Worst "Best Picture" Oscar Winning Movie?

[THUNDER HANDS]

Poll question: Worst "Best Picture" Oscar Winning Movie?

Go forth and pick...

[Emboldened Chimp]

1. Gladiator

Shouldn't have been nominated. Ad Russell Crowe for best actor? Give me a break. But I guess they felt guilty for The Insider.

[ibegurpard]

2. I remember being astounded "Braveheart" was even nominated.

Let alone that it actually won. A much better historical epic that year, IMHO, was "Rob Roy.'

[George_Bonanza]

69. Braveheart was great, Gibson is great

I was scared to death of that film when I first saw it, when I was really young. Then, as I got a little older, I truly appreciated the raw emotions that runs through the film. It's not a cerebral film, but it hits you in the heart and gut like a true epic poem.

[JNelson6563]

84. Yes, Rob Roy

was fabulous! Outstanding acting and some seriously great writing! I can't tell you how many lines I remember from that movie and use them from time to time!! I thought Tim Roth absolutely stole the show which is no easy taks when you are working with Jessica Lange and Liam Neisen!!

That has got to be one of the most under-rated movies of the millenium!

Julie

[Tyler Durden]

3. Titanic without question.

The only good thing about it is it seemed to cause what I call "Titanic Overdose," and now the entire phenomenon has faded, at least until the centenial year.

[RebelOne]

4. Just saw A Beautiful Mind last week for the first time

And for the life of me, I can't understand why that film won an Oscar. I fell asleep in the middle of it.

[VOX]

75. Two main characters are hallucinations. How much of a cheat is that?

Do we even care about John Nash in this picture? No!

[Wwagsthedog]

5. Why can't I vote twice?

Beautiful Mind (barbara bush?) and Gladiator were both awful. Yeah, I am very prejudiced against Russell Crowe movies because I think he is a horrible actor, for starters.

[WoodrowFan]

6. Oliver!!!

in 1968???

[doubleplusgood]

66. beat me to it

"2001" should have won this award

[skypilot]

7. "Driving Miss Daisy"

*

[Skittles]

8. NO F***ING WAY WAS FORREST GUMP BETTER THAN PULP FITION

NO WAY.

[underpants]

16. I agree but it won the Oscar

I voted for Forrest Gump in this poll. Two great movies in one year.

Other noteable Oscar errors
"Shakesspeare in Love" Over "Saving Private Ryan" that was a slap in the face.

Al Pacino "Scent of a Woman" over Denzel as "Malcolm X"

Denzel in "Training Day" was a lifetime achievement award much like Pacino's, what comes around goes around.

BTW-I read a review of "Kill Bill" Tarantino's newsest. 222 page script, 185 days of shooting, huge cost over runs, First PART released Oct.10th, Second part Feb.20, 2004 (they had to split it up into two movies), 20 gallons of fake blood used for the final scene. Sonds very gory. IT is based on a movie idea he and Uma Thurman came up with in a bar while making "Pulp Fiction". It's a martial arts film like the old 70's ones.

He also has 3 movies worth of writing on a WWII movie.

[theemu]

22. "Saving Private Ryan" sucked

Sorry. Shakespeare in Love was a brilliant screenplay, a well-directed film, and featured some of the best performances of the year. Saving Private Ryan was three hours of interchangable characters, a 50's style jingoistic plot, and is only notable for one action sequence.

The Thin Red Line is a much better film than either of them, but I have no problem with Shakespeare in Love winning Best Picture.

[underpants]

26. The Thin Red Line was boooooooooooooring

IMHO

[George_Bonanza]

71. I thought Thin Red Line was good, but a lil pretentious

I was pretty young when I watched it. I remembered all this cheesy poetry in it. Otherwise, it was a fine film. The action was different (Pacific islands instead of rainy France), with battles on hills instead of bombed villages. There were many characters worth knowing. The infamous George Clooney scene is advertising trickery, but oh well. It's a very good war film, just like Saving Private Ryan.

[_Wayne_]

35. Bold...

You realize this opinion (Saving Private Ryan sucks) is represented virtually nowhere. At worst, film critics liked the film, and at best, they said Saving Private Ryan is recognized as one of the greatest achievements in the history of film.

All are entitled to their opinion, of course...

[CanuckAmok]

53. It's also heraldeed as a "great anti-war movie"

But it's jingoism and flag-patriotism is more recruitment ad than anti-war message.

Sure, the opening sequence is a milestone in cinematography, but that doesn't make something "Best Picture".

