# Most undeserving Best Picture winners of the past 25 years. **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Created:** [February 24, 2009, 7:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/most-undeserving-best-picture-winners-of-the-past-25-years/487248 "2009-02-24T19:09:48Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![Typo\_Negative](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/typo_negative/32/484_2.png) [@Typo\_Negative](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Typo_Negative)\ **Post date:** [February 24, 2009, 8:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/most-undeserving-best-picture-winners-of-the-past-25-years/487248/21 "2009-02-24T20:32:40Z")
1985 – Out of Africa 2005 – Crash 2001 – A Beautiful Mind They were…\*just bad \*movies! ---
**Author:** ![Munch](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/munch/32/5281_2.png) [@Munch](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Munch)\ **Post date:** [February 24, 2009, 8:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/most-undeserving-best-picture-winners-of-the-past-25-years/487248/22 "2009-02-24T20:32:41Z")
1. Crash 2. Forrest Gump 3. Shakespeare in Love I narrowed it down to: 1990 – _Dances With Wolves_ (_Goodfellas_) 1994 – _Forrest Gump_ (_Pulp Fiction, The Shawshank Redemption, Quiz Show_) 1996 – _The English Patient_ (_Fargo, Jerry Maguire_) 1998 – _Shakespeare in Love_ (_Saving Private Ryan_) 2000 – _Gladiator_ (_Traffic, Crouching Tiger Hidden Dragon_) 2005 – _Crash_ (\*Brokeback Mountain, Good Night and Good Luck, Munich, _Batman Begins_) CTHD didn’t age nearly as well as Gladiator did (which I’m still not impressed with), so it was off. DWW wasn’t that much worse than Goodfellas, so off it goes. The English Patient was really tough - I HATED that movie. But I hated the rest (in comparison to their competition) much more. ---
**Author:** ![Marley23](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/45deac/32.png) [@Marley23](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Marley23)\ **Post date:** [February 24, 2009, 8:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/most-undeserving-best-picture-winners-of-the-past-25-years/487248/23 "2009-02-24T20:43:25Z")
I’ve seen few of these movies prior to about 1993, so I’ll start there: 1. Forrest Gump over Pulp Fiction in 1994 2. Titanic over L.A. Confidential in 1997 3. Chicago over The Pianist in 2002 I realize the OP didn’t propose this, but the idea that JFK (a boring piece of historical fiction with no more connection to reality than The Da Vinci Code) deserved the Oscar over Silence of the Lambs is silly. ---
**Author:** ![ShibbOleth](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/848f3c/32.png) [@ShibbOleth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ShibbOleth)\ **Post date:** [February 24, 2009, 8:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/most-undeserving-best-picture-winners-of-the-past-25-years/487248/24 "2009-02-24T20:49:02Z")
First, I actively disliked: Out of Africa Forrest Gump I never saw: Titanic Million Dollar Baby Slumdog Millionaire but I’ll likely get around to seeing Slumdog Millionaire. The first two don’t even interest me. I’ve seen enough clips that I could probably describe the plot without seeing them. But then taking into account which ones they beat out: Dances with Wolves --\> Goodfellas should have won by a mile or three. Driving Miss Daisy --\> My Left Foot Forrest Gump --\> Pulp Fiction (although The Shawshank Redemption was also better) English Patient --\> Fargo are what I see as the biggest travesties. Which makes my first choice easy: Forrest Gump Dances with Wolves The English Patient are my top three, since when I examined the whole list of others I didn’t like or see, there was no clear “Crap, I can’t believe that didn’t win” factored in. ---
**Author:** ![davekhps](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/a5b964/32.png) [@davekhps](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/davekhps)\ **Post date:** [February 24, 2009, 8:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/most-undeserving-best-picture-winners-of-the-past-25-years/487248/25 "2009-02-24T20:50:24Z")
1. Chicago 2. Shakespeare in Love 3. Crash ---
**Author:** ![UncaStuart](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/uncastuart/32/404_2.png) [@UncaStuart](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/UncaStuart)\ **Post date:** [February 24, 2009, 8:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/most-undeserving-best-picture-winners-of-the-past-25-years/487248/26 "2009-02-24T20:50:47Z")
1. Braveheart 2. Forrest Gump 3. Crash ---
