12 Actors Who Won Oscars For Completely The Wrong Role

12. Morgan Freeman

Won For... Million Dollar Baby

Should Have Won For... Seven

A lot of people will say that Morgan Freeman deserved an Oscar for his work in Shawshank Redemption, but his turn as Red isn't as good as his performance in Seven in the face of far less charitable material. Red deserves to be remembered fondly, undoubtedly, but its genius comes down to a final voice-over and his baffling parole scene and it isn't as well-rounded or as subtly brilliant as his work next to Brad Pitt.

Both of those roles are arguably more deserving than what he actually won for; the excellent, but not superior Million Dollar Baby, which saw him win a fairly poor Supporting Actor category. Thomas Haden-Church could have won, but Freeman seems to have because of a lack of real competition thanks to the Academy erroneously ignoring Gary Oldman in Harry Potter, Alfred Molina in Spider-Man 2 and Adrian Brody in The Village.

He's good in Million Dollar Baby, of course, but in Seven his performance runs deeper, with a complexity that balances Pitt's passion and Kevin Spacey's coldness, and he is the true anchor of the film.