The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences doesn’t always get it right, and that goes for all of its categories. Including and especially Best Picture, which has led tomany a controversy over its winnersover the decades. Upsets happen, and a movie can go wrong for so many reasons. Maybe it’s offensive, historically inaccurate, made by The Weinstein Company (or someone else whose reputation makes viewers uncomfortable), or it’s just plain boring. It could be all four, and there are other issues a movie can have that ensure it doesn’t age as well as its accolades would have you think.
For the purposes of this list, however, let’s focus on boring. Many things can make a story seem dull: poor pacing, characters the audience feels no attachment to, a failure to suspend disbelief, etc. Somehow, a ceremony that is so integral to boosting people’s careers and plays such a big part of American culture (to the point where even winners’speeches can lead to controversy) has an inconsistent track record when awarding its top prize. Having said that, just because a movie seems too boring to win Best Picture (or any Oscar) doesn’t mean that it’s boring overall. It could even be a pretty good movie—just not something that we should collectively think of as thebestmovie of the year, a work that belongs in the same club asNo Country for Old MenandParasite. That would fit the description of several entries below. Without getting into the previous century, below arethe dullest Best Picture winners of the 21st century so far—from films that are merely good to those that are snooze-fests by even normal standards.
10’The King’s Speech' (2010)
Best Picture at the 83rd Academy Awards
Most of the time, a movie about royalty involves people vying for power, fighting wars, or some other story that is rather grand in its ambitions. NotThe King’s Speech; this one is about a future king practicing his public speaking skills. Maybe not the biggest stakes in the world. Now, admittedly, the speech he will have to give at the end winds up being Great Britain’s declaration of war against Germany in 1939—so that’s a pretty big one. Furthermore, it’s not often that we see films exploring the struggle of overcoming a stammer.
Colin Firthas the Duke of York (to be King George VI),Helena Bonham Carteras the Duchess of York (to be Queen Elizabeth), andGeoffrey Rushas the speech therapist are all very good. This historical drama is also very well crafted, so it’s not like it was nominated for 12 Oscars for no reason. It was also surprisingly successful at the box office. But still—have people re-watchedThe King’s Speechas many times as they’ve re-watched some of its fellow Best Picture nominees (Black Swan,The Fighter,The Social Network,Winter’s Bone,Toy Story 3)? Probably not.
The King’s Speech
The story of King George VI, his unexpected ascension to the throne of the British Empire in 1936, and the speech therapist who helped the unsure monarch overcome his stammer.
9’CODA' (2021)
Best Picture at the 94th Academy Awards
CODAisn’t a bad movie;it’s just really, really predictable. Played byEmilia Jones, Ruby is a high school senior who has to deal with insecurity, bullying at school, embarrassing parents, professional issues that conflict with her college aspirations, and boy trouble. We’ve seen this all before, albeit not in the context of a child of deaf adults (unless you’ve already seen the French-Belgian film it’s based on,La Famille Bélier).
The nuances of living in a deaf familycertainly bring much-needed freshness to all these coming-of-age narrative tropes, and the movie succeeds at being both funny and a little touching. It would have been better at both if some of these story beats didn’t resolve so easily or if certain scenes didn’t feel so manufactured by the script (Ruby’s family watching her audition from the balcony is a bit much, as warmhearted as it is). Again, this is an often funny and sincere depiction of people who are underrepresented in film. Justdon’t expect it to stray from its crowd-pleasing genre conventions.
8’The Hurt Locker' (2008)
Best Picture at the 82nd Academy Awards
WhileThe Hurt Lockermade Oscars history withKathryn Bigelowbecoming the first woman to win Best Director, the film has also gone down as one ofthe most controversial war movies ever madefor its depiction of an EOD (Explosive Ordnance Disposal) in the Iraq War.Jeremy Renner’s performance as Staff Sergeant William James is excellent, but this Best Picture winner has been criticized by veterans for many inaccuracies. That’s not to say that the movie is all wrong, nor that this is the only war movie to sacrifice details for dramatic effect (hardly). However, it makes it harder to take certain parts seriously.
It’s difficult to build that much suspense when the main character is trying to defuse a bomb that the audience knows won’t kill him (as the movie isn’t even close to over yet). With that in mind, the film works best as a study of addiction, specifically of a veteran who is unfulfilled by civilian life compared to the high stakes of his craft. Tie in the fact thatthis film drags a bitat around two hours and ten minutes, especially with an overdone ending, andit doesn’t feel like a war movie you need to see more than once.
The Hurt Locker
During the Iraq War, a Sergeant recently assigned to an army bomb squad is put at odds with his squad mates due to his maverick way of handling his work.
7’Nomadland' (2020)
Best Picture at the 93rd Academy Awards
InNomadland,Frances McDormandplays a woman who leaves Nevada due to economic hardship and drives around the country in a van. McDormand won Best Actress for this performance, andChloé Zhaomade history by being the second woman (and first woman of color) to win Best Director. Their praise is deserved, and the film certainly deserves all the credit in the world for its realism.
There just isn’t much in terms of story, and the movie, therefore,feels longer than it needs to be.Nomadlandoften seems like it’s trying as hard as possible to be a documentary about people living in their vehicles, which can be a plus and a minus sometimes. Watching our main character cook, eat, use the bathroom, and drive around doesn’t make forthe most eye-popping road movie. Without much of a character arc for the protagonist,Nomadlandhas somewhat unsurprisingly become one ofthose forgotten Best Picture winners.
