# Worst movies to have an Academy Award winning actor/actress. **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Created:** [March 22, 2003, 10:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/worst-movies-to-have-an-academy-award-winning-actor-actress/163437 "2003-03-22T22:40:47Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![Intaglio](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/71e660/32.png) [@Intaglio](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Intaglio)\ **Post date:** [March 22, 2003, 10:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/worst-movies-to-have-an-academy-award-winning-actor-actress/163437/1 "2003-03-22T22:40:47Z")
In recent weeks, I have seen the advertisements for: The Hunted - Tommy Lee Jones, Benicio Del Toro - these actors have been in better movies than this. Boat Trip - Cuba Gooding, Jr. - who was also in Snow Dogs. and View From The Top - Gwyneth Paltrow, who was in Shallow Hal All I have to say, why would these people get into such movies that according to reviewers Suck. Shouldn’t Oscar Winners be a little more picking of the movies the star in. Coming to theatres in a few weeks is: The Core - Hillary Swank and Bad Boys II - Will Smith (Ocsar nominee), and he is top billed by Martin Lawrence. (Huh)! These movies should also Suck. The only thing I can think of is their getting paid and it keeps them busy. Before you say The Life of David Gale - Kevin Spacey, that was better than any of these waste of celluloid. Thoughts ---
**Author:** ![Cartooniverse](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/cartooniverse/32/3084_2.png) [@Cartooniverse](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Cartooniverse)\ **Post date:** [March 22, 2003, 11:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/worst-movies-to-have-an-academy-award-winning-actor-actress/163437/2 "2003-03-22T23:41:50Z")
There is the Art and then there is the Work. I shot thousands of t.v. shows, movies, music videos, commercials and industrials. I very VERY rarely got to truly create something I was proud of, something that had beauty and impact. When I did, it had nothing to do with the salary, or the exposure of the job. Usually, it was variations on the meat grinder that is visual entertainment. That doesn’t mean it’s bad, it just means one is rarely Elevated to great heights in this business. I would not be slamming people for taking jobs. They got nominated? More power to them, I bet those jobs gave them a chance to flex their creative muscles and produce stellar work. It doesn’t make them shit for wanting the next job. Gene Hackman. Michael Caine. My GOD those two work a lot. They have a body of work, that is exemplary. Now and then, duds. Now and then, truly brilliant stuff. -shrug- I admire people who can generate good work on a consistent basis. If the movies you called a waste of celluloid pay for the cost of making them, and entertain some folks, then they did exactly what they were made to do. Cartooniverse ---
**Author:** ![Cartooniverse](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/cartooniverse/32/3084_2.png) [@Cartooniverse](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Cartooniverse)\ **Post date:** [March 22, 2003, 11:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/worst-movies-to-have-an-academy-award-winning-actor-actress/163437/3 "2003-03-22T23:43:09Z")
… I know there are actresses who also work incessantly, didn’t mean to slight 51 % of the performing population by just naming two actors. They popped into my head, I named 'em. ---
**Author:** ![plastic\_conspiracy](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/3ab097/32.png) [@plastic\_conspiracy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/plastic_conspiracy)\ **Post date:** [March 23, 2003, 12:46am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/worst-movies-to-have-an-academy-award-winning-actor-actress/163437/4 "2003-03-23T00:46:20Z")
Gene Hackman was in a dud? I must have missed that one. What about DeNiro in _Showtime_? I would expect that Robert DeNiro would have his choice of great films to work on. By the way, while _The Core_ may end up being a cheesy, sci-fi dud, I wouldn’t be too quick to judge it. The cast (including the afore mentioned Swank and Stanley Tucci) makes me think twice. ---
**Author:** ![Governor\_Quinn](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/d26b3c/32.png) [@Governor\_Quinn](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Governor_Quinn)\ **Post date:** [March 23, 2003, 12:48am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/worst-movies-to-have-an-academy-award-winning-actor-actress/163437/5 "2003-03-23T00:48:58Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by plastic conspiracy \* > \*\*Gene Hackman was in a dud? I must have missed that one. > \*\* You mean you’ve never seen “The Poseiden Adventure”? (Personally, I’d include most of Ernest Borgnine’s work as wastes of celluloid) ---
**Author:** ![HelloKitty](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/ecccb3/32.png) [@HelloKitty](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/HelloKitty)\ **Post date:** [March 23, 2003, 2:06am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/worst-movies-to-have-an-academy-award-winning-actor-actress/163437/6 "2003-03-23T02:06:01Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by Governor Quinn \* > \*\*You mean you’ve never seen “The Poseiden Adventure”? > > (Personally, I’d include most of Ernest Borgnine’s work as wastes of celluloid) \*\* I’d call **Superman IV** somewhat of a turkey, and what about **Loose Cannons** with Dan Ackroyd? ---
**Author:** ![Icarus](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/icarus/32/72_2.png) [@Icarus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Icarus)\ **Post date:** [March 23, 2003, 2:40am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/worst-movies-to-have-an-academy-award-winning-actor-actress/163437/7 "2003-03-23T02:40:30Z")
Kathy Bates was the mother of Adam Sandler in [The Waterboy](http://us.imdb.com/Title?0120484) Whoppi Goldberg, Kathy Bates, and Cuba Gooding Jr. (him again?) were all in [Rat Race](http://us.imdb.com/Title?0250687) ---
