Oscars: 6 Movies That Were Harmed By Winning Best Picture

6. Crash (2005)

Crash, for all intents and purposes, is a good movie - maybe even a great one. Directed by Paul Haggis, it is a character piece about racial and social tensions in Los Angeles, California, told through interweaving stories detailing a myriad of diverse characters who are thrown together by circumstance. It won three Academy Awards: Best Picture, Best Original Screenplay, and Best Film Editing, which is particularly impressive because of the strength of the contenders that year. As I said, Crash is a good movie, but is it really better than, say, Munich, Capote or Brokeback Mountain? Apparently it is, because those films, along with George Clooney's Good Night And Good Luck, missed out on getting the top prize in favour of Haggis' film. A surprising amount of backlash followed Crash's win, as many claimed that it was the "safer", more "liberal" one that made voters feel like they were making a progressive move and a statement against racism. Brokeback Mountain has gotten a bit of a bad rap over the years, as people simply remember it as "that movie about the gay cowboys," despite it being the frontrunner that year, and some have claimed that homophobia kept Brokeback from winning, but I guess we'll never know for sure. No matter what the motivations may have been, there's no denying that some remain bitter about Crash's success, and often look down on it for "stealing" the Oscar from more worthy films. On a side note, Ang Lee, who directed Brokeback Mountain, won Best Director, which of course would happen to him again in 2013, when he won for Life Of Pi but lost the top spot to Argo.