4. Robert Benigni
Roberto Benigni became known to English-speaking audience for his performance as Guido Orefice in Life is Beautiful, playing an Italian Jew who ends up in a concentration camp during World War II. It's important to remember that he also wrote and directed the film, and was nominated for all three categories, making this a particularly controversial, even catastrophic awards gaffe. It has to be said that in his native language, Benigni is not a terrible actor; he delivers the broadly affecting beats of his most famous work exceedingly well, but neither preceded nor followed it with anything that would otherwise indicate he was a good actor. Of course, he's barely done anything - though most might have perked up by seeing him in Woody Allen's latest, To Rome with Love - but that which he has merely sees him coasting on his prior fame. Add to this the fact that his writer-director-actor follow-up, Pinocchio, was critically savaged, and there's plenty of proof that this was a lucky strike on Benigni's part.