be noted that the same year at the MTV Movie Awards, our boys were nominated for “Best On-Screen Duo,” so what was going on here, Razzies?

At the same ceremony that Beavis, Butt-head, and Pam Anderson’s boobs made their appearances, the Razzies also introduced a one-time-only category honoring films that had made a ton of money that year. While there are certainly plenty of box office juggernauts that are panned (*cough* Jurassic World movies *cough*), it could be argued that all five nominees were well-made movies that have stayed culturally relevant to various degrees. Twister, The Hunchback Of Notre Dame, A Time To Kill, Mission: Impossible, and Independence Day don’t really seem like reasons to create a whole new category. Independence Day, which WON an Oscar, seems like an especially weird choice even though it would lose to Twister, a delightful film as well.

The Razzies timed their 20th year perfectly to the new century so they could dish out not only their usual set of awards, but also some “best of the 1900s” trophies. The year was mostly an opportunity to poke fun at Wild Wild West, but shockingly the massive indie horror hit of the year The Blair Witch Project also earned nominations in both Worst Picture and Worst Actress. While Heather Donaghue was not an actor before appearing in the film, there is no arguing the impact of Blair Witch in filmmaking (so much found footage in the early aughts), and in culture as a whole. Maybe we should send the Razzies’ nominating committee to the woods outside Burkittsville, Maryland, and see how they fare.

Sylvester Stallone may not be the world’s greatest actor and plenty of his films are a little hokey, but it feels a bit rude to name him “Worst Actor of the Century” for “99.5% of everything he’s EVER done.” The entire Rocky and Creed franchises (with the exception of Rocky V and Rocky Balboa) are terrific, and Stallone not only starred in them, but also wrote and directed many of the films. He’s been nominated for three Oscars, created the Rambo and Expendables franchises, and voiced the funny shark in The Suicide Squad. He may be an easy target who churns out some B-movie work, but give the Italian Stallion a little bit of respect.

As the Razzies moved into the 2000s, their choices became a little more unimpeachable as they steered away from content that could be considered “edgy” and went for films that generally flopped in all regards like Freddy Got Fingered, Gigli, and Deuce Bigelow: European Gigolo. Still poor choices emerged. Nominating Tom Cruise for Steven Spielberg’s critically acclaimed and lucrative adaptation of War Of The Worlds is one such poor choice. Cruise is an Oscar-nominated actor who delivers a solid performance here in a role that requires both his acting chops and his stuntman abilities. This is one of his last great dramatic turns, and to stick him beside Rob Schneider feels a bit uncalled for.

An obvious, and somewhat deserved, punching bag for the Razzies in the early 2010s was the Twilight franchise, which racked up an impressive 32 nominations in four years (the original skipped the bloodbath). While the films are campy, the dialogue often cringey, and the plots a bit hokey, it’s sort of ironic that so much of the Razzies’ ire was directed at stars who would become two of the most lauded actors of their generation: Robert Pattinson and Kristen Stewart. Looking back, perhaps the blame for the films lies elsewhere, as both stars have proven time and again their monstrous talent.

Last, but not least, we arrive at the DCEU and the saga of Zack Snyder. In the first few DCEU films post-Man Of Steel, the directors were allowed to shoot and work off ridiculously long scripts only to have those films butchered in the editing room to get the runtime down. Suicide Squad, Batman V. Superman, and Justice League therefore all came out to horrible reviews only to have longer director’s cuts released later to much kinder receptions. Henry Cavill’s Superman is inexplicably stunted in the original cut and earned its Razzie nomination. Had the longer version been released initially, or had script been tightened before shooting, the Razzies probably wouldn’t have nominated him at all. However, it’s a big missed opportunity to not have nominated “Henry Cavill and his CGI lip” for “Worst On-Screen Duo” in Justice League.