Since 1929, the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences (AMPAS) have been rewarding what they consider the best cinematic offerings of a given year with what are now known as the Oscars. These have become the most prestigious and coveted awards not just in Hollywood, but in the entire film industry. However, that doesn’t mean that every Oscar-winning film is great. In fact, some aren’t even good.
Even though, more often than not, films that are rewarded with an Academy Award are serviceable at the very least, there are more than a few Oscar winners that range from lackluster to absolutely abysmal. From modern failed blockbusters to some of the pretentious slop that the Academy loved to reward back in the ’30s, when they were still finding their footing, these are the worst of the worst when it comes to Oscar winners.
10
‘The Iron Lady’ (2011)
Won: Best Leading Actress (Meryl Streep) and Best Makeup
Margaret Thatcher is, to say the least, one of the most divisive — if not downright despised — public figures in British history, so it probably wasn’t the best idea to make a film that celebrated her as a flawed hero. Nevertheless, that’s precisely what The Iron Lady went ahead and did. It’s a biopic about an elderly Thatcher talking to the imagined presence of her recently-deceased husband, grappling with his death while scenes from her past life intervene.
The movie ended up winning two Academy Awards. One for its makeup work (a well deserved victory, frankly), and the other for Meryl Streep‘s performance as Thatcher (a much less deserving win). What, from the premise alone, could have ended up being one of the most unique biopics of the 2010s instead ended up doing the blandest, least politically critical job it possibly could have. Its Oscar wins weren’t travesties, all things considered, but they also don’t make it any better a film.
The Iron Lady
- Release Date
-
January 6, 2012
- Director
-
Phyllida Lloyd
- Runtime
-
105minutes
- Writers
-
Phyllida Lloyd
9
‘The Nutty Professor’ (1996)
Won: Best Makeup
Eddie Murphy was one of the biggest comedic stars of ’80s cinema, which made it even sadder when the quality of his work started to fall off during the mid-’90s. By the time The Nutty Professor came around, it was clear that something about the actor’s career choices had changed. It’s about an overweight yet good-hearted professor who takes a special chemical that turns him into the slim but obnoxious Buddy Love.
All in all, Murphy does a pretty solid job with the material he’s given, getting to play a surprising number of characters in all sorts of impressive makeup and prosthetics. It was precisely a Best Makeup award that the film ended up getting, and although some might consider this one of the least-liked Oscar wins purely because it makes it so that such a bafflingly childish and silly movie can be called “Oscar-winning,” the makeup is something that definitely can’t be criticized.
The Nutty Professor
- Release Date
-
June 28, 1996
- Director
-
Tom Shadyac
- Cast
-
Eddie Murphy
, Jada Pinkett Smith
, James Coburn
, Larry Miller
, Dave Chapelle
, John Ales
, Patricia Wilson
, Jamal Mixon - Runtime
-
95 minutes
8
‘Earthquake’ (1974)
Won: Best Sound and Special Achievement Award for Visual Effects
One of the worst disaster movies of the 20th century, Earthquake is a huge ensemble film featuring actors of the stature of Charlton Heston, Ava Gardner, and George Kennedy. It’s a dark comedy about various interconnected stories of people struggling to survive when an earthquake of unimaginable magnitude hits Los Angeles.
The sets are great and the visual effects (which earned the movie a Special Achievement Oscar) are even better, but technical excellence is pretty much the only thing that Earthquake has going for it. There’s not much charm in watching these huge stars playing clichéd characters walking around destroyed sets, servicing a horribly melodramatic narrative. Everything is one-note, which immediately renders the stakes pointless.
- Release Date
-
November 15, 1974
- Director
-
Mark Robson
- Cast
-
Charlton Heston
, Ava Gardner
, George Kennedy
, Lorne Greene
, Geneviève Bujold
, Richard Roundtree
, Marjoe Gortner
, Barry Sullivan
, Lloyd Nolan
, Victoria Principal
, Walter Matthau
, Monica Lewis
, Gabriel Dell
, Pedro Armendariz Jr.
