10 Most Outrageous Oscar Snubs
1. Crash (Best Picture)
Some entries on this list are sure to be contentious. Forrest Gump, Life Is Beautiful and the like have their doubters, but devoted fans, too. And that's fair enough – art is subjective; so too, therefore, are artistic awards. Except when it comes to 2006 winner Crash, that is. We can all agree that Crash is terrible.
A two hour reminder that racism is bad directed by enemy of subtlety Paul Haggis, Crash is a didactic mess, a lumbering ensemble piece full of Hollywood B listers doing their very best serious faces. From massive racist Matt Dillon to kind of racist Michael Pena to probably a bit racist Sandra Bullock, everyone gets their chance to add to the overall ennui surrounding a dreary day in LA.
Haggis, who also wrote several better films and directed numerous films you don't care about, missed out on the Best Director going, which went to Ang Lee for the far superior Brokeback Mountain. Indeed, the director later admitted that his film did not deserve its Best Picture award (we can safely assume he handed it over). Why Crash won at the time is a mystery, but it has become a byword for Oscar blunders, and rightly so. It is shallow, silly, and worst of all deeply boring. It is perhaps the greatest cinematic mystery of the modern age.