**Author:** ![Diogenes\_the\_Cynic](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/e99b99/32.png) [@Diogenes\_the\_Cynic](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Diogenes_the_Cynic)\ **Post date:** [March 23, 2003, 7:01am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/worst-movies-to-have-an-academy-award-winning-actor-actress/163437/8 "2003-03-23T07:01:18Z")
Michael Caine was in _Jaws 4_. He actually had to skip the Oscar ceremony in which he won supporting actor for _Hannah and her Sisters_\* because he was busy filming it. ---
**Author:** ![RickJay](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/bb73d2/32.png) [@RickJay](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RickJay)\ **Post date:** [March 23, 2003, 7:20am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/worst-movies-to-have-an-academy-award-winning-actor-actress/163437/9 "2003-03-23T07:20:59Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by plastic conspiracy \* > \*\*Gene Hackman was in a dud? I must have missed that one. \*\* Gene Hackman has been in the following movies, all of which sucked eggs, IMHO: The Quick and the Dead Heist Power Hearbreakers Superman IV (God help us all) Loose Cannons Yes, I know a lot of people thought “Heist” was great. I thought it was disgracefully bad, primarily because it featured possibly the worst actress in the history of cinema, Rebecca Pidgeon (the director’s wife, unsurprisingly) and was frankly something of an unintentional self-parody of David Mamet trying to write a twisty story. ---
**Author:** ![BobT](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/8e8cbc/32.png) [@BobT](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BobT)\ **Post date:** [March 23, 2003, 7:25am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/worst-movies-to-have-an-academy-award-winning-actor-actress/163437/10 "2003-03-23T07:25:17Z")
Doesn’t anyone find it strange that **RickJay** hates a movie that features the actor Ricky Jay in it? ---
**Author:** ![Minor\_Irritant](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/e495f1/32.png) [@Minor\_Irritant](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Minor_Irritant)\ **Post date:** [March 23, 2003, 6:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/worst-movies-to-have-an-academy-award-winning-actor-actress/163437/11 "2003-03-23T18:35:48Z")
Pay it Forward - 2 Oscar winners (Spacey, Helen Hunt), 1 Oscar nominee (Haley Joel Osment), 0 stars outta 4. Painful. Michael Caine’s made some awful, awful movies. The Swarm? The Holcroft Covenant? The aforementioned Jaws 4? Cuba Gooding Jr. - Between Snow Dogs and Boat Trip, I’m now sure that he sold his soul to Satan for that Oscar. ---
**Author:** ![plastic\_conspiracy](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/3ab097/32.png) [@plastic\_conspiracy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/plastic_conspiracy)\ **Post date:** [March 23, 2003, 6:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/worst-movies-to-have-an-academy-award-winning-actor-actress/163437/12 "2003-03-23T18:56:30Z")
I liked _Heartbreakers_ and _The Poseiden Adventure_, while flawed, is still a classic. I concede that the other Hackman films mentioned do in fact suck. I was particularly disappointed with _Heist_, since it had such a great cast and it was a Mamet film, to boot. Where did they go wrong? ---
**Author:** ![ITR\_champion](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/c67d28/32.png) [@ITR\_champion](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ITR_champion)\ **Post date:** [March 23, 2003, 7:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/worst-movies-to-have-an-academy-award-winning-actor-actress/163437/13 "2003-03-23T19:28:54Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by Governor Quinn \* > \*\*Personally, I’d include most of Ernest Borgnine’s work as wastes of celluloid \*\* I’ve never actually seen **Baseketball** , but it featured him along with Trey Parker and Matt Stone, Jenny McCarthy, and so forth. Has Kenneth Branagh ever won an Oscar? He was in the **Wild Wild West** , which has already legendary for its awfulness despite being released only four years ago. Will Smith was in there too. ---
**Author:** ![RickJay](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/bb73d2/32.png) [@RickJay](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RickJay)\ **Post date:** [March 23, 2003, 8:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/worst-movies-to-have-an-academy-award-winning-actor-actress/163437/14 "2003-03-23T20:35:09Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by