Is “Crash” the worst movie ever to win the Oscar for best picture? Probably not, though it definitely reeks. Academy members had a chance to make history by honoring “Brokeback Mountain,” a trailblazing gay love story that also happened to be the best movie of 2005. Instead, they voted for arguably the worst of the five films nominated—a ham-fisted expose of racial tensions in Los Angeles that pulled its punches by ending on an incongruous note of communion and redemption.
Disappointing as this decision was, however, it wasn’t the first time the Academy got it all wrong. Indeed, in the 78 years that Oscars have been awarded, fewer than a dozen times did the statuette go to a film that could be called an undisputed classic. “It Happened One Night,” “Gone With the Wind,” “Casablanca,” “All About Eve,” “On the Waterfront,” “The Bridge on the River Kwai,” “Lawrence of Arabia,” “The Godfather,” and “The Godfather Part II” definitely deserved their accolades.
In other cases, the Academy honored a good movie that wasn’t quite the best of the year. In 1941 the Oscar did not go to “Citizen Kane,” frequently cited as the greatest movie in history, but the picture that won, “How Green Was My Valley,” was a respectable choice, affecting and beautifully crafted.
And I wouldn’t quarrel with the Oscars that went to hugely popular films that may have been kitschy but were still enormously entertaining, such as “The Sound of Music,” “Titanic,” or “Gladiator.”
But more often, the Oscar has gone to films that were mediocre or just plain bad. To provide a little context for readers who are still perplexed or angry over this year’s upset, I’ve come up with an admittedly subjective list of the 10 worst movies to be voted best picture. It wasn’t an easy list to compile, not because there were so few possibilities, but because there were so many. In distinguishing the top turkeys from the also-rans, you have to weigh the competition. I decided it wasn’t quite fair to pick on movies from the earliest years (such as “The Broadway Melody” from 1928-29 or “Cimarron” from 1930-31), because filmmakers were still struggling to master the new medium of sound, and there weren’t a lot of outstanding choices.
Similarly, 1955 was a weak year, and it’s hard to criticize the Academy for selecting “Marty,” a slight but touching drama, over the other four lackluster nominees: “Love Is a Many Splendored Thing,” “Mister Roberts,” “Picnic,” and “The Rose Tattoo.”
I’ll start with undoubtedly the two worst movies ever to win:
“The Greatest Show on Earth” (1952) was criticized even at the time for its cornucopia of clichés. Perhaps this circus-themed soap opera can be enjoyed as a guilty pleasure, full of unintended howlers, but is that what the Oscar was meant to signify? The Oscar that year might have gone to “High Noon,” “Moulin Rouge” (the good version, directed by John Huston), or to “Singin’ in the Rain,” which wasn’t even nominated but is now pretty universally regarded as the greatest musical ever made.
“Around the World in 80 Days” (1956) also sits at the bottom of the barrel. Producer Mike Todd was the Harvey Weinstein of his day, a cunning showman who knew how to court Oscar voters. He also managed to attract a legion of stars to do cameo roles, which was a novelty at the time, but the movie is nothing more than a 167-minute travelogue, with inane and insulting comic relief provided by Mexican actor Cantinflas.
Grandiosity is a hallmark of several of the worst movies to be named best picture. This trend was first evident in the winner from 1936, “The Great Ziegfeld,” a three-hour biopic with a few eye-popping production numbers and a couple of hours of padding.
“Ben-Hur” (1959) won a mind-boggling 11 Oscars. The chariot race is worth the price of admission, but the rest of this 212- minute epic is drenched in syrupy religiosity reminiscent of a Hallmark Christmas card. The movie was the weakest of the five nominees that year; “Anatomy of a Murder,” “The Diary of Anne Frank,” “The Nun’s Story” and “Room at the Top” are all more watchable today. And two movies that are more enduring than any of them—“Some Like It Hot” and “North by Northwest”—weren’t even nominated.
Okay, this one is going to be controversial—though not to “Seinfeld” fans—but another Oscar winner that falls victim to ponderousness is “The English Patient” (1996). It’s well photographed and well edited but emotionally desiccated. Director Anthony Minghella crafted a far more involving movie three years later when he made “The Talented Mr. Ripley,” which won exactly zero Oscars.
Similarly, Robert Zemeckis made a terrific piece of entertainment in “Back to the Future,” but he won his Oscar for the bloated “Forrest Gump” (1994), a soft-headed trip though a few decades of American history. That year, the Academy might have honored the electrifying “Pulp Fiction,” but chose to play it safe. Quentin Tarantino and co-writer Roger Avary did win for best screenplay, but that was merely a consolation prize, like the directing and screenplay Oscars that went to “Brokeback Mountain” this year.
Not all of the Academy’s dubious achievement awards went to swollen, overlong epics. Sometimes the Oscar went to small, quirky movies that were just as stupefying. Case in point: “You Can’t Take It With You” (1938). Seen today, the antics of the world’s wackiest family seem about as engaging as the sound of fingernails raking a blackboard. Consider all the classic comedies of the 30s and early 40s that didn’t win Oscars—such as “My Man Godfrey,” “Ninotchka,” and “His Girl Friday”—and then try to justify this one’s victory.
The whimsy is ladled on just as heavily in “Rocky” (1976). This is one of the most ridiculous of all Oscar choices, first of all because of the movies it beat, “Taxi Driver” and “Network.” It’s also hard to forgive the picture for spawning all those dreadful sequels, with another installment scheduled for later this year.
Here comes another controversial addition to the list: “American Beauty” (1999), a precious satire of suburbia (now there’s a fresh topic). “The Insider” was the best film that year, and “The Cider House Roles” took on a genuinely controversial subject—abortion—while “American Beauty” mustered the courage to criticize real estate agents and gun nuts. On the plus side, the Oscar victory gave writer Alan Ball the clout to create “Six Feet Under,” a far more incisive look at American mores.
Finally, there is space for one more movie on the list, and that belongs to “Crash,” which somehow combines grandiosity and whimsical eccentricity. This jeremiad bemoaning our society’s intolerance is filtered through a fanciful plot built on a heap of outlandish coincidences. Can you really imagine audiences in another decade or two giving this movie any more respect than they give “Rocky” or “The Greatest Show on Earth” today? Like all of these prize-winning embarrassments, “Crash” is destined to be remembered as just one more footnote in the annals of Oscar blunders.