20 Devastating Oscars Moments Hidden In Plain Sight

The Academy Awards is the Super Bowl of Hollywood - the night where the supposedly best films of the year duke it out for the biggest honours the film industry has to offer.

It can be a hugely exciting, even life-changing night for those who win awards, but the intense, high-pressure nature of the live ceremony broadcast can also be anything but joyous.

And while there have been many public-facing disasters at the Oscars, what about those more subtly devastating moments that are instead hidden in plain sight?

That's absolutely the case with these 20 Oscar heartbreaks, which weren't immediately apparent to everyone watching and perhaps only received their full context days, weeks, months, even years after the fact.

No matter what these Oscar moments might seem like at face value, there was plenty more going on that only the most eagle-eyed of viewers picked up on - and even then, perhaps not.

And so, as the 2026 Oscar ceremony fast approaches, be mindful that the Oscars are as much an emotional minefield as they are a celebration of elite filmmaking...

One of the all-time most iconic Oscar moments is the Oscar Selfie, when at the 2014 ceremony Bradley Cooper took a selfie including host Ellen DeGeneres, Angelina Jolie, Jennifer Lawrence, Jared Leto, Lupita Nyong'o, Brad Pitt, Julia Roberts, Kevin Spacey, Meryl Streep, and Channing Tatum.

By the end of the Oscars broadcast, the selfie became the most retweeted tweet in history, even causing Twitter to crash due to the traffic load.

And though it remains a fondly remembered Oscar moment to this very day, the picture doesn't tell the full story, namely that one legendary actress was left cut out of the iconic photo.

A reverse angle posted online shows that the indelible Liza Minnelli was at the back of the group shot, but due to her short stature and the physical limitations of Bradley Cooper's reach, she sadly didn't make it into what instantly became one of the most famous photos ever taken. Boo.