BobT \* > \*\*Doesn’t anyone find it strange that **RickJay** hates a movie that features the actor Ricky Jay in it? \*\* That name-stealing BASTARD!!! ---
**Author:** ![Mockingbird](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/c68b51/32.png) [@Mockingbird](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mockingbird)\ **Post date:** [March 24, 2003, 8:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/worst-movies-to-have-an-academy-award-winning-actor-actress/163437/15 "2003-03-24T20:01:02Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by ITR champion \* > \*\*I’ve never actually seen **Baseketball** , but it featured him along with Trey Parker and Matt Stone, Jenny McCarthy, and so forth. > > Has Kenneth Branagh ever won an Oscar? He was in the **Wild Wild West** , which has already legendary for its awfulness despite being released only four years ago. Will Smith was in there too. \*\* Four nominations in three different years with no wins. [http://us.imdb.com/Pawards?Branagh,%20Kenneth](http://us.imdb.com/Pawards?Branagh,%20Kenneth) ---
**Author:** ![Kang\_and\_Kodos](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/8baadc/32.png) [@Kang\_and\_Kodos](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kang_and_Kodos)\ **Post date:** [March 24, 2003, 8:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/worst-movies-to-have-an-academy-award-winning-actor-actress/163437/16 "2003-03-24T20:29:02Z")
If you can find a bigger piece of cookie-cutter crap than B_A_P\*S with Halle Berry, I’ll eat a bug. ---
**Author:** ![MovieMogul](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/f08c70/32.png) [@MovieMogul](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MovieMogul)\ **Post date:** [March 24, 2003, 8:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/worst-movies-to-have-an-academy-award-winning-actor-actress/163437/17 "2003-03-24T20:32:23Z")
_The Swarm_ has Michael Caine, Olivia de Havilland, Henry Fonda, Jose Ferrer, Ben Johnson, Patty Duke & Lee Grant–that’s 9 Oscars between them. _Beyond the Poseidon Adventure_ has winners Michael Caine, Sally Field, Karl Malden, and Shirley Jones–6 Oscars But the all-time winner has to be: **The Oscar** , featuring Ernest Borgnine, Ed Begley, Walter Brennan (3 Oscars), Broderick Crawford, James Dunn, Edith Head (8 Oscars), Frank Sinatra, and Bob Hope (5 Honorary Oscars) That’s 21 Oscars in the cast of one terrible movie. ---
**Author:** ![Intaglio](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/71e660/32.png) [@Intaglio](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Intaglio)\ **Post date:** [March 24, 2003, 8:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/worst-movies-to-have-an-academy-award-winning-actor-actress/163437/18 "2003-03-24T20:39:13Z")
BAPS was pre-Oscar Halle Berry bad judgement, I am talking about post-Oscar bad judgement - by an Actor/Actress. ---
**Author:** ![Ethilrist](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ethilrist/32/4604_2.png) [@Ethilrist](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ethilrist)\ **Post date:** [March 24, 2003, 9:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/worst-movies-to-have-an-academy-award-winning-actor-actress/163437/19 "2003-03-24T21:10:34Z")
How about Sean Connery in Highlander II: The Quickening? Or George Kennedy in Bolero. Bob Hoskins in Super Mario Bros. ---
**Author:** ![astorian](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/ad7895/32.png) [@astorian](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/astorian)\ **Post date:** [March 24, 2003, 9:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/worst-movies-to-have-an-academy-award-winning-actor-actress/163437/20 "2003-03-24T21:51:29Z")
I’ll be nice, and only count movies done AFTER a performer has won an Oscar. After all, we EXPECT a young, talented but struggling to do some bad movies. But if we limit ourselves to AWFUL (not just mediocre) movies featuring people who once won the Oscar as Best Actor or Actress… 1. Sir Laurence Olivier (Best Actor in "Hamlet’) was in “The Betsy” and Sun Myung Moon’s epic “Inchon.” 2. Ray Milland (Best Actor in "The Lost Weekend) was in that two-headed transplant movie with Rosie Grier. 3. F. Murray Abraham (Best Actor in “Amadeus”) did a lame Hannibal Lecter parody in the stinker “National Lampoon’s Loaded Weapon.” 4. Jack Lemmon made some really cruddy comedies in his later years, including “Buddy Buddy,” “Out to Sea,” and “My Fellow Americans.” But “The Odd Couple 2” was probably the worst of the bunch. 5. Rod Steiger (Best Actor: “In the Heat of the Night”): many, many dreadful films… but the worst was “Modern Vampires.” 6. Jimmy Stewart (Best ACtor: “The Philadelphia Story”): “The Magic of Lassie.” 7. Ernest Borgnine (Best Actor: “Marty”): So many to choose from, but “Superfuzz” and “When Time Ran Out” stand out. Technically, Paul Newman wasn’t an Oscar winner yet when he starred in “When Time Ran Out,” so he gets a reprieve. 8. Gwyneth Paltrow (Best Actress: “Shakespeare in Love”): “View from the Top” 9. Sissy Spacek (Best Actress: “Coal Miner’s Daughter”): “Trading Mom” 10. Louise Fletcher (Best Actress, “Cuckoo’s Nest”): “Return to Two Moon Junction” 11. Liza Minnelli (Best Actress, “Cabaret”): “Lucky Lady.” [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/worst-movies-to-have-an-academy-award-winning-actor-actress/163437.md?page=2)