The 15 worst Oscar Best Picture winners of all time

The winner: John Ford directed the maudlin and dated, but still very fine, multi-generational coal mining saga How Green Was My Valley right after he directed The Grapes Of Wrath. The two films share some thematic commonalities, and How Green Was My Valley is traditionally Hollywood in nature, which the Academy tends to prefer. While it’s one of John Ford’s better films, it ain’t Citizen Kane. In fact, at this point, Valley is most memorable for being the answer to the trivia question, “Which film beat Citizen Kane at the 1942 Oscars?”

What should have won: Few films in the history of movies are more deserving of a Best Picture Oscar than Orson Welles’ Citizen Kane. To this day, Welles’ audacious film directing debut tops many critics’ lists of the best films of all time. A thinly veiled takedown of newspaper publisher William Randolph Hearst, the film was nominated for eight other Oscars (its only win was for Best Original Screenplay). While the Academy definitely acknowledged its quality, in the end, Citizen Kane may have been too revolutionary for voters at the time. [Mark Keizer]

The winner: Florenz Ziegfeld was a real-deal Broadway kingmaker who discovered Fanny Brice and Will Rogers. Even cooler, he was married to Billie Burke, who played Glinda the Good Witch in The Wizard Of Oz. This classic couple is the subject of The Great Ziegfeld, a decent biopic most notable for its show-stopping version of Irving Berlin’s “A Pretty Girl Is Like A Melody,” which featured over 180 dancers.

What should have won: The Story Of Louis Pasteur, in which Scarface’s Paul Muni plays the French chemist who fought the 19th century’s entrenched medical establishment to advance theories advocating that doctors should wash their hands and sterilize their instruments. The dialogue can be florid and on the nose, which edges the film towards hagiography, but Muni is fabulous (he won an Oscar for his performance). And the script doesn’t shy away from lengthy and fascinating explanations of Pasteur’s theories, which gives the film an intensity and conviction that easily trumps the bright and bubbly Great Ziegfeld. [Mark Keizer]

The winner: The Broadway Melody, a 1929 talkie about two sisters from the Midwest who come to New York to find stardom on Broadway was the first musical and the first sound film to win Best Picture, which would mean a lot more if it wasn’t the 2nd Academy Awards. The film, which plays as thin and clichéd today, was seen by many as thin and clichéd then. Plus, the songs aren’t memorable. Admittedly, The Broadway Melody was a financial success that spawned three sequels and helped establish the movie musical form.

What should have won: Ernst Lubitsch’s The Patriot is an outlier in the director’s illustrious career. Known mostly for his urbane comedies, Lubitsch here tackles a historical drama about an 18th-century Russian czar whose increasingly questionable leadership threatens his friendship with the trusted Count Pahlen. However, assuming The Patriot is better than The Broadway Melody is a cheat: the film, the last silent movie to be nominated for Best Picture, has been lost. There are no surviving prints of the completed film. [Mark Keizer]

The winner: There are plenty of theories as to why CODA won Best Picture at the 94th Academy Awards: some figure it’s because the Academy finally realized it just didn’t like The Power Of The Dog, the other big awards season frontrunner. Some guessed it was because the film, about a young woman (Emilia Jones) who must choose between going off to music school or helping her Deaf parents with their struggling business, was a feel-good balm that came at exactly the right time. Others, of course, thought it was a heartfelt, cleanly told, and genuinely felt drama, which it was.

What should have won: Still, CODA didn’t hold a candle to Belfast, director Kenneth Branagh’s soft-focus yet tough-minded remembrance of his childhood in a city beset by sectarian violence. Belfast is poignantly told from a child’s point of view yet brims with an adult’s capacity to face and dissect childhood pain, and its ability to maintain that delicate balancing act is nothing short of masterful. [Mark Keizer]

The winner: Out Of Africa, the Sydney Pollack-directed drama, received middling praise from critics at the time, who agreed it barely earns its almost three-hour runtime. The film hasn’t exactly improved in the collective consciousness since, as it’s set in Africa and features few African characters with any depth. While there’s still consensus on the greatness of leading lady Meryl Streep’s performance, she’s turned in so many more noteworthy—and award-worthy—efforts that even her brilliance doesn’t elevate this film.

