Featured Image Credit: Universal Pictures / Lionsgate
Topics: Oscars, Rotten Tomatoes, Film and TV
Michael Slavin
Topics: Oscars, Rotten Tomatoes, Film and TV
Every year the Oscars will give out an award for the best of the year, however sometimes, they just get it wrong.
Whether it’s the outrage over this year’s Margot Robbie Best Actor nomination snub for Barbie or Shawshank Redemption not winning a single Oscar, oftentimes more focus goes to what didn’t win an Oscar than what did.
We’ve decided however to look at the times where an Oscar was handed out to a film which is a bit less loved than Shawshank or Barbie.
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Looking at Rotten Tomatoes, it is a dead heat between two films for the unwanted award of the ‘worst’ Best Picture winner of the 21st century.
Both Best Picture winners unsurprisingly came out in comparatively weak years, but both overcame hugely beloved films.
The first of these is A Beautiful Mind, with a Rotten Tomatoes score of just 74 percent placing it a good 10-15% lower than the majority of Best Picture winners.
The Ron Howard biopic about mathematician John Nash was nominated for a whopping eight awards at the 2002 Oscars, picking up the triple crown of Best Picture, Best Director, and Best Screenplay, as well as Best Supporting Actress.
Whilst it came in a year with weaker contenders such as Moulin Rouge, the shock for most film fans will be that it beat out The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring for Best Picture.
There may be more criteria than this, but with a 15 percent higher Rotten Tomatoes score of 91% with critics and an outstanding 95 percent with audiences, it’s fair to say Fellowship stood the test of time a little better.
The second Best Picture winner with a score of 74 percent which will come as no surprise to hardcore film fans, is Crash from the 2006 Oscars.
Arguably the most controversial Best Picture winner of all time, many have claimed that homophobia against Brokeback Mountain paved the way for Crash to pick up the film.
Crash is considered one of the worst Best Picture winners ever, with the same all-time low critic score as A Beautiful Mind and an even lower audience score of 88 percent, compared to A Beautiful Mind's 93 percent.
Brokeback Mountain was expected to pick up the win in the lead up to the awards night, picking up the ‘Golden Lion’ award for best film at the Venice Film Festival, before big wins at the BAFTAs and Golden Globes.
Notoriously, actor Tony Curtis refused to even watch the film, coming out before the Oscars and stating that gay cowboys 'certainly wouldn’t appeal to John Wayne’.
On the night, Crash picked up the top prize, and Brokeback Mountain was left with a consolation prize of Best Director for Ang Lee, and a shocking snub across the board for its actors.
Crash may have won on the night, but history has vindicated Brokeback Mountain and Heath Ledger’s iconic performance.
Five worst rated Best Picture winners on Rotten Tomatoes in the 21st century