6 Regrets Filmmakers Had Over Their Oscar Winning Movies

4. Paul Haggis Doesn't Think Crash Should've Won Best Picture Either

Crash Film
Lionsgate

Crash is widely considered to be just about the worst film to win Best Picture, releasing during the year that saw both Brokeback Mountain and Munich receive plaudits right across the board. Many at the time felt as though Ang Lee's neo-Western starring Jake Gyllenhaal and Heath Ledger deserved the lion's share of the evening's awards, but instead the evening's highest prize went to Crash - a film with all the subtlety of a steaming locomotive and none of the power to match.

Speaking to Uproxx nine years after the film's release, Haggis actually admitted that the film probably didn't deserve to win Best Picture, citing the aforementioned Brokeback Mountain and Munich as features superior to his own, along with the equally formidable Capote, which starred Phillip Seymour Hoffman in the title role.

"Was it the best film of the year? I don't think so. There were great films that year. “Good Night and Good Luck,” amazing film. “Capote,” terrific film. Ang Lee's “Brokeback Mountain,” great film. And Spielberg's “Munich.” I mean please, what a year."

Though Haggis maintains that the film's stereotypes were constructed as a means of addressing racial prejudice, many felt as though the film wasn't mature enough to juggle the themes it was trying to address.

In any case, in a year that saw Brokeback Mountain, Munich, Capote and even Walk the Line, Crash's Best Picture win stands out like a sore thumb.

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WhatCulture's very own resident movie guy, Ewan has been working in the content creation biz for over 10 years now, having started as a freelance contributor to WhatCulture Gaming all the way back in 2015. After graduating with a First-Class Honours in History from Northumbria University in 2017 (where he won a prize for a totally killer dissertation on the Watergate years), Ewan took on the role of Comics Editor at WhatCulture and quickly developed WhatCulture Comics into one of the biggest superhero-focused channels on YouTube. He followed this with a brief hiatus at Screen Rant in 2021, where he worked across the Gaming and Film sections as a writer and editor, before returning to WhatCulture as a Senior Content Producer / Presenter in 2023. He started his own podcast, We Love Dad Movies, in 2022, and has contributed several written pieces to the Eisner-nominated comics website Shelfdust as well. In his current role, Ewan incorporates his love of cinema, comic books, and history into written pieces and video essays for WhatCulture's Film & TV channel, as well as WhatCulture Gaming and WhatCulture Horror, with a particular focus on nineties-era Dad Movies, old school Westerns, and Golden Age Hollywood Noir. John Carpenter is his fave, and he thinks Batman Beyond should never have been cancelled. If that's your vibe, you'll probably like his stuff.