Top Ten WORST Best Actor Winners

Here's a quick breakdown of my top ten WORST performances to win the Best Actor Oscar. Lemme hear your opinion in the comments!

10. AL PACINO - SCENT OF A WOMAN (1992)

Number ten is always a tricky spot to fill, because there are so many

performances that could easily find a place on this list. Today, my opinion swayed towards Al Pacino's hammy, loud, over-the-top and garish work in Scent of a Woman. Al Pacino is a tremendous actor - his performance in Dog Day Afternoon easily ranks as one of my favourite performances ever, and he was all sorts of cold and calculating in The Godfather Part II. He mostly won for (and when I say "mostly" won, I mean, it was the entire reason he won) this "performance" because of his previous losses in this category. This is a consolation Oscar at its worst and most embarrassing. Pacino barely scratches the surface of his genius, leaving us with a soulless caricature of a performance that we'd all be best to forget.

WORST MOMENT: Everytime Pacino grunts "Who-ha"... or however that horrible excuse for a catchphrase goes.

9. JOHN WAYNE - TRUE GRIT (1969)

Another consolation Oscar. This one is particularly embarrassing though in that Wayne doesn't even try to play a character. He's simply playing John Wayne, which he doesn't even do convincingly either. It almost feels as if it's True Grit starring John Wayne as a caricature of John Wayne. There's no depth to Wayne's version of Rooster Cogburn - no method to his madness, no lovable nice guy underneath the drunk exterior (unlike Jeff Bridge's portrayal in the 2010 remake). It's a pity Wayne didn't earn an Oscar for his brilliant, subtle and complicated work in the Searchers. Instead, he won for the exact opposite here- a performance that is dumb, obvious and wholly simplistic.

WORST MOMENT: When Cogburn, charging to the final showdown, puts his horses reins in his teeth so he can double fist his pistols - it's a painful reminder of Wayne's finer performances in Stagecoach, The Searchers, etc.

8. DUSTIN HOFFMAN - RAIN MAN (1988)

This isn't necessarily a bad performance - admittedly, Hoffman plays the role well. My issue here is that he won for "Best Actor in a Leading Role" - a category whose greatest victors include Marlon Brando in On the Waterfront, Jack Nicholson in One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest, George C. Scott in Patton and Gregory Peck in To Kill a Mockingbird. And then in 1988, Dustin Hoffman took the top prize for his one note performance in Rain Man. It doesn't even begin to compare. Hoffman exploits his characters few quirks and hams them over and over and over throughout the entire film. There's no development for his character, nomoral - just a constant, obnoxious mugging for attention and sympathy, that is beneath Hoffman's capabilities. The character who does grow and makes a convincing 180 in the film? Tom Cruise's character. If anything, Dustin Hoffman is merely playing support to emphasize the journey of personal discovery Cruise's character goes through throughout the film.

WORST MOMENT: All the blank stares and one word sentences. It breaks your heart to see Lenny Bruce, Ratso and Benjamin Braddock reduced to simplistic character ticks.

7. TOM HANKS - FORREST GUMP (1994)

I will make no secret of my personal vendetta against and disdain for Forrest Gump - I HATE Forrest Gump. As a film, it's extremely over-rated, horribly (brutally, painfully) sentimental and just not near as smart or as clever as it likes to think it is - the film itself is probably more simplistic and clueless than the title character. But Hanks dumbed down version of a dumb Alabama boy falls victim to the same malady as the other performances on this list - after two minutes, we've seen all this performance has to offer. I think Hanks' performance - and Forrest Gump in general

- is "love it or hate it". You're either going to buy into the film's treacly sweet story and characters and be swept away by it all, or you're not and you're gonna be completely repulsed by it. The latter is me.

WORST MOMENT: Everytime Hanks speaks in that accent - particularly a catchphrase - that fake, grating accent.

6. HUMPHREY BOGART - THE AFRICAN QUEEN (1951)

Ugh. Great movie. But, ugh.

WORST MOMENT: Is there just one?

5. BING CROSBY - GOING MY WAY (1944)

I hate Going My Way. I hated Bing Crosby in Going My Way. It's such a falsely earnest and self-righteous performance. You can almost hear Crosby thinking "I'm better than you" as he sings and smiles and cheeses his way through the whole film. The heart and soul of the film is really Barry Fitzgerald, and its sad to see Fitzgerald ooze such charm and warmth so naturally and then to see Crosby using all the tricks in the "Obvious Acting Handbook" to achieve an eighth of it.