What should have won: The Color Purple, Steven Spielberg’s stirring, stunning adaptation of the great Alice Walker novel, earned 11 nominations and inexplicably went home empty-handed. [Jack Smart]

The winner: Cimarron is the first Western to win Best Picture, which is notable only because the second Western to win Best Picture would be Dances With Wolves almost 60 years later. Visually, the film is outstanding for its time: over the course of its narrative, lawless prairies will give way to populated city streets and large oil fields, and its depiction of the 1889 Oklahoma land rush, where our hero is denied his parcel of earth by a prostitute, is fairly spectacular. But on the whole, the film is, how do we say this gently, long and boring.

What should have won: The sparkling The Front Page was based on the 1928 Broadway production co-written by the great Ben Hecht (whose credits include 1932’s Scarface and two Hitchcock classics, Lifeboat and Spellbound). One of the all-time great farces, director Lewis Milestone practically created the cinematic language of this witty, snappy, dialogue-rich genre with this film (it was remade in 1940 as the even more wonderful His Girl Friday). [Mark Keizer]

The winner: Today, the only reason anyone remembers The Greatest Show On Earth is because it’s mentioned in another film, The Fabelmans. Cecil B. DeMille’s 1952 melodrama about two competing trapeze artists is name-checked as the movie that eventually drove a young Steven Spielberg to pursue filmmaking. Back then The Greatest Show On Earth was catnip to Academy voters by virtue of being a gigantic Hollywood production (DeMille knew of no other kind of production) that was loud, fun, and filled with color and animals and circus pageantry. It’s also thin and hokey.

What should have won: It’s possible that High Noon, a ticking clock classic from director Fred Zinnemann, lost the big prize because Hollywood was too terrified to award a film written by blacklisted screenwriter Carl Foreman, who refused to name names while testifying before the House Un-American Activities Committee during the height of McCarthyism. Whatever the reason, High Noon is still appreciated today while The Greatest Show On Earth is routinely named as one of the worst Best Picture winners ever. Frankly, neither The Greatest Show On Earth nor High Noon deserved a Best Picture Oscar. The award should have gone to another film from 1952 that wasn’t even nominated for Best Picture: the eternal Singin’ In The Rain. [Mark Keizer]

The winner: One’s love for 1917 director Sam Mendes’ debut film is in direct proportion to one’s tolerance for on-the-nose symbolism and a condescending sense of an artistic work’s own importance. In its defense, Oscar winner Kevin Spacey and Oscar nominee Annette Bening mine significant truths from their stereotypical middle-class, middle-aged characters and screenwriter Alan Ball deftly melds sad, funny, and melancholy into one cohesive story.

What should have won: The Insider is a stone-cold masterpiece. Director Michael Mann’s mic-drop takedown of cigarette companies who’ll do anything to hide the devastating truth about their deadly product is a thrill ride that vibrates with power and principle. Al Pacino (as 60 Minutes producer Lowell Bergman) and Russell Crowe (as whistleblower Jeffrey Wigand) are outstanding in a film that both exalts investigative journalism and admits its shortcomings. But more importantly, Mann uses all his tools to reveal Big Tobacco as the greedy corporate monsters they are. [Mark Keizer]

The winner: Around the World in 80 Days, which is, oddly enough, about a group of adventurers who travel around the world in 80 days, is three hours long, was shot in widescreen (a big deal back then) in over 100 locations, and features dozens of big-name cameos (including Frank Sinatra and Buster Keaton). Such a gargantuan production lended the film an inflated, “award-me” importance that Oscar couldn’t deny. It’s actually not a terrible film: in the vein of Stanley Kramer’s 1963 comedy dirigible It’s a Mad Mad Mad Mad World, it manages to be nimble, funny, and horribly bloated.

What should have won: And yet the film that should have won is even longer: the 197-minute Western Giant. George Stevens directed this classic about a Texas cattle ranching family that was the final film from James Dean, who died in a car crash before the film was released. Elizabeth Taylor co-stars in an indelible drama that has been deemed “the national film of Texas” for its epic scale and confirmation of the Lone Star State’s ranching tradition. Giant, both epic and intimate, should have taken the gold, if only as a tribute to James Dean. [Mark Keizer]

The winner: A common theme of many of the films that have taken top awards only to be scrutinized anew with the gift of hindsight is the “white savior” narrative. Take Kevin Costner’s Dances With Wolves, which in 1990 earned seven Academy Awards and critical praise for bringing Westerns back into mainstream cinema. It also features what we in the 21st century recognize as the “noble savage trope,” whose intent is to make stories less white-centric but, in practice, presents non-white characters as caricatures.