[regnaD kciN]

61. Oh, really...?

You should read William Goldman (author of Butch Cassidy, All The President's Men, and The Princess Bride), whose review is found in The Big Picture. Goldman nailed it -- SPR dazzled everyone with a fantastic half-hour-long opening action sequence, but then turned into a very formulaic, cliched WWII movie (including the one-from-every-ethnic-group platoon straight out of central casting), with a striking lack of logic to boot. A good war movie? Sure. But a great one? Not unless you walked out or turned it off once the beaches of Normandy had been secured.

[CanuckAmok]

73. Once again, Goldman nails it.

He's mah hero!

[underpants]

78. I agree with both of you

The first half hour was the greatest IMHO 30 minutes I had ever seen and many D-Day vets agreed. It was that great after that but I just thought it was a slap in the face to those who saved the world (actually) but I understand a lot of that was because the Brits were upset that their role was not portrayed in SPR. Well it was a movie about one American platoon so go figure.

[4_Legs_Good]

42. Woo Hoo! Thin Red Line was *much* better than SPR

I agree!!! (and I thought I was the only one!)

I thought the Thin Red Line was one of the best war movies ever made. SPR is a little jaunt of an action film in comparison (although the carnage did make a big impression and is worthy of note).

Another great, if insanely brutal war film is "Come and See". It's a Russian film about WWII from a youth's point of view - a story very rarely told.

david

Kucinich 2004

Arianna YES
Recall No

[Lydia Leftcoast]

44. What I liked about The Thin Red Line

Instead of being one battle scene after another, like the typical war movie, it fully developed all the characters and showed the effects of the war on the islanders. You rarely see that kind of thing. In that sense, it was more subtly nuanced than the average "watch things blow up and people get dismembered" war movie.

Maybe it was a "chick flick war movie"?

[underpants]

80. Add "Enemy at the Gates" not great but a different perspective

The scene with the young Russians on the ferries was horrific enough but when they get off and every third or so one is given a rifle OR one clip of ammo sent chills through me. I don't remember if it is actually stated but it's "Don't worry there are plenty of rifles and ammo in front of you just go that way".

"Platoon" had a similar scene when the North Vietnamese just put an aroow in a tree pointing the direction everyone should attack.

:scared:

[JNelson6563]

85. Some good writing in Shakespear in Love

I really liked it. I sometimes appreciate writing more than the acting.

Julie

[supernova]

28. Kill Bill previews

are currently showing with Once Upon a Time in Mexico. It actually looks good. I'm intrigued. The music is great! :D

The only thing Kill Bill will lack is Johnny Depp, but that's just me. :P

[SweetZombieJesus]

46. Damn right

Forrest Gump was saccharine shit. Tarantino's no genius, but Pulp Fiction was infinitely better than Forrest Fucking Gump.

[leftist_rebel1569]

59. DAMN STRAIGHT!

n/t

[maggrwaggr]

9. Gone With the Wind

horrible harlequin romance

[proud patriot]

34. I agree Gone With The Wind

I can't even sit through that movie ..:puke:

[hackwriter]

10. How can you forget "Dances With Wolves"????

eom

[George_Bonanza]

70. Dances with Wolves is a phenomenal movie

I just fell in love with those Sioux. There were no caricatures or "Redman" Indians, they were hot-headed, sympathetic, wise, savage, fearful, loving, etc.

[Kathy in Cambridge]

86. "Dances With Wolves" Beat Out "Goodfellas"

Goodfellas is considered a masterpiece. Dances With Wolves was a snooze.

[fertilizeonarbusto]

11. My God what a collection of stinkers

I'm torn between "Braveheart" and "Forrest Gump"

[mac56]

12. What? No "Chariots Of Fire"?

What a holy-all stinkfest.

[E Pluribus Unum]

19. I agree

The most boring movie I have ever seen. If I remember right
I went to sleep while watching it.

[Rowdyboy]

30. One more for Chariots of Fire...

Gag...

[Nikia]

38. I liked the movie

Of course, when I watched it I was heavy into running and I was a rather devout Christian at the time and have some Jewish heritage. I guess what I am saying is that I related to the movie a bit better than many people probably did.

[Evil_Dewers]

13. Unforgiven

Did that win?

[Emboldened Chimp]

20. Yes, it did

And it deserved it. Best Western in a decade (from the time)

[Wickerman]

23. I give it a great western tag

but would like some refreshment on what other westerns happened in that decade?

