Undeserved Best Picture Wins

I was just looking through the previous Best Picture winners and stumbled across Argo.

I forgot that won best picture. It's a pretty forgettable movie. It's not very accurate, and they don't spend much time with the people in actual danger. It's admittedly well made, and definitely above average, but BEST picture? It beat at least three movies significantly better than it: Django Unchained, Life of Pi, and Lincoln.

Are there any other Best Picture winners that make you wonder how they got there?

I agree about Argo being undeserving. I would add Shakespeare in Love, The Hurt Locker, Chicago, and Slumdog Millionaire as other undeserving winners.

All of them.

All of them...are forgettable if you've only seen them once years ago.

Saving Private Ryan should have won for sure.

The King and I

Agreed. Shakespeare in Love wasn't even one of the 10 best films of that year. Saving Private Ryan, The Thin Red Line, and Life is Beautiful were all better films.

Guys I was kidding, it's only 98% of them.

Crash and The King's Speech.

Annie Hall is a garbage movie. I guess it won because it's a slice of 1970s life? I thought it was just bad. Unfortunately I don't know what would have won instead. Yes I don't know if Star Wars is a "Best Picture" film. It's endlessly entertaining and one of my favorite films, and always has been. It just doesn't have that Academy Award feel. I suppose it winning would have been cool though.

Whatever won for 1985 isn't as good as Kurosawa's Ran. I don't care what it was; Ran was better and always deserves every positive accolade available.

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I destroyed the dastardly dairy dame! I made mad milk maid mulch!

I hate insomnia. Oh yeah. Last year I had four cases of it, and each time it lasted three months.

I love Chicago, but I must agree that it's one of the weaker winners. I agree Slumdog Millionaire and Shakespeare's in love didn't deserve it.


I thought the Hurt Locker was okay. It just seems like a bad choice when compared to its competitors: There Will Be Blood, No Country for Old Men, and Atonement.

Hurt Locker won for 2009. Those three are 2007. In fact, No Country for Old Men won for 2007. Hurt Locker beat Avatar, which made people mad (except not me).

Chicago was fine. It winning was kind of a blast from the past when the Academy loved musicals. For the record, I don't like The Pianist for various reasons, so Chicago beating it was okay with me, even if I didn't love Chicago either.

I also hate Return of the King, although I can kind of see why it won, I guess.

I don't typically think, "Wow that Best Picture really was my favorite of the year." I also don't typically think, "How awful of them to disagree with me," because I don't think that way.

Annie Hall works, but the award should go to the editor, not Woody Allen. Coincidentally, the same can be said for Star Wars and George Lucas. Both were giant heaps of random film, in unwatchable states, that two master editors managed to carve into classic movies.


Unrelated: I agree that the King's Speech didn't deserve it. Meh.

EDIT: STILL getting mixed up. Nevermind. Hurt Loccker was the correct choice.

On that note, as much as I love No Country for Old Men, the Oscar should've gone to There Will Be Blood.

Return of the King was okay, but I agree its the weakest of the original trilogy, by far. It felt more like an award for the entire series.

Yeah I've heard that about Star Wars vis Lucas' wife saw the film stuff and realized she could piece it together coherently, and then graced us with the film 98% of movie-goers love.

I don't like Woody Allen's comedy style so that plays into why I didn't like Annie Hall. More people recognize Star Wars than Annie Hall, hence the propensity for many to wonder why Star Wars didn't win, although I do wonder if a film like Star Wars would ever come close to winning the award.

Re: King's Speech; it's not a bad film. It's just not spectacular either. I don't know what would have won instead though. Not Social Network; that movie sucked.

Black Swan. Inception would've also been a valid choice.

It kind of was. However I hate the whole trilogy. Yes I know I'm a vast minority in that regard, and I am complacent with that.

Anyway, with 2007, I don't think There Will Be Blood would have been a bad choice, although I do prefer No Country for Old Men. Neither are typical Best Picture type of films, which I won't call a bad thing, although it is an interesting thing. One thing I don't like about There Will Be Blood is how hammy Daniel Day-Lewis is. He got a mite annoying in spots. I've never been his biggest fan, honestly.

Hurt Locker was fairly good although it is far from perfect. I never would have given it to Avatar though, so I'm good there. Hurt Locker though isn't really that great though. It has too many idiosyncrasies.

One thing I've noticed is sometimes a year just doesn't have good options, so it's hard to say Film A should have lost to Film B because neither one is that good anyway.

Moonlight was trash too. It felt like a pity win after the stupid "Oscars So White" thing. I thought that complaint was stupid, and then the pity nominations, as I called them, were just to be politically correct. Honestly I may hate Moonlight out of principle as well as because it just isn't a good film.

I've noticed we're only discussing modern winners. May I voice my opinion on some older ones? Like Cimarron, Greatest Show on Earth, and Midnight Cowboy? I strongly dislike all three. They were all really bland and just a chore to watch to the end.

Yeah Black Swan is great. I don't like Inception at all though. It's too Nolan-Expose for me. He can't write worth crap so I've grown a strong distaste towards his films.

The King and I didn’t win Best Picture it lost to Around the World in Eighty Days