, Lloyd Gough
, John Randolph
, Kip Niven
, Scott Hylands
, Tiger Williams
, Donald Moffat
, Jesse Vint - Runtime
-
123 Minutes
- Writers
-
Mario Puzo
, George Fox
7
‘Army of the Dead’ (2021)
Won: Oscars Fan Favorite
For the 2022 Oscars, the Academy introduced a Fan Favorite category where fans could vote on social media for their favorite film of the year. The fact that the category never came back (and perhaps never will) is pretty telling. The winner ended up being Zack Snyder‘s Army of the Dead, a zombie heist film where, following a zombie outbreak in Las Vegas, a group of mercenaries venture into the quarantine zone to pull of the greatest robbery in history.
Zack Snyder definitely has worse movies, but that doesn’t at all mean that Army of the Dead is anything less than mediocre. Terribly overlong, lacking in creativity, and an attack on the senses with its CGI-heavy action, it has plenty of fun moments and cool genre twists going for it, but the cons somewhat outweigh the pros. There was more than enough backlash against the Fan Favorite category making Army of the Dead an Oscar winner that the Academy canceled the category for 2023.
Army of the Dead
- Release Date
-
May 21, 2021
- Director
-
Zack Snyder
- Cast
-
Ana de la Reguera
, Samantha Win
, Tig Notaro
, Matthias Schweighöfer
, Huma Qureshi
, Omari Hardwick
, Michael Cassidy
, Theo Rossi
, Ella Purnell
, Raul Castillo
, Hiroyuki Sanada
, Garret Dillahunt
, Richard Cetrone
, Dave Bautista
, Nora Arnezeder - Runtime
-
139 minutes
- Writers
-
Zack Snyder
, Shay Hatten
, Joby Harold - Budget
-
$70-90 Million
6
‘In Old Arizona’ (1928)
Won: Best Leading Actor (Warner Baxter)
The second-ever Academy Awards had plenty of questionable winners, but few have aged worse than the Western drama In Old Arizona. It’s about a charming, happy-go-lucky bandit from Arizona playing cat-and-mouse with the sheriff that’s trying to catch him, all while he romances a local beauty. The movie’s sole Oscar win came for Warner Baxter’s brownface performance as the protagonist, the Mexican outlaw Cisco Kid.
According to Letterboxd, this is one of the worst movies that have ever won an Academy Award. Aside from Baxter’s campy performance aging like milk, In Old Arizona presents pretty much all the problems that a lot of early talkies had: It can’t quite figure out how to execute its genre with sound, the acting is a cringey relic of the past, and everything about the story feels fake and over-the-top.
In Old Arizona
- Release Date
-
December 25, 1928
- Director
-
Irving Cummings
- Cast
-
Edmund Lowe
, Warner Baxter
, Dorothy Burgess
, Henry Armetta
, James Bradbury Jr.
, Joe Brown
, Frank Campeau
, Alphonse Ethier
, John Webb Dillion
, Jim Farley
, Soledad Jiménez
, Ivan Linow
, Tom London
, Helen Lynch
, J. Farrell MacDonald
, Evelyn Selbie - Runtime
-
95 minutes
- Writers
-
O. Henry
Rent on Apple TV
5
‘Cavalcade’ (1933)
Won: Best Picture, Best Director (Frank Lloyd), and Best Art Direction
As the Academy was just figuring out the Oscars’ rules and what kinds of artistic merit they wanted to reward, the ’30s had more than a few Oscar winners that were, to be kind, quite bad. This includes Best Picture recipients like Cavalcade, a drama portraying the triumphs and tragedies of two English families from different social classes between 1899 and 1933.
Cavalcade is painfully boring, uncomfortably mawkish, and really poorly paced and written.
One of the worst Best Picture winners of all time, Cavalcade is painfully boring, uncomfortably mawkish, and really poorly paced and written. There is some merit in its cast, its visuals (it also won Art Direction), and even in Frank Lloyd‘s direction here and there (he won Best Director), but the themes are so infantilizing and on-the-nose, the drama is so exaggerated, and the characters are so uninteresting that all of its strengths pale in comparison to its weaknesses.
Cavalcade
- Release Date
-
April 15, 1933
- Director
-
Frank Lloyd
- Cast
-
Una O’Connor
, Herbert Mundin - Runtime
-
112
Rent on Amazon
4
‘Coquette’ (1929)
Won: Best Leading Actress (Mary Pickford)
Mary Pickford, one of the most legendary actresses of the era of silent cinema, was one of the 36 founding members of AMPAS. Her power and influence in Hollywood at the time was evidently tremendous. So, is it really surprising that she won the 2nd-ever Best Leading Actress Oscar for her first-ever talkie performance? It was in Coquette, a romantic drama about a flirtatious Southern belle becoming compromised with one of her suitors.
