#20. Victor Fleming For "Gone With The Wind"
This popular classic still holds the record for most tickets sold, but looking back in hindsight after all the #OscarsSoWhite debacle, I feel it just didn't deserve the Oscar for Best Picture. On top of that, Victor Fleming winning Best Director was also quite controversial, given he was only one of the three directors that worked on the film. Come on, they should have all been awarded!
Besides, the Oscar could have gone to John Ford for Stagecoach, to Frank Capra for Mr Smith Goes to Washington, or to William Wyler for Wuthering Heights.
#19. Best Picture To "The Greatest Show On Earth"
The fact that Cecil B DeMille is one of the key figures in the history of American cinema doesn't guarantee that all of his films were great. The legendary producer and director might have had a box office success with The Greatest Show on Earth but there's no artistic defense to that trashy, overlong epic.
Without a doubt, the Academy Award should have gone to High Noon. Also, it's a shame that The Bad and the Beautiful wasn't nominated that year, it could've been a total winner!
#18. Best Picture To "Around The World In 80 Days"
1957 was a year in which the Academy not only got the winners wrong, but also the whole ceremony. The Searchers, Written on the Wind and Forbidden Planet had audiences charmed and The Ladykillers, La Strada and Seven Samurai were on release worldwide.
Still, the Academy chose to reward this family romp. The award for Best Picture, in my opinion, should have gone to A Year to Remember instead of this goofy comedy.
#17. Leon Shamroy For "Cleopatra"
This film didn't deserve any awards, it was overpriced and overrated. Compared to The Leopard, which wasn't even nominated, this epic was a disgrace. To be honest, Cleopatra looks like it was filmed through a veneer of blancmange.
There were other films that year nominated for Best Cinematography that were visually superior, such as Fellini's 8 1/2. The worst part is that Fellini's classic wasn't even nominated! The same goes for Irma La Douce.
#16. Best Picture To "The Sound Of Music"
Hollywood was having a hard time during the mid 60s, and it shows in its Best Picture nominees at the 1966 awards. Alongside the cheerful nuns and Nazis romp, there was Doctor Zhivago, Darling and A Thousand Clowns.
Maybe the winner could have been Von Ryan's Express, a war film about a group of British POWs trying to escape from the Germans, but it's not like there were actually any good movies.
#15. Best Foreign Language Film To "Une Homme Et Une Femme"
At the time, Unne Homme et une Femme might have looked slick and exiting, maybe even modern. But the truth is that Claude Lelouch's paper-thin romantic romp now seems a bit dated, self-satisfied, and dull film.
It's just as cliché and relentlessly annoying as its twittering French theme song. The winner of Best Foreign Language Film in 1966 could have been the legendary war film The Battle of Algiers or maybe even Loves of a Blonde.
#14. Stevie Wonder For "The Woman In Red"
We all love Stevie Wonder, but even geniuses make mistakes sometimes. Even before the song was heavily criticized by John Cusak in High Fidelity, we already knew that this drippy romantic ballad was one of the low points in the soul pioneer's career.
The Oscar for Best Original Song could have gone to the famous musical Footloose or to the classic mystery film Ghostbusters. Even Purple Rain* was nominated for the Oscar, why did they have to choose the worst one?
#13. Best Picture To "Out Of Africa"
The mid-80s was the era of dishing out awards to grandiose, sweeping tales of life in foreign lands. Examples of this are Gandhi, Platoon and The Last Emperor. Definitely a good decade for historical epics!
But while all those other films are somewhat arguably deserving of the award, Out of Africa was without a doubt a tiresome and glacially-paced colonial romance. The Best Picture Award in 1986 could've gone to Witness or Prizzi's Honor.
#12. Rick Baker For "Harry And The Hendersons"
This movie was awarded Best Makeup, and it must be one of the oddest recognitions ever devised. And the truth is that it must have been a reward to FX legend Rick Baker for his past achievements.
But this monster-com had no place within sniffing distance of awards glory. Any other nominee was more deserving than this! Did they give the movie the award just because of that Alf-looking costume?
#11. Driving Miss Daisy
The Academy sometimes just make things difficult for themselves. This good-natured but old-fashioned race relations story got nominated for Best Picture, while other classics such as Spike Lee's Do the Right Thing didn't make it to the list of nominees.
They could have nominated a more challenging movie, don't you think? This being said, the Best Picture award could have gone to My Left Foot or to the heart-wrenching classic Dead Poets Society!