**Author:** ![Sarahfeena](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/sarahfeena/32/519_2.png) [@Sarahfeena](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sarahfeena)\ **Post date:** [February 24, 2009, 8:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/most-undeserving-best-picture-winners-of-the-past-25-years/487248/27 "2009-02-24T20:55:03Z")
Forrest Gump and Titanic. Two movies that thought they were saying more about the human condition than they actually were. Titanic, especially, frustrated me to no end. Special effects-wise, an amazing film. If Cameron had stuck to the human drama of the ship sinking, and what happens to people who realize they probably only have an hour or so to live (or are seeing family members for the last time), it could have been brilliant. The star-crossed romance and ham-handed class warfare story lines were just awful. ---
**Author:** ![VarlosZ](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/v/d78d45/32.png) [@VarlosZ](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/VarlosZ)\ **Post date:** [February 24, 2009, 8:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/most-undeserving-best-picture-winners-of-the-past-25-years/487248/28 "2009-02-24T20:55:03Z")
> [@Robot\_Arm](#): > > Could you go back one more year? _ **Terms of Endearment** _ beating _ **The Right Stuff** _ is a travesty. My thought going into this thread was to have it go back 30 years, to 1979 (_Kramer vs. Kramer_ over _Apocalypse Now_? Really???), but I thought we’d run into the problem of most people never having seen most of the nominated films from so far back. Of the 15 nominees from '84-'86, I’ve only seen 4 of them (and Best Picture winner _Out of Africa_ isn’t one of them – is it good?). I’ve actually seen a much higher percentage of the nominees from '79-'83, but it still seemed like it would be tough to have an informed electorate if we went back that far. > [@Marley23](#): > > I realize the OP didn’t propose this, but the idea that JFK (a boring piece of historical fiction with no more connection to reality than The Da Vinci Code) deserved the Oscar over Silence of the Lambs is silly. I agree, but among the other nominees (_JFK, Beauty and the Beast, Bugsy, and The Prince of Tides_) it was by far the most noteworthy. However, taking a second look, I did miss an opportunity by failing to include _Terminator 2: Judgment Day_, which is probably the only 1991 film that even has a chance of deserving to be in the same conversation as _Lambs_. ---
**Author:** ![Intergalactic\_Gladiator](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/intergalactic_gladiator/32/112_2.png) [@Intergalactic\_Gladiator](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Intergalactic_Gladiator)\ **Post date:** [February 24, 2009, 8:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/most-undeserving-best-picture-winners-of-the-past-25-years/487248/29 "2009-02-24T20:56:41Z")
1. Rain Man 2. Crash 3. Forrest Gump ---
**Author:** ![kasuo](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/8c91f0/32.png) [@kasuo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/kasuo)\ **Post date:** [February 24, 2009, 8:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/most-undeserving-best-picture-winners-of-the-past-25-years/487248/30 "2009-02-24T20:57:55Z")
> [@TJVM](#): > > 1. **Crash.** This movie seemed like a big After School Special on racism. I like TVTropes’ name for this: [Anvilicious](http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/Anvilicious). ---
**Author:** ![Dewey\_Finn](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dewey_finn/32/4222_2.png) [@Dewey\_Finn](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dewey_Finn)\ **Post date:** [February 24, 2009, 9:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/most-undeserving-best-picture-winners-of-the-past-25-years/487248/31 "2009-02-24T21:03:27Z")
1997 L.A. Confidential 2001 Gosford Park 1990 Goodfellas And I thought that either ET or Tootsie would have been a better choice than Gandhi, based on their cultural significance. ---
**Author:** ![HoboStew](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/f17d59/32.png) [@HoboStew](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/HoboStew)\ **Post date:** [February 24, 2009, 9:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/most-undeserving-best-picture-winners-of-the-past-25-years/487248/32 "2009-02-24T21:05:31Z")
The hard thing about this list is there are some just plain BAD movie years. For example, I sorta liked American Beauty but at no time did I ever think I was watching an oscar worthy movie. However the alternatives are even worse, so I guess I would give it the nod. I didn’t like A Beautiful Mind much at all, but I can’t see LotR winning best picture. So for my list I pick movies that clearly had a better movie that should have won that didn’t. 1. Crash - Brokeback DEFINITELY should have won, and I don’t even like BBM that much. This was an awful movie in just about every respect. 2. Forrest Gump - I could see the case made for Pulp Fiction or Shawshank, although to me it is no contest. Pulp Fiction was THE defining movie of the 90’s for me. 3. Dances With Wolves - Goodfellas was a better movie, although I think they are both pretty overrated. ---
