Bad Oscar Winning Performances

Purely subjective of course...now I'm not talking about performances that won over superior performances. I'm talking about performances that, in your opinion, didn't even deserve a nomination, let alone a win. I'm talking about performances that when compiling your five nominees for that particular category, this performance didn't even approach your radar. Off the top of my head, my worst performances that actually won Oscars:


Elizabeth Taylor, Butterfield 8

Penelope Cruz, Vicky Cristina Barcelona

Helen Hayes, Airport

Ingrid Bergman, Murder on the Orient Express

Al Pacino, Scent of a Woman

Kim Basinger, LA Confidential

Roberto Begnini, Life is Beautiful

Grace Kelly, The Country Girl

Very good topic, Gideon!

Katharine Hepburn Guess Who's Coming to Dinner

Gwyneth Paltrow Shakespeare in Love

Judi Dench Shakespeare in Love

Roberto Begnini Life is Beautiful

Jack Lemmon Save the Tiger

Frank Sinatra From Here to Eternity

John Houseman The Paper Chase

Beatrice Straight Network

Jessica Lange Tootsie

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I mainly agree with your list, Dadglumbah, but I really liked Sinatra.

Juliette Binoche wasn't bad in The English Patient, but it must've been a slow year if the Academy awards a performance that bland.

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Russell Crowe for Gladiator.

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I disagree with Pacino.

Scent of a Woman was a great movie and Al was absolutely terrific in it. Definitely deserved the Oscar for that one.

I'd add:

Jamie Foxx - Ray
Adrien Brody - The Pianist

Let's face it, Jamie Foxx is wildly overrated and just not a good actor -okay, maybe with the exception of Django Unchained in which his performance was good thanks to a strong supporting cast and the direction of a genius named Quentin Tarantino. While Brody is an awful actor altogether.

Other names I would add are:

Geoffrey Rush - Shine (Boring and forgettable)
William Hurt - Kiss of the Spider Woman (More boring and forgettable)
Peter Finch - Network (Courtesy win due to his death, robbing Stallone for Rocky and Deniro for Taxi Driver)

Sylvester Stallone in Rocky
Tom Hanks in Forrest Gump

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Yeah, I know that Gideon set this thread up for worst performances that we think didn't deserve Oscars, and for the most part everybody's posted some really good...er, that is, bad performances. I know it's all subjective, but it's hard to be subjective sometimes when you're watching the Oscar nomination announcements and they call out the nominees and you go, "Huh? Really?"

But...invariably we disagree with our fellow MoFo'ers and defend a peformance here and there. Thanks, Rauldc, for your props. I hear you about Sinatra, but I've watched From Here to Eternity many times, and although I like Sinatra outside of this movie, I don't think it's his best performance. In fact, I thought everyone else in the movie outshone him, like Burt Lancaster, Montgomery Clift, and Ernest Borgnine. But I respect your opinion on this. A lot of people liked his role here. It doesn't hurt the movie at all, but I just kind of gloss over him and concentrate on the others.

TylerDurden, I completely agree with Juliette Binoche winning the Oscar. I really love Binoche but I couldn't get into any performance in this movie. I was hoping that Lauren Bacall would win that year for The Mirror Has Two Faces. I saw that one at the cinema (at the behest of the wife---I'm not a big Streisand-as-actress fan), and I thought she really deserved it. She was the funniest thing in the movie. No "winning for her body of work" thing here at all, just damn fine acting.

Gideon started this thread off with some spot-on picks, except, like mojofilter, I loved Pacino in Scent of a Woman, but I will add that he should have gotten the Oscar years before for Serpico or Dog Day Afternoon, which are my two favorite Pacino starring performances.

And I'll disagree with you, mojofilter about Jamie Foxx in Ray. I thought he totally embodied the role without sinking into just impersonation. That said, I totally agree that he's overrated. I can't help but see his ugly woman he played on In Living Color...was she called Wanda? LaWanda? Don't remember. Oh, well.

And mojofilter, I'd forgotten Peter Finch beat De Niro for Taxi Driver. What a crime!

Tom Hanks, Forrest Gump
Sean Penn, Mystic River
Philip Seymour Hoffman, Capote
Daniel Day-Lewis, Lincoln
John Wayne, True Grit
Rod Steiger, In The Heat Of Night

I can't believe I forgot about Gwyneth Paltrow...totally agree with that one. I liked Judi Dench in Shakespeare in Love and though the win surprised me, I wouldn't call it a bad performance. Though Jack Lemmon's work in Save the Tiger was not his strongest work, I wouldn't call it a bad performance, and I think Lange's Oscar for Tootsie was a consolation prize for the Oscar she should have won for Frances, but again, I wouldn't call it a bad performance, but not Oscar worthy either.

Crowe was good in Gladiator but I would have given him an Oscar for LA Confidential or The Insider first.

Totally agree with you regarding Juliette Binoche...that was Lauren Bacall's Oscar. Thanks for mentioning that her Oscar wouldn't have been a "Body of Work" Oscar...it was a great performance and the best thing about the movie.

such a shame that Ed Norton loose to that...

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Marisa Tomei - My Cousin Vinny

Again, Tomei was another win that surprised me, but I wouldn't call it a bad performance.

Christoph Waltz for Django Unchained. Not that his performance was bad at all and he most certainly deserved his first Oscar, but I don't get why he won much less why he was nominated. He was overshadowed as a supporting actor in his own movie by two other actors. Samuel L Jackson and Leonardo DiCaprio's performances were far more memorable then Waltz. They deserved to be nominated before Waltz and I think DiCaprio should have won it. We are going be talking about their performances longer then Waltz's.

I'll never get that. Maybe DiCaprio is jinxed.

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Sylvester Stallone did not win Best Actor for Rocky...the subject of the thread is performances that actually WON Oscars.

I have no problem with Foxx's win for Ray...it's a solid performance, though he wasn't my Best Actor that year. I totally disagree though regarding Adrien Brody...I thought that was a great performance. I have to admit to never having seen Shine and I do think William Hurt has given better performances than Kiss of the Spider Woman.

As much as I liked Waltz in Django Unchained, if I were to give a supporting Oscar for that film, it would have been to Leonardo DiCaprio...he was just spectacular in that movie.

There actually aren't too many Oscar-winning performances that I truly dislike. Most of them are for more recent films.

Tom Hanks, Forrest Gump
Hilary Swank, Million Dollar Baby
Sandra Bullock, The Blind Side
Octavia Spencer, The Help
Anne Hathaway, Les Misérables