#10. Anthony Hopkins For "Silence of the Lambs"
Actors don't usually win for their subtle behavior, but this foot-thick slice of ham really stands out. While Hopkins' performance of Hannibal Lecter was outstanding, he only appeared in a few minutes of the film, so he actually should've won Best Supporting Actor instead of Lead Actor.
In my view, the Oscar could've gone to Robert De Niro for Cape Fear, Robin Williams for The Fisher King, or above all, to Denzel Washington for his lead role in the drama biopic Malcolm X.
#9. Best Original Song To Disney Films
Disney's stranglehold over the Best Song category resulted in wins for three unlistenably schmaltzy ballads in 1993, 1995 and 1996. Namely, we're talking about A Whole New World from Aladdin, Can You Feel The Love Tonight? from The Lion King, and Colors of the Wind from Pocahontas.
All three songs featured lovelorn lyrics, a catchy melody and slushy string-based instrumentation. The winner should have been anything by Randy Newman.
#8. Best Picture To "Forrest Gump"
This slick, saccharine, deeply reactionary nostalgia-fest film is proof that America loves to pat itself on the back. Tom Hanks winning an Academy Award for Best Actor was inexplicable, but this is not all.
On top of that, the movie won Best Picture! And 1994 happened to be a year of unmatched classics, such as Tarantino's Pulp Fiction and the thrilling prison escape film The Shawshank Redemption. Why, Academy, why?
#7. Best Picture To "A Beautiful Mind"
By the turn of the century, the Academy tried to avert any chance of controversy by doling out awards to the blandest, most inoffensive movies they could find. This is how movies like Shakespeare in Love, Titanic and Chicago got their Oscars in the late 90s.
A Beautiful Mind was the worst offender in the category of Best Picture. Especially if we take into the account that among the nominees we had The Fellowship of the Ring, Gosfrord Park, and Mulholland Dr. They really chose the worst out of all the 5 nominees.
#6. Renee Zellweger For "Cold Mountain"
Renee Zellweger's fish-faced, Forrest-Gump like performance is proof that it's possible for a single supporting performance to sink an entire film. Her acting ruined an otherwise decent landscape drama.
We don't know what the Academy saw in her to reward her, but the winner should've been Patricia Clarkson in Pieces of April, or Shohreh Agdashloo in House of Sand and Fog.
#5. Best Picture to "Crash"
Politics returned to Hollywood in 2005. Topics like gay rights and the Israeli-Palestinian conflict were in the agenda with movies like Brokeback Mountain and Munich, and America's troubled political history was addressed in *Good Night and Good Luck.
Crash, on the other hand, was more of a lily-livered and hand-wringing kind of political movie, and it somehow won Best Picture. Why would anyone ever choose Crash over Munich?
#4. Best Cinematography To "Avatar"
In 2010, a film created almost entirely within a computer was nominated and won Best Cinematography. The photographing of a film is tactile art, which means it demands in-depth knowledge of focal lengths, lenses and the way light moves.
The fact that this movie won implies that Pixar movies are also eligible for Best Cinematography. It's unbelievable that Michael Haneke's stunning The White Ribbon didn't win!
#3. Tom Hooper For "The King's Speech"
This film is a perfectly diverting slice of British cosiness. But the patriotic and positively pro-royal movie was hardly Best Picture material. Even worse, Tom Hooper took the Best Director prize. His unimpressive work is OK for TV, but not enough to be recognized by the Academy.
The Social Network by David Fincher was also nominated, so the fact that this movie won was bizarre. Darren Aronofsky should have won for Black Swan, or The Coen brothers for True Grit.
#2. Best Picture To "The Artist"
This moderately entertaining silent movie won Best Picture in 2012. Ever since then, it's been completely forgotten. The film's cutesy tone and drama-free setup makes it one of those movies that are impossible to rewatch.
It's incredible that "Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy" wasn't even nominated. The ward should have gone to "The Tree of Life," instead.
#1. Best Picture To "Birdman"
Birdman is a movie that divides critics. Some give it a five-star rate, while others find it a shallow, unfunny rant directed at the easiest of targets: actors and the media. On which side are you in?
The truth is that Birdman had the misfortune on being released the same year as a genuinely refreshing film, and that's Boyhood. Richard Linklater's film was a daring coming-of-age drama that stunned audiences around the world.