25 Astonishingly Dumb 21st Century Film Oscar Wins

Beat: Gangs of New York, The Hours, The Two Towers and The Pianist.

Should've Won: The Two Towers.

Oh man... how the hell did this happen?

Actually, we all know how this happened. You can tell in the first 30 seconds of the film, when you see the Miramax logo. We can (probably) blame Harvey Weinstein's aggressive Oscar campaigning for this one.

Anyhow, Chicago is not just an undeserving winner, it's a bad movie all around.

The production values are sublime and the film features many great performances, but take away the lavish musical sequences and you're left with a nauseatingly shallow and thoroughly dull exercise in style over substance that's filled with unlikeable characters and weightless drama. The fact that director Rob Marshall never seems to know where to place the camera doesn't help either.

So, as it should go without saying, the implication that this was the best film of 2002 is laughable in every way.

As for the other awards it won, those were all fine (particularly the editing Oscar, as the film's strong editing managed to make the poorly-directed film coherent) but it remains one of the worst Best Picture winners of all time.

And when you consider that that this beat The Two Towers and The Pianist, two absolutely exceptional movies, while the year's arguable best film City of God wasn't even nominated, this win only becomes even more embarrassing.