Pickford was capable of some truly gorgeous acting, but it’s clear that she wasn’t made for talkies. Her performance in Coquette is dodgy, over-the-top, and characterized by awful line delivery. Indeed, Pickford would go on to star in only four talkies more after this one. The topic at hand is the film itself, though, and… It isn’t much better. It’s way too dialogue-heavy, the tone and story are completely lifeless, and the characters don’t have particularly interesting arcs. It’s the kind of film that you watch once and then completely forget a couple of weeks later.
Coquette
- Release Date
-
March 30, 1929
- Director
-
Sam Taylor
- Cast
-
Johnny Mack Brown
, Mary Pickford
, Matt Moore
, John St. Polis
, William Janney
, Henry Kolker
, George Irving
, Louise Beavers
, Phyllis Crane
, Joseph Depew
, Robert Homans
, Vera Lewis
, Craig Reynolds - Runtime
-
76 minutes
Coquette is currently not available to stream, rent, or purchase in the U.S.
3
‘Cimarron’ (1931)
Won: Best Picture, Best Adaptation Writing, and Best Art Direction
There has only ever been one Best Picture winner worse than Cimarron. This 1930s disaster is a Western about a newspaper editor who settles in an Oklahoma boom town with his reluctant wife at the end of the 19th century. Its huge scope and admirable production qualities are still fantastic, but everything else about it has aged horribly.
It’s the worst Best Picture winner of the ’30s, full of blatant misogyny and racial stereotypes that would be hard to not find offensive. Even setting aside how poorly this kind of content has aged, though, it’s not a very good film at all. It’s dull, lifeless, overlong, and terribly boring, with very little in the way of creativity or originality and a slow pace that makes the whole thing hard to bear.
Cimarron
- Release Date
-
February 9, 1931
- Director
-
Wesley Ruggles
- Cast
-
Richard Dix
, Irene Dunne
, Estelle Taylor
, Nance O’Neil - Runtime
-
123 minutes
- Writers
-
Edna Ferber
, Howard Estabrook
, Louis Sarecky
Rent on Apple TV
2
‘The Broadway Melody’ (1929)
Won: Best Picture
Despite it all, there is one movie that still reigns supreme as the worst of the worst when it comes to Oscar-winning films: The second winner of Best Picture ever, The Broadway Melody. It’s a romantic musical about a pair of sisters from the vaudeville circuit trying to make it big on Broadway. However, matters of the heart get in the way and complicate their ambitions.
As a historical document, The Broadway Melody is interesting enough. It was one of the first musicals ever made — the problem is that you can clearly tell. One of the worst in the genre from the 20th century, it was made at a point of talkies’ infancy where directors still didn’t know how to make the genre work on the big screen. The story is tedious, the acting is poor, and the musical numbers are badly shot, choreographed, and edited. For anyone who’s not a film historian or a hardcore Oscars completionist, The Broadway Melody is better off avoided.
The Broadway Melody
- Release Date
-
June 6, 1929
- Director
-
Harry Beaumont
- Cast
-
Charles King
, Anita Page
, Bessie Love
, Eddie Kane - Runtime
-
100 minutes
- Writers
-
Edmund Goulding
, Norman Houston
, James Gleason
, Earl Baldwin
1
‘Suicide Squad’ (2016)
Won: Best Makeup & Hairstyling
While it didn’t win Best Picture (and thank the Heavens for that), David Ayer‘s Suicide Squad is worse than Cimarron and The Broadway Melody combined. This darkly comedic DCEU disaster is about a secret government agency recruiting some of the world’s most dangerous incarcerated supervillains to form a defensive task force. Their mission? To save the world from the apocalypse like some kind of Suicide Squad.
The story? A mess. The dialogue? Laughable. The characters? An embarrassment. The pacing and editing? Horrendous. One of the few redeemable things about Suicide Squad is the makeup work, and if anything from it was going to win an Academy Award, yeah: it might as well have been that. Even still, most people would agree that the world would be a happier and more harmonious place if the label “Oscar-winning” couldn’t be applied to this terrible superhero film.
Suicide Squad
- Release Date
-
August 5, 2016
- Runtime
-
123 minutes
- Budget
-
$175 million
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