[Character Assassin]

49. Yes, and it sucked big donkey balls

Seemed like a damn pity Oscar for Clint.

[Lydia Leftcoast]

14. Where to start? Where to start?

All of these deserve to be chosen, but I thought that Shakespeare in Love, while amusing, was, in the end, a trifle. I would have chosen The Thin Red Line for the Oscar that year.

Here are some other travesties:

1952: The Greatest Show on Earth won over High Noon and The Quiet Man

1956: Around the World in Eighty Days won over Giant.

1976: Rocky won over Network, Bound for Glory, All the President's Men, and Taxi Driver! Now that's the greatest travesty in the history of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences!

[Evil_Dewers]

15. The English Patient

was worse than Forrest Gump, and Forrest Gump sucked.

[jus_the_facts]

33. English Patient won over SLING BLADE....gimmie a f'n break.....

.....Sling Blade was THE BEST movie of that year...they threw Billy Bob a bone for Best Screenplay...but this movie deserved it ALL!!! :P

[curse10]

48. I loved English Patient!

It's still one of my favorite movies! So poo on you! :P

[BurtWorm]

17. Rocky

Cute picture, but "Best Picture?" I seriously doubt it. Unless 1976 was that crappy a film year. That was the year I fell out of love with the Oscars.

[Lydia Leftcoast]

43. It wasn't the best picture of the year

See my post above for a list of the other "contendas" that year. You'll groan.

[zauberflote]

18. Not really the worst, but...

In the Heat of the Night won in 1967, beating out Bonnie and Clyde and The Graduate. It's not really a bad film, but who remembers it today? The other two were the most influential American movies of their time.

[Wickerman]

25. Oh, but it inspired that great

series... with Carroll O'Connor. That show was so bad I used to think I was high watching it - everything was so blacka nd awhite and goofy.

[Fight_n_back]

27. What?

The "most influential movies of our time"?

"Putney Swope" is more influential than either of those movies. Sergio Leone had more influence on the face of modern film than either Arthur Penn or Mike Nichols.
The most influential film of that mini era was "Midnight Cowboy".
As for the most influential "of our time" "Star Wars" sent cross promotion into the ionoshpere. Speilberg changed the way movies are shot as much as anyone other than Kubrick in this day and age.

[anti_shrub]

21. There's been a few Oscar brainfarts....

How Green Was My Valley winning over Citizen Kane in 1941.

The Sting over The Exorcist in 1973 (I think both are good movies, but time really showed which was the better movie overall)

Kramer vs Kramer over Apocalypse Now in 1979.

Ordinary People over Raging Bull in 1980...Scorsese must have pissed soemone off, thats the only reasoning I can come up with for that.

The Last Emperor winning in 1987, and Full Metal Jacket not even getting nominated in most of the major categories is one of the biggest "WTF" moments I can think of in Oscar history.

[Fight_n_back]

24. Shakepear in Love is a great movie

Tom Stoppard is amazing.

[supernova]

29. Stoppard is what

saved it from being just another costume drama, IMO. Stoppard is a god to those of us to pretend to scribble.

[ProfessorGAC]

31. Titanic, In A Romp

Most overrated movie ever. Romeo & Juliet on a boat. Overacting abounds, the script is glacial in its pace, and enough with the dramatic tension already! We all know the boat sunk!
The Professor

[VOX]

74. Agreed. It's a noisy, overblown clunker. Terrible script...

It deserved to sink.

[Caution]

32. Forrest Gump

Biggest Freeper movie of all time:

The messages from Forrest Gump:

1.)It's ok to be stupid, because working hard will make you rich.
2.)Vietnam vets should get over having their legs blown off and just get to work.
3.)Shit Happens and there is nothing we can do about it.

That movie drives me absolutely nuts. I've never understood how anyone can like it.

[theemu]

51. I vacillate

on the issue of Forrest Gump. There are times when I hate it, and times when I love it, and the times when I love it are when I realize how amazingly ironic the entire film is, how everyone took it to be a sentimental journey through that particular 30 year period, when in fact, it was an extremely cynical view of that era.

Right now I like it.

[Jack Rabbit]

64. I agree Rocky should have been listed here

Although my vote went to Forrest Gump. No only is it the worst movie to ever win the Best Picture Award, it isn't even a good movie. It shouldn't have received any acolades at all.

[billfromwny]

36. moonstruck!

n/t

[indigo32]

39. Hey!!!

Moonstruck was awesome.
Oh well LOL

[CanuckAmok]

54. "Chere is a great actress"...