WORST MOMENT: The entire performance is the worst moment.

4. CHARLTON HESTON - BEN-HUR (1959)

Me Charlton Heston. I actor. I make film.

The above three sentences showed more creativity, personality and emotion than Heston did in three hours of Ben-Hur. A dull, lifeless and wooden performance, straight from beginning to end.

WORST MOMENT: How about we a do a "One Moment Where He Doesn't Ruin the Film"? When Ben-Hur is rowing the slave ship... he's hot and gross and looks uncomfortable - the most convincing scene Charlton Heston has in the whole film.

3. YUL BRYNNER - THE KING AND I (1956)

My strong dislike for old-timey musicals probably didn't help Yul Brynner's hammy, loud and cheap performance avoid this list, but alas. Brynner spends the entire film yelling in a hokey accent, and does little to make anybody, anywhere care about anything that he does. Another one note performance stretched out for two hours too long.

WORST MOMENT: Et cetera, et cetera, et cetera...

2. ROBERTO BENIGNI - LIFE IS

BEAUTIFUL (1998)

I didn't know the Acadmey gave out Oscars for acting like a lame, less thoughful, more irritating version of Charlie Chaplin? Congratulations Mr. Benigni, you showed us all wrong! You are a true trail blazer! The slapstick comedy in Life is Beautiful is borrowed from every other physical comedian who ever lived (Charlie Chaplin, Buster Keaton, to name two)

and the awkward shift to sentimentality and serious war film material is insulting and all subsequent emotions exploited from that scenario are completely unearned. Roberto Benigni spends the entire film - including the Holocaust scenes - looking like a baffoon, and acting like a clown that even the worst clown would find annoying. It's insulting to the potential of the material and insulting to audiences who don't find a grown man sticking his tongue out to be just the funniest thing ever.

WORST MOMENT: When he actually won the Oscar and... well, we all know how that story goes.

1. REX HARRISON - MY FAIR LADY (1964)

I have never - and I repeat, NEVER - loathed entirely an actor, character or performance as much as I despised Rex Harrison as Henry Higgins in My Fair Lady. Not once does he come across as charming - more like bigoted, cruel and selfish - nor does he show one iota of class or intelligence. Clearly Eliza has gone batshit insane by the end of the film when she decides to say with the entirely detestable Higgins - Harrison's performance gives no justification as to why Eliza would want to be with somebody who clearly hates woman, and is frankly a dick. Harrison shows no warmth, no charm, NOTHING in the two and a half something hour running time of the film, and add on top of that, he doesn't even sing (ITS A MUSICAL!) so much as talk with style. It is truly a heinous, ugly, loud, obnoxious and garish performance, I have no clue as to how Oscar voters were so charmed as to honor this performance over career best turns from Peter Sellers in Dr. Strangelove or Anthony Quinn in Zorba the Greek, or the stunning interplay between Peter O'Toole and Richard Burton in Becket. Why? WHY!?

WORST MOMENT: All of them. Every single one of them. Seriously, why!?

Top 10 WORST Best Picture Winners

Over 80 films have won the much coveted Best Picture prize at the Academy Awards Ceremony - only about 1/4 of them actually deserved it though. Here's my picks for the worst of the worst.

10. Gentleman’s Agreement (1947)

I considered a lot of movies for this tenth slot. I debated between the overly-sentimental and blatantly manipulative Forrest Gump, the bland Life of Emile Zola, the incoherent Cavalcade, the forcefully upbeat Going My Way, and basically every best Picture winner from the eighties (except Terms of Endearment, Amadeus, Platoon and the Last Emperor), but I ultimately decided upon Gentleman’s Agreement. It’s not as awful as some of the other films you will see on this list, and it’s probably better than some of the ones I chose to leave out, but I decided to include it because this is probably the only best picture winner that completely escaped my mind after I finished seeing it. You’d think a movie tackling Anti-Semitism would be more meaningful, especially considering it followed hard upon the heels of World War II, but the film is so harmless that it’s difficult to even care about the issue at hand, let alone all the side drama that’s going on between the characters. Given I adore Celeste Holm in anything, and she’s good in this, but the film is much too tepid, and much too preachy, to warrant much respect or enthusiasm today.

