10 Oscar Winning Films That Are Actually Bad
The fact that these films won anything is beyond comprehension!
Some people (mainly those who make up the Academy) think that the Oscars are the quintessential end-all be-all for what makes a film prestigious. If your movie wins an Oscar, it’s high-class film and if it wins Best Picture you might as well just give up now because you’ve achieved the apex of cinema.
Basically, the Academy Awards are the closest thing cinephiles have to a Super Bowl and to think that people will stop caring about them anytime soon is unrealistic, but film-lovers have begun to sour on the festivity.
Many times, the Academy nominates films they think should win, not films that deserve to. The Dark Knight, Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind, Ex Machina, Children of Men, Boogie Nights, Blade Runner, Rosemary’s Baby, and Almost Famous are just a small sample size of films that missed out on the main prize in order for films like you’re about to see to find a place.
No, these ten films are not the worst movies ever made, but it’d be impossible to argue any of them as good and many not even surpassing average. A few ground rules before we dive in: 1) the film must have won at least one Oscar 2) must have been nominated for no less than three.
Yes, Suicide Squad won an Oscar, but it was also only nominated for one, so it doesn’t constitute much as an awards movie; more like an abysmal film that unfortunately got lucky.
10. The Descendants
Director Alexander Payne is surely an Oscar darling having seen five of his seven feature films nominated and The Descendants nabbing five for itself. While his other Oscar nominated films (Election, About Schmidt, Sideways, and Nebraska) ranged from fine to pretty damn great, The Descendants is just not at that level.
Clooney earned a deserved Best Actor nomination, but the film’s Best Picture nom and Best Adapted Screenplay win are beyond baffling. The film’s plot is white men complaining about their guilt of owning Hawaiian land while Clooney brings himself and his two daughters to say goodbye to their soon to be deceased mother. Payne was going for dramatic comedy but just so happened to miss both.
Shailene Woodley co-stars in her first major film role, so we can thank the film for giving us a refreshing and appreciated actress to indie-cinema, but not even that can excuse just how utterly boring and inconsequential the film feels.