"SNAP OUT OF IT!"

That bombastic baba-yagga couldn't act her way out of dinner theatre.

[regnaD kciN]

56. "Moonstruck" didn't win Best Picture!

It lost to The Last Emperor.

[mndemocrat_29]

37. Dances with Wolves is the worst

GoodFellas was obviously the best nominee.

Though Braveheart, Rocky, Chariots of Fire, Platoon, Gladiator, Forrest Gump, and A Beautiful Mind all were not worthy of even being nominated, much less win.

[Kat45]

40. Let's not forget the latest: Chicago! Blech!

But on the list, I voted for Forrest Gump. I didn't like that movie at all, thought it was highly overrated. And yeah, it was a travesty that Dances with Wolves, which I found really boring, won over Goodfellas, which is my favorite all-time movie (and a great chance for Scorcese to win the Oscar he deserves).

[Lydia Leftcoast]

47. Dances with Wolves

The only thing I liked about it was the Indians spoke Lakota instead of broken English.

The film lost me when Mary McDonnel showed up. Throughout the film I kept wondering, "How was she able to use a blow dryer in a tepee in the nineteenth century?"

And Kevin Costner is a big minus in any event.

[Padraig18]

41. I became nauseous just reading the choices.

:P

[NashVegas]

45. Toughest DU Poll EVER!

But I went with English Patient.

"Wow, nice cinematography. Let's give it a best movie Oscar."

WTF?

[MrPrax]

68. Yeah tough choices...your right

kinda pathetic looking at the list and some of the mentions from yesteryear (driving miss daisy or moonstruck)...
but yeah I went for Forrest...but American Beauty was equally crappy

[curse10]

50. Forrest Gump

what a piece of sentamentalist bullshit. Ick. :puke:

[CanuckAmok]

52. Chicago. HANDS DOWN.

a b-grade musical with connected a-list stars.

My $0.02 is that Gladiator was one of the worst movies ever made, and that while American Beauty was a good movie, the fact that it trumped Magnolia for best picture is concrete evidence that the Academy Members have completely lost touch with their craft.

And I didn't mind Titanic--it was a truly innovative film, technically speaking. And a good, classic yarn.

The fact that Gloria Stewart (the old lady from Titanic) was beat out by that one-dimensional bink Basinger is more evidence that the Academy is full of maroons.

[mndemocrat_29]

55. In defense of two films

I've got to say that I loved Titanic and The English Patient. Yes, I can see where people are coming from both. Many people can't stand romances (particularly one's that border on sappy), but I've loved these two movies for years and was thrilled when both won Best Picture.

(Additionally, I also liked Shakespeare in Love, though not as well as the other two. However, Saving Private Ryan was technically the better picture (I'm not a great fan of war films, so I excuse myself from judging the merits of that particular film)).

[Ohio Dem]

57. It seems to me that Oscar winners always suck.

There are exceptions to that rule, of course, but I never like the Oscar contenders. And the winners, I usually find unwatchable.

Just my opinion.

[regnaD kciN]

58. A hard choice, indeed...

It's a battle between head and heart. My heart will go on for Titanic being the worst ever (besides, I made the sequel!). However, my head says that my antipathy towards "that damn boat movie" is more due to the Titanicmania that greeted its release rather than anything specific to the film itself (which was basically a standard summer blockbuster with a patina of bad Merchant-Ivory gentility, that had the luck to take so long to finish that it got released during the pre-Christmas "prestige period" rather than the Memorial Day or 4th of July opening that would have left it a faint memory by Oscar time). Oh, and also the Celine-Dion-does-her-Barbara-Streisand-trying-to-sound-like-Enya-imitation theme song.

My head holds out for Braveheart, a lumbering, one-dimensional, unhistorical epic that mainly served as a platform for Mel Gibson's pathological hatred of a) the British and b) homosexuals.

So, with head and heart tied, I have to call in my stomach (which, of its own accord, would have gone with Terms Of Enduran...I mean Endearment) to break the tie...and, by virtue of being far more stomach-turning, it looks like Mel snags it!

[leftist_rebel1569]

60. LORD OF THE RINGS SHOULD HAVE WON THE BEST PICTURE OSCARS, DAMMIT!

:grr::grr::grr::grr::grr::grr::grr::grr::grr::grr::grr::grr::grr::grr::grr::grr::grr:

[Terwilliger]

62. Gladiator...Traffic was RIPPED OFF!

[leftist_rebel1569]

63. Agree on that one...

Traffic was one of the best movies i've ever seen. Gladiator didn't deserve it. But hey, the Academy SUCKS. I don't think they've had the deserving movie win the best picture in a few years...

