10 Actors Who Won Oscars For The Wrong Movie

It's fair to say that Morgan Freeman was well deserving of his Best Supporting Actor gong for Clint Eastwood's boxing drama, as he did give a solid and affecting performance throughout.

Starring as Clint Eastwood's closest friend and former boxer Eddie Dupris, Freeman was required to be tragic and moral, and (of course) to narrate the movie through its ups and downs.

But this was Freeman's first (and only) Oscar win. Taking the award home in 2004, it had been nearly twenty years since his first nomination for the film Street Smart, and exactly ten years since his controversial loss for The Shawshank Redemption.

Playing Ellis "Red" Redding in the latter film, Freeman gave his most poignant, iconic and complex performance, portraying a murderer who is at once thoroughly likeable, morally questionable, brutally honest, and tragically written. He lost the award to Tom Hanks for Forrest Gump, and this snub is still seen as a sore spot for fans.

Freeman needed to win an Oscar during his career, that much is for certain, and although his win for Million Dollar Baby was warranted, it should definitely not have been his first win.