25 Astonishingly Dumb 21st Century Film Oscar Wins

Beat: Darren Aronofsky (Black Swan), David O. Russell (The Fighter), David Fincher (The Social Network) and the Coens (True Grit).

Should've Won: David Fincher.

This one is about as strange as Oscar wins get.

There was really nothing about Tom Hooper's direction of The King's Speech that was even worthy of a nomination, let alone the win. Although The King's Speech is a very good film it's not memorable in the slightest on a directing level and the film succeeded in spite of, not because of Hooper's work.

And frankly, given how visually flat all of Hooper's subsequent work has been and considering that he made (*shudder*) Cats less than a decade later, it's safe to say Hooper is among the weakest directors ever to win an Oscar.

The King's Speech also won Best Picture, Best Original Screenplay and Best Actor - and that was fine. The script was terrific, Colin Firth was tremendous and although the film didn't quite deserve to win Best Picture (several of the other films were better and this was a bit of a safe choice), it is still a wonderful film and people need to stop ripping on this as one of the worst Best Picture winners. That simply isn't true.

But the win for Best Director? What the hell was that about?