6’A Beautiful Mind' (2001)
Best Picture at the 74th Academy Awards
A Beautiful Mindis arguably one ofthe most disturbing Best Picture winners, but that’s largely due to its premise. It’s about a brilliant mathematician and his struggle with paranoid schizophrenia, andRussell Crowegives a very convincing performance that helps us better understand someone whose life is affected so severely by this condition. However, it’s delivered inRon Howard’s ratherconventional, sentimental, and crowd-pleasing style, which the generic score emphasizes.
Despite its subject,A Beautiful Mindstill feels like a by-the-numbers biopic about a troubled and socially awkward genius who overcomes significant obstacles with the support of his wife (Jennifer Connelly). While it’s a competent movie overall, it won during a year that perhaps wasn’t the strongest in the Academy’s history.Robert Altman’sGosford ParkorThe Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ringmight have been more worthy of the title. Again, not a bad movie—just not that interesting or innovative for a Best Picture winner.
A Beautiful Mind
5’Green Book' (2018)
Best Picture at the 91st Academy Awards
Two years afterMoonlightwon the Academy Award for Best Picture,Green Booksomehow took home the same trophy. WhileMahershala AliandViggo Mortensendisappear into their characters, the story itself isrepetitive, very formulaic, and not at all subtleabout its themes. A racist Italian man who can barely write and a gay, rich, extremely cultured Black man drive through the deep South together—and they become friends. Not a lot of nuance here, and audiences have voiced their frustration at the movie’s white-savior trope.
This movie is just as much about class as it is about race, oversimplifying them both to the point where we know before they even start their road trip that every single obstacle that arises will be resolved in short order. A happy ending is guaranteed. Only eight movies got nominated for Best Picture that year for some reason (out of the permitted 10), and none of them were the intenseFirst Reformednor evenBarry Jenkins' powerful follow-up to his Best Picture winner:If Beale Street Could Talk. Strange choices this year, indeed.
Green Book
4’The Shape of Water' (2017)
Best Picture at the 90th Academy Awards
Guillermo del Toro’sThe Shape of Wateris bizarre in a more confusing than interesting way. Why does a movie that’s so fairy-tale-esque and nostalgic in tone also include gory images and masturbation scenes? It may be weird and feature good performances, but that doesn’t make it interesting. The main character is a mute woman (Sally Hawkins) who likes to tap-dance and watch old movies, two of many things that makeThe Shape of Watera very Oscar-bait-y love letter to cinema.
The editing feels rushed, and its characters are directed in an unrealistic emotional register, making it hard for this story to feel relatable or let things sink in. Guillermo del Toro has always made weird stuff, but this isn’t as charming as it wants to be—more likean experiment with more ideas and style than substance. It was nominated for 13 Oscars and won four, beating superior films likeCall Me By Your Name,Lady Bird,Phantom Thread,Get Out, and more for Best Picture. At this point, though, most people just know it as that movie where a woman falls in love with a fish.
The Shape of Water
3’Crash' (2004)
Best Picture at the 78th Academy Awards
Easily one ofthe worst Best Picture winners of all time,Crashpresents several stories about a variety of people living in Los Angeles. They all have prejudices that will be challenged as the movie goes on, and the characters' stories converge in ways both large and small. It’s a bold and intriguing structure, but writer-directorPaul Haggisdoesn’t know how to handle it. He may have used well-worn tropes to surprisingly moving effect in the previous year’s Best Picture winner,Million Dollar Baby, but not here.
Crashwas filmed on location and tries to present realistic depictions of various people across a diverse city, and yet this screenplay isso frustratingly contrived that the story and its message fail. Likewise, the viewer becomes less and less interested in this poor excuse for a plot and its message about the human condition. The schmaltz and clumsy (sometimes even offensive) character arcs make this whole movie a car crash that somehow won over the critics and the Academy. A product of the aughts, no doubt.
2’Chicago' (2002)
Best Picture at the 75th Academy Awards
The charm of a stage musical is very hard to capture on film. Of course,the best movie musicalsmake it look easy, and one would expect a Best Picture winner based on a famous play likeChicagoto be among them. Unfortunately,Chicagoalways feels like it’s merely something adapted from the stage.Renée Zellwegerplays Roxie Hart, who kills her lover after he spurns her. The way she tells the cops she would kill him again is funny, but the film feels too far removed from its action to let the musical’s humor even approach its potential.
The wayChicagointerweaves stage performances of its songs with the scenes in which they’re supposed to take place consistently removes any verisimilitude from the narrative. The audience hardly ever gets the chance to feel immersed in the story. Zellweger singing on a piano when her character’s not really there, for instance, just doesn’t work. Overall,the musical is miles more charming than its screen adaptation.
1’The Artist' (2011)
Best Picture at the 84th Academy Awards
The Artistis a movie that lots of critics and the Academy loved—because, of course, they did. Hollywood goes nuts over movies that pay homage to the movies, especially old ones. The silly and overused music, the dancing, the gags (like dancing behind a screen so that we can only see her feet), the black-and-white, the melodramatic story—it all screams Silent Era. Or gestures it, rather, and not in a way that shows thatThe Artisteven wants to set itself apart from all of those works.
There are a few exceptions: the nightmare of sound was admittedly very well done, for instance, adding something new and effective to the silent format. Perhaps it would have made the movie better had that scene not actually been a nightmare; completely changing the audible landscape might have been a compelling way to demonstrate society’s embrace of the talkies and the protagonist’s need to get used to that. Instead, thisperfect example of Oscar bait essentially checks off all the predictable genre conventionsand calls it a day. The film is hardly original, and it reminds at least this writer of why sound took over the medium so definitively.
