It's a favorite Oscar pastime: tearing out our hair over which movies, actors, actresses, directors or wardrobe mistresses (are they still called that?) were denied their due. Maybe that's why the delicious rumor persists that, in 1993, Marisa Tomei was mistakenly given the Oscar for her role in "My Cousin Vinny" because a stoned or drunk (the rumors are colorful) Jack Palance misread the teleprompter -- and this in a race that included Vanessa Redgrave, Miranda Richardson, Joan Plowright and Judy Davis! Outrageous! Too bad it wasn't true.
But what about the Best Picture nominees that were denied their place in history? It's difficult to appraise the Oscar winners from the award's earliest years, since (1) so many great pictures were made, and (2) the finalists numbered up to a dozen before 1944, when the academy began limiting nominees to five per category.
"Titanic" won Best Picture in 1998, but how could the competition (including "As Good As It Gets" and "Good Will Hunting") have been denied?
(Merie W. Wallace - Paramount Pictures/20th Century Fox)
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| _____The Worst Best Picture_____
Note: This is an unscientific survey of washingtonpost.com readers.
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Of course, everyone will have a candidates for "worst winner." (Should "A Place in the Sun" and "A Streetcar Named Desire," with 10 awards between them that year, have lost out to "An American in Paris" in 1952? Why did "Star Wars" lose to "Annie Hall" in 1978?) Here are my 10 most disappointing Best Picture winners, with mentions of the films' worthier competitor or competitors.
1965: "My Fair Lady" beats "Dr. Strangelove or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb."
1968: "In the Heat of the Night" beats "Bonnie and Clyde" and "The Graduate."
1969: "Oliver!" beats "The Lion in Winter," "Funny Girl," "Rachel, Rachel" and "Romeo and Juliet."
1982: "Chariots of Fire" beats "Raiders of the Lost Ark."
1983: "Gandhi" beats "E.T. The Extra Terrestrial," "Tootsie" and "The Verdict."
1990: "Driving Miss Daisy" beats "Field of Dreams," "My Left Foot" and "Dead Poets Society."
1991: "Dances With Wolves" beats "GoodFellas."
1995: "Forrest Gump" beats "Four Weddings and a Funeral," "Pulp Fiction," "Quiz Show" and "The Shawshank Redemption."
1997: "The English Patient" beats "Fargo."
1998: "Titanic" beats "L.A. Confidential," "As Good as It Gets," "Good Will Hunting" and "The Full Monty."
-- Desson Thomson