What should have won: We wouldn’t go as far as to claim Dances With Wolves isn’t a well-made film, but come on, Academy voters—it was up against Goodfellas, which qualifies as peak Martin Scorsese! [Jack Smart]

The winner: Any Best Picture winner that features a song called “Thank Heaven For Little Girls” and a 16-year-old title character being trained as a courtesan is not going to play well in 2023. And thus we have Gigi, a film that won all nine Oscars it was nominated for, a feat that would not be bested until The Lord Of The Rings: The Return Of The King won all 11 of its nominations.

What should have won: Best Picture should have gone to the powerful and provocative The Defiant Ones. Director Stanley Kramer (Guess Who’s Coming To Dinner) is the king of the advocacy drama, a badge of honor that sometimes weighs down his films. But with The Defiant Ones, in which Tony Curtis and Sidney Poitier play escaped convicts, Kramer delivered a powerhouse during a time of racial strife. The Academy would have sent a powerful message had it handed the gold to the outstanding The Defiant Ones. Instead, it went for the musical about the 16-year-old courtesan. [Mark Keizer]

The winner: The quaint Driving Miss Daisy is now embarrassingly retrograde; in fact, voters have recently claimed they wouldn’t honor the film again if given a do-over. It’s one of the most revealing instances of the Academy’s view of how race relations should be portrayed in prestige films: inoffensive and facile over incendiary and shrewd.

What should have won:  Do The Right Thing—infamously—was not even nominated for the evening’s top prize. But we’re adding it to this list anyway because its lack of a Best Picture nomination stands as one of the Academy’s most egregious oversights. Spike Lee’s instant classic failed to merit Academy recognition beyond nods for Lee’s screenplay and supporting actor Danny Aiello, despite being the most politically urgent film of 1989. [Jack Smart]

The winner: Full transparency: The A.V. Club debated whether to include Shakespeare In Love on a list of films that shouldn’t have won Best Picture. On the one hand, it’s not a terrible film—it’s fun and pretty to look at and features a quintessential scene-stealing performance by Judi Dench as Queen Elizabeth I. But more important, and more damning, is its place in Oscar history. Thanks to the non-stop maneuvering from one Harvey Weinstein, Shakespeare In Love improbably triumphed over critical favorite Saving Private Ryan and consequently provided the blueprint for film awards campaigning that, for better or worse, continues today.

What should have won: Steven Spielberg’s Saving Private Ryan, a critical favorite that managed to portray World War II in ways both epic and human-sized, secured 11 nominations and five wins. But the film couldn’t capture the biggest prize of the night, in large part because of Weinstein’s efforts. [Jack Smart]

The winner: Green Book is director and co-writer Peter Farrelly’s retelling of the apparently true relationship between a Black pianist, Don Shirley, and his white driver, Frank Vallelonga. While not a poorly made film, its very premise—two men become friends, despite race and class differences, wow!—should have been enough to steer Oscar voters toward other options. Ironically, they not only had the chance to avoid another Driving Miss Daisy-like win with this very Driving Miss Daisy-reminiscent film.

What should have won: The Academy finally made Spike Lee a winner with an adapted screenplay award for BlacKkKlansman, but once again it passed over Lee and his film when it came time to hand out the big prize. Samuel L. Jackson’s face upon seeing Green Book’s original screenplay win says it all. [Jack Smart]

The winner: Any film would have been a better Best Picture choice than Paul Haggis’ clunky, insufferably smug, and self-important urban soap opera Crash. While Haggis’ heart was certainly in the right place with his anti-racism screed, the film is so puffed up with a sense of its own righteousness that when racist cop Matt Dillon saves the life of the motorist (Thandiwe Newton) he sexually assaulted during a previous traffic stop, it took all our willpower to not throw our hands in the air in cinematic disgust.

What should have won: The real winner should have been Ang Lee’s taboo-shattering Brokeback Mountain. The film, starring Jake Gyllenhaal and Heath Ledger as cowboys who fall in love, is a work of humanism and power that both defines and redefines love for all generations. The Academy shamefully whiffed on a golden opportunity to make a bold statement by giving Brokeback Mountain its Best Picture award. [Mark Keizer]