**Author:** ![TheMerchandise](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/b487fb/32.png) [@TheMerchandise](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/TheMerchandise)\ **Post date:** [February 24, 2009, 9:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/most-undeserving-best-picture-winners-of-the-past-25-years/487248/33 "2009-02-24T21:09:59Z")
1. American Beauty 2. Crash 3. The English Patient ---
**Author:** ![KneadToKnow](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/kneadtoknow/32/3999_2.png) [@KneadToKnow](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/KneadToKnow)\ **Post date:** [February 24, 2009, 9:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/most-undeserving-best-picture-winners-of-the-past-25-years/487248/34 "2009-02-24T21:10:18Z")
1. _Crash_ 2. _Gladiator_ 3. _Crash_ again, because it’s just that bad. ---
**Author:** ![astorian](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/ad7895/32.png) [@astorian](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/astorian)\ **Post date:** [February 24, 2009, 9:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/most-undeserving-best-picture-winners-of-the-past-25-years/487248/35 "2009-02-24T21:17:25Z")
The Worst Oscar Winners, From Worst to Least Bad 1985 – _Out of Africa_ Snoooooze… (And why is Meryl Streep trying so hard to do a Danish accent when NOBODY else in the movie is trying to do their proper accent?) 1987 – _The Last Emperor_ Yawn… 2000 – _Gladiator_ I enjoyed this one well enough, but then saw it with a bunch of my male friends in the aftermath of a bachelor party. We treated it as our own “MST3K” and made wisecracks through the whole thing! (“Pizza pizza!” “Say Billy, you like movies with gladiators in them?”). The idea that this campy joke would win an OScar was beyond us. 1996 – _The English Patient_ Tedious and immoral. A bad combination. 1999 – _American Beauty_ Gosh, I’m soooo glas Hollywood made another movie showing how sterile and soul-linn ght suburbs are. It had been at LEAST ten minutes since we’d seen another movie with that theme. ---
**Author:** ![Typo\_Negative](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/typo_negative/32/484_2.png) [@Typo\_Negative](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Typo_Negative)\ **Post date:** [February 24, 2009, 9:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/most-undeserving-best-picture-winners-of-the-past-25-years/487248/36 "2009-02-24T21:36:56Z")
Are we pretty much all agreed that _Crash_ sucked? ---
**Author:** ![Marley23](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/45deac/32.png) [@Marley23](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Marley23)\ **Post date:** [February 24, 2009, 9:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/most-undeserving-best-picture-winners-of-the-past-25-years/487248/37 "2009-02-24T21:43:27Z")
> [@spooje](#): > > Are we pretty much all agreed that _Crash_ sucked? I found it thought-provoking even though some of the characters were wooden. I haven’t seen Brokeback Mountain or Munich - although given my history with Spielberg movies I’d be unlikely to prefer Munich. ---
**Author:** ![Red\_Barchetta](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/da6949/32.png) [@Red\_Barchetta](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Red_Barchetta)\ **Post date:** [February 24, 2009, 9:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/most-undeserving-best-picture-winners-of-the-past-25-years/487248/38 "2009-02-24T21:55:39Z")
> [@spooje](#): > > Are we pretty much all agreed that _Crash_ sucked? Nope. ---
**Author:** ![Katriona](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/katriona/32/113_2.png) [@Katriona](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Katriona)\ **Post date:** [February 24, 2009, 9:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/most-undeserving-best-picture-winners-of-the-past-25-years/487248/39 "2009-02-24T21:57:12Z")
Forrest Gump Braveheart Shakespeare in Love Those are the three that just annoy me to think about. ---
**Author:** ![obfusciatrist](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/o/4af34b/32.png) [@obfusciatrist](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/obfusciatrist)\ **Post date:** [February 24, 2009, 10:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/most-undeserving-best-picture-winners-of-the-past-25-years/487248/40 "2009-02-24T22:05:46Z")
1. Forrest Gump (hate it with a passion because it is awful) 2. Chicago (hate it with a passion because it is mediocre and overhyped) 3. Gladiator (didn’t hate it, just a really weird choice) [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/most-undeserving-best-picture-winners-of-the-past-25-years/487248.md?page=1) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/most-undeserving-best-picture-winners-of-the-past-25-years/487248.md?page=3)