9. The Broadway Melody (1929)

Let me begin by saying, I did not hate The Broadway Melody. Now, I know what you’re thinking – and yes – there is something wrong with me. I’m the guy who saw Hairspray in theatres four times, and who secretly enjoyed Mamma Mia (Meryl Streep singing? Are you kidding me, who could resist that? I’m only human.) I’m also the guy who listened to nothing but the Chicago soundtrack for a year in sixth grade and re-watched Dreamgirls, at bare minimum, fifteen times (Jennifer Hudson tearfully belting out “And I Am Telling You”? Who could resist that! I’m only human…).What can I say? I’m a sucker for anything that features slightly interesting drama and a few catchy tunes. In my defence, though, I don’t go ape shit for every movie musical – I’d just as quick jump into bed with West Side Story as I would kick My Fair Lady in the pants. What I’m getting at is I did not find The Broadway Melody as painful an experience as other films on this list. The film DOES however lose major points for two types of horrendous over-acting, and overall wooden performances, musical numbers that are just unexciting and a pathetically simple plot that is so thin, I’m surprised no one caught it in the ladies washroom shoving a finger down its throat before the Oscar ceremony. I thought the films preposterousness worked in its favour though, helping it achieving a “so-bad-its-good” level of reasonable entertainment. Having said that, The Broadway Melody is really just another skid mark on the underpants of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences, and further testifies that Oscar would much rather celebrate mediocrity than actual good films.

8. Dances With Wolves (1990)

Kevin Costner plays an American civil war soldier who finds peace and belonging amongst a Native American tribe who nickname him Dances With Wolves. Oh, you didn’t think Dances with Wolves was a meaningful metaphor or anything did you? No, of course, not! He was actually dancing with wolves – this movie is much too unintelligent to go that deep. How demanding of you anyhow, to expect a shred of in intellect in a four hour long epic that depicts the disintegration of an entire people and their way of life! Fie upon you! Here’s a fun story! I accidentally watched the entire second half of this movie first, and it wasn’t until I went to watch the second disk (actually the first disk) when I realized what I had done. Now my question to you is – how good is a movie actually if you can watch the entire film in reverse and still it’s just as coherent and logical as if you watched it from start to finish? Now, what if that movie is a four hour long epic? How important were the first two hours if you could still understand the rest of the movie without seeing them anyways? Furthermore, how necessary were those two hours? The answer? Not very. In fact, none of this movie is very necessary. It’s just four hours of Kevin Costner jerking off to the camera. Now maybe I wouldn’t mind this vanity project if Kevin Costner was even mildly adequate at it, but he just sucks. His performance is an epic fail – not once did I believe he was suicidal at the beginning, or truly experiencing a connection with the native people and the land as the movie progressed. He’s even vain enough to shoot himself in a nude scene (your ass is not all that Kevin Costner!). And don’t even get me started on Mary McDonnell’s outlandish hair cut – she looks like David Bowie in Labyrinth after an Indian gangbang. Admittedly it’s not a horrible movie, but the whole thing is just a long tedious trudge to an ending that nobody really cares about anyways.

7. Gladiator (2000)

I had the unfortunate task of re-watching this film in my eleventh grade World History class a couple of years ago. And I can say, truly, honestly from the bottom of my hearts soul… that I hated it. I would’ve preferred listening to my monotone teacher lecture about a Roman bathhouse for an hour and a half then watch this… this… thing. It’s just a dumb, over-indulgent piece of trash. I would much rather re-watch the surveillance tape of Russell Crowe chucking a telephone at a well-meaning hotel employee for two and a half hours straight than endure this mess again

6. Crash (2005)

Me and my mother watched Crash right before we watched The Family Stone (we were doing a double feature-type thing). Now answer me this – what does Crash have that the Family Stone does not? The Family Stone has decent characters that you care for, right? It has Diane Keaton, being all warm and Diane Keaton-y, right? It has a semi-interesting story that is coherent, right? SO WHY DOESN’T THE FAMILY STONE HAVE AN OSCAR FOR FUCKSAKE! Not that I liked the Family Stone, because it sucked, but the point is, Crash had about eighty characters and I did not have an ounce of sympathy for one (except for maybe the