You know, if you follow the Oscar winners of the recent decade when talking about least deserving winners, you stumble upon three movies most often by far:

Shakespeare in Love (won against Saving Privaze Ryan)
A Beautiful Mind (won against FOTR and Moulin Rouge)
Crash (won against Brokeback Mountain)


None of the other recent Best Picture winners got as much backjlash as these three, often not because these movies were specifically hated, but much rather because of the movies that they won against.

Which of these do you think was the worse win or the least deserving one at least?

I'd personally go with Shakespeare in Love. Now I wouldn't have picked the other two for Best Picture either (I'd have gone with Munich and Moulin Rouge), but in none of the cases the winner was my least liked BP nominee of the five, a movie that in my eyes never even deserved a nomination, save for a win. That was the case with Shakespeare in Love. How it could win against Saving Private Ryan and Life is Beautiful and how Paltrow could win against Blanchett in that year...I can't fathom that. I feel Spielberg was robbed this year for Munich, but that SPR didn't win in its year for Best Picture is a real, real shame.

Shakesphere In Love is easily the worst movie in that group to win BP. That movie should not have been even nominated to begin with, let alone win BP.

A Beautiful mind is the secord worst of the group.

Crash uses too much stereotypical situations and characters in the movie to be considered a great movie IMHO. Maybe the subject matter elevated this movie in the eyes of the voters and the people who loved it.

"A beautiful mind"

Not only cause It was bad. It was offensive. And done with only one thing in mind: Oscars. Urgh.

I love Shakespeare in Love, one of the best films of the 90s. A Beautiful Mind was not great, it was alright but undone by a corny ending. Crash was pretty bad.

IMO,

Crash (won against Brokeback Mountain) > BBM would be undeserving also - as it was just a glossy movie that didn't really deal enough with it's subject matter.

Munich would have been the better answer > as I think Munich was the better movie and will stand the test of time better than BBM or Crash.

Where's the part about Euros and tens liking it because they have no idea?

A Beautiful Mind played like a Lifetime television movie. Only diff. is that it's about a crazy/genius dude, not a woman running from her abusive pimp.

Yes it did, but Crash played like an After School Special, so its hard to pick. They are both so bad, but in the end I hate Crash wheras A Beautiful Mind just bores me.

Chicago is missing from the list

and Million Dollar Baby is missing

I think most people know how I feel about Shakespeare in Love. I wouldn't even put it in this poll. Replace it with Chicago.

Crash gets my vote. The fact that this film was touted as being an incredibly important and groundbreaking film in terms of depicting racism makes me really sad. A Beautiful Mind, at least, was just an okay film that didn't deserve the Oscar. There wasn't really any false importance associated with it to the level of Crash.

Just my opinion of course, not trying to call anyone who loves the film an idiot.

PEACE, Mike.

That will be in the DVD version of my post.

I actually like Crash the best among the three, but none are deserving Oscar winners in their respective years. I can see myself support Crash if it had been released in a different year, but not the other two.

Apparently, America went into this film knowing that there were socio political attachments and connotations.

I did not.

It remains one of my favourite films of recent years, behind only Brokeback Mountain in 2005.

Shakespear and A Beautiful Mind were two of the most pallid, direly executed oscar winners I can think of.
Truly, it's almost insulting to put them in the same category as a carefully crafted, deeply resonating movie.

i liked beautiful mind : (

CHICAGO

Yes, Chicago should be there and take the cake. But out of those three, Crash. I actually liked the other two, although they should not have won. Ryan and In the Bedroom should have won instead.

I love A Beautiful Mind. So no on that one.

And although I wouldn't have given it the Oscar over Private Ryan, I still think Shakespeare in Love is a really good movie.

For the record, I think Crash is a well-made film. Some of the best acting from last year, great feel, a couple great scenes, but like most, its sense of importance has just come to bug me like nothing else.

I think Chicago is the worst win in recent memory. I don't think it's a bad film, it's pretty fun, I just didn't enjoy it enough, per se. But I wasn't really angered when it won, pretty much because we all knew it was imminent, not to mention there weren't false pretenses attached saying it was an honest, gritty, emotional portrayal of whimsical revenge and murder.

In conclusion...

I dunno.

I thought FOTR should have won, but I liked A Beautiful Mind more than the other three nominees (Moulin Rouge closely behind). I thought it delt with schizophrenia well. It's accessible and not exaggerated/overdone at all...

2001 kind of reminds me of this year. One great movie (Munich), three good-to-mediocre movies, and one horrible "film" (if you can even call Crash that).

I didn't include Chicago because it never seemed to have gotten that much of a backlash since it was mostly the sole frontrunner for the entire season anyway and is not really remembered as that terrible and undeserving due to rather weakish competition (not IMO, but apparently many think so).

CHICAGO.
Ah wait its not on the list......

Well then I pick .....CHICAGO.

I think SIL is the worst best picture winner since Annie Hall. It's a clear and transparent example of how money can buy oscrs. There is no way anyone believes the Weinsteins didn't buy a statuette for that disgusting putrid film.

Million Dollar Baby would get my vote by a mile, if it was a choice.

In second place is SiL

Third place, Crash

Fourth place, Beautiful Mind

I didn't dislike Crash or BM - just didn't love them either. Now that I think about it, I can't remember the last Oscar winner I really, really loved - did Cabin Boy win the Oscar? I liked Cabin Boy.

1. A Beautiful Mind - I actually was quite fond of this movie when it came out, save for the last 20 or so minutes. I'm now of the opinion that the last 20 minutes ruin what could have been a solid, but not excellent movie. The fact that this schmaltzy tripe won in a year that featured Fellowship of the Ring, Memento, The Royal Tenenbaums, Moulin Rouge!, Amelie, A.I., and Pearl Harbor (kidding on that last one), makes its win even more repulsive.

2. Crash - an enjoyable, and in many ways well-made movie, that just did not deserve the top prize. I would have given it to Brokeback over Crash, however I still need to see many of the other nominees and non-nominees from 2005.

3. Shakespeare in Love - don't really have that strong of an opinion on this one. I thought Saving Private Ryan was mildly overrated myself, but ShiL isn't necessarily amazing either.


Chicago's win doesn't upset me too much, mainly because 2002 was a pretty weak year for movies IMO. Although I would have readily given the top prize to Road to Perdition, Spirited Away, Adaptation, or even The Ring over Chicago.

In terms of the greatest dichotomy between what won and what should have won.... definitely Shakespeare in Love over Saving Private Ryan. A travesty, but I still liked SIL when I saw it in theatres way back when.

Million Dollar Baby is my least favourite oscar winner in a long time and Chicago would be right up there as well, yet I would still give both movies favourable reviews. I can't remember actually hating a best picture winner since I've been following the Oscars (90/91), though I haven't seen The English Patient .

Come to think of it, Gladiator (while very good) was pretty damn undeserving in its year, beating out the amazing Crouching Tiger and Traffic.