[George_Bonanza]

72. Gladiator truly sucked

[Garage Queen]

79. Sorry, but "Traffic" PALES in comparison to "Requiem for a Dream"

And the fact the Julia Roberts beat out Ellen Bursten's magnificent performance still urks me to this day.

Julia isn't fit to carry Ellen's shoes.

[theemu]

82. Sorry, but Requiem for a Dream is an afterschool special

with bad language and hallucinatory sequences. Yeah, Ellen Burstyn gave a good performance, but so did tons of other people that year. Who *really* got robbed? Of all people, my least favorite actress and mortal enemy Renee Zellweger, who gave the performance of a lifetime in Nurse Betty. And yeah, Nurse Betty isn't that good of a film either, but the fact that I managed to buy it says a lot.

[Ediacara]

83. Traffic was AWFUL

(not that Gladiator was any better...) But Traffic was probably the worst drug-related movie ever and seemed to have come from John Ashcroft's own pen. And even if it didn', the yellow filter over every scene in Mexico and the not-too-subtle attempt to make Mexico seem like Corrupt-istan was just unattractive.

And don't get me started on the acting, writing, poor plot, and unbelievibly shallow and stupid characters.....

[theemu]

65. Come to think of it...

Shakespeare in Love was the only one of these I don't mind winning Best Picture. All the others had significant problems, either being cliched epic dross (Saving Private Ryan, Braveheart, Gladiator, Titanic, English Patient), pseudo-authentic slices of Americana (Forrest Gump, American Beauty) or just plain mediocre (A Beautiful Mind). Shakespeare in Love is a 'lightweight' film, in that it's a romantic comedy, but I guarantee you it says more about the human comedy than any of those other movies.

[dawgman]

67. what about la confidential.

terrible horrible yuck

[Jen72]

76. Braveheart got my vote.

Anti - British movie directed by a right- wing Aussie.
I also disliked Gladiator but that might be a girl thing, all the blood and gore was depressing and did not make me want to see that film more then once.
I was pissed that Chicago won last year, Kirk and Michael Douglas giving out that award for a CZJ film was so nausiating.
It was an enjoyable film but good dancing and choreography is not the same as good acting. It should have gone to any of the others.
I like Titanic but I loved " A night to remember." A far better black and white movie. If Titanic had not been centred around a romance it would have been a better more serious movie.

I loved Shakespeare In Love, it was beautiful and I love Judi Dench.
It was beautiful, sexy, well crafted and well acted.
I like Forrest Gump though I have tried not too, it is cynical and because a fundie Christian said is was highly offensive because of the sounds of sex in the beginning, it made me like it more. Trust me this is not a Freeper film.
I loved American Beauty it is one of my favourite films and

[Jen72]

77. Braveheart got my vote.

Anti - British movie directed by a right- wing Aussie.
I also disliked Gladiator but that might be a girl thing, all the blood and gore was depressing and did not make me want to see that film more then once.
I was pissed that Chicago won last year, Kirk and Michael Douglas giving out that award for a CZJ film was so nausiating.
It was an enjoyable film but good dancing and choreography is not the same as good acting. It should have gone to any of the others.
I like Titanic but I loved " A night to remember." A far better black and white movie. If Titanic had not been centred around a romance it would have been a better more serious movie.

I loved Shakespeare In Love, it was beautiful and I love Judi Dench.
It was beautiful, sexy, well crafted and well acted.
I like Forrest Gump though I have tried not too, it is cynical and because a fundie Christian said is was highly offensive because of the sounds of sex in the beginning, it made me like it more. Trust me this is not a Freeper film.
I loved American Beauty it is one of my favourite films.

[Brucey]

81. I voted for Braveheart,

that god-awful piece of crap by Mel (repug) Gibson... I remember when it won I was in San Francisco with a friend from Europe and he about shit his pants and asked me what it all meant that something so vile and unaesthetic could be cuddled by the Academy. I, as usual, said I don't know, I don't understand, I just don't get it. But now I see that it is, and apparently always has been, a case of purely awful American bad taste; the same reason people will vote of Arnie the Termite-Eater - American sheeple love the worst macho tough guy celebrities and their movies.

[The Zanti Regent]

87. Hey, go to the site that promotes the WORST!

http://www.thestinkers.com/