25 Astonishingly Dumb 21st Century Film Oscar Wins

Beat (Best Director): Woody Allen (Midnight in Paris), Terrence Malick (The Tree of Life), Alexander Payne (The Descendants) and Martin Scorsese (Hugo).

Beat (Best Actor): Demian Bichir (A Better Life), George Clooney (The Descendants), Gary Oldman (Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy) and Brad Pitt (Moneyball).

The good but not outstanding The Artist won five Oscars in 2012: Best Picture, Best Director, Best Actor, Best Original Score and Best Costume Design. The two technical awards were fair enough and so was Best Picture - yes, it's not a great film but in such a terrible line-up, what the hell was meant to win?

On the other hand, this movie winning Best Director and Best Actor was completely and utterly ridiculous. Michel Hazanavicius did a very good job on the film but most of the other nominees did better work than him, while it's hard to see why the Academy voters felt Jean Dujardin was even worth the nomination, let alone the win.

He gave a good performance but there wasn't a lot of depth to it and he didn't deserve the Oscar in the slightest. Hell, go and watch some actual 1920s silent films and you'll find many far better and more nuanced performances than Dujardin's.

Considering that neither of these two have done anything of much note before or since The Artist, their wins feel even stranger. Retrospectively, Scorsese was the only nominated director who deserved the Oscar and George Clooney should've won for The Descendants.