Has anyone ever won the academy award for the movie (designing, acting, etc.) they should’ve won it for? Or do the awards go to generally making up to people who should’ve won awards, popular opinion that year or something? If anyone has answered this, I’m sorry. I mean, the opposite comes up every year so what about the other way around? Also sorry if this is posted in the wrong place. Thank You in advance
Moved to Café Society.
Colibri
General Questions Moderator
Your question reads really weirdly. Care to rephrase it?
I think he’s asking if there are any cases where the Academy actually got it right.
The Oscars go to the winner of a vote held by the Academy. The selection is first limited by a nominating committee. The vote reflects what members of the industry feel should be considered the best movie. Obviously their personal bias plays into the voting, we never know for sure if they’ve even seen the movies nominated, so some votes will be based on personal friendships, business relationships, popular opinions, and random selections. That’s how it works, and every year people inside and outside the industry complain about it, but there’s no perfect alternative. There are other awards, People’s Choice, Golden Globes, etc. with different criteria, voter bases, and selection processes, but within the industry the Oscars are held in high regard because of tradition, plus the winners are selected by their peers, otherwise there’s no great reason to consider the Oscars so special. Except for the nominating process which has limited the nominees by small select groups there’s not much that can be done to improve the process without changing the nature of the awards.
If I am reading the question correctly, I would say that - while there are certainly awards given that appear to be for past achievements or sentimental reasons, the vast majority of awards that I can understand (I’m not knowledgeable about sound or cinematography, stuff like that) are given for the work being honored.
To take one example: Daniel Day Lewis. It would be very hard to argue that he is winning for work that is not the best in that year, or his best work.
While there have been some anomalies, by and large it’s at least arguable that the winners have been the best in that category that year. (Of course, opinions will always differ and it’s difficult to compare dramas to comedies and so on.) “Make up” awards probably occur but if the movie got nominated in the first place it’s probably pretty good quality.
There have been quite a few instances in which I have thought, while viewing a movie, that it would win an Academy Award in some category, and been proven correct. A few that come immediately to mind, in part because the Academy’s selection has been challenged by others:
I knew as soon as I saw her performance that Judy Dench would win Best Supporting Actress for Shakespeare in Love.
I walked out of Spotlight knowing that it would win Best Picture.
I knew that Michael Caine would win Best Supporting Actor for Hannah and Her Sisters.
I knew that Viola Davis would win Best Supporting Actress for Fences, although that one was not at all controversial.
Of course I’m just one moviegoer, but those are all instances where it’s clear to me that the Academy got it right.
A list of previously-unknown winners:
Christoph Waltz (in the US at least)
Tatum O’Neal (other than by association)
Adrien Brody
Jean Dujardin
Graham Moore
If you look at the winners of the Best Supporting Actor category, there’s a large number of veteran actors who never won Oscars before: Christopher Plummer, Alan Arkin, Morgan Freeman, Tim Robbins, Chris Cooper, Jim Broadbent, Michael Caine, James Coburn, Robin Williams, Martin Landau, Tommy Lee Jones, Jack Palance, Joe Pesci, Sean Connery, John Gielgud, etc. There’s definitely a feeling that the award (at least for a time – it seems to have changed recently) were something of an award for the actor’s body of work.
The way I see it, the only time the supporting acting Oscars don’t go to the “right actors” (how do you not give one to Tommy Lee Jones for The Fugitive?) are when the winner is also nominated in the corresponding lead acting category, so it becomes a “consolation prize.” Example: Jessica Lange won Supporting Actress in 1982 for Tootsie because she “should have” won (Leading) Actress in 1982 for Frances, but “they had to give it to” Meryl Streep for Sophie’s Choice because she “should have” won in 1981 for The French Lieutenant’s Woman, but “they had to give it to” Katharine Hepburn for On Golden Pond that year because “they had to give it to” Katharine Hepburn, period.
I don’t disagree that this occurs. However, it is noticeable when it occurs.
Sure, everyone remembers the controversial awards. But there’s no real controversy for the vast majority of them. There’s always someone who thinks someone else should have won but usually it’s just a matter of taste. Every once in a while an older actor gets an award that seems to be based on their body of work, not their role in a particular film, but otherwise it’s just the eye of the beholder. Best Supporting awards were already mentioned, those are ripe for problems because it’s difficult to distinguish between the main and supporting roles, but it’s still a competition with only one possible winner. I may not like the decision in the end but I can’t recall a case where the nomination wasn’t deserved, so any one of the candidates is a reasonable choice. The biggest problem so far I think would be the nominating process which may have excluded a lot of good nominees.
It’s art, so there’s no “right” answer.
There’s a very interesting documentary that provides some insight on the process:
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1293751/
It’s about the role of the casting director and the Academy’s failure to award this category until 2016.
Other examples–Al Pacino’s win in Scent of a Woman over Denzel Washington’s Malcolm X. The former was up to 8 nods without logging a win so had to be honored at the expense of (what many still consider) a far superior performance.
And while I have no problem with Denzel winning for Training Day, it was seen as a make-up for several overlooked lead performances, which meant that Russell Crowe in The Insider would have to wait a year to win for the far less demanding role in Gladiator. So those ripple effects can span many years.
And there is a bit of confirmation bias at work. We remember when the sentimental favorite wins but not when they lose. Like in 2016 the respected but relatively unknown Mark Rylance won but Stallone didn’t.
But look at the list. In the 80s though 00s, it was almost a sure thing that an actor who’d been around for awhile without winning ended up winning. It’s changing lately, but for a couple of decades the oldest actor in the category ended up winning it.
You don’t see the pattern as strongly with Best Supporting Actress.
People in the academy (and in any group voting on awards) have biases, and the “best” in any performance is purely subjective (especially since they were all playing different roles). When someone has been doing strong performances for years, there are plenty of voters who choose them, especially when faced with other names they don’t know.
Few Oscar voters see all the movies in every category (promotional DVDs help, but who has time to see every nominated film?). Many vote on reputation. When an actor’s name is familiar, it’s only natural that they consider him.
This dynamic is true of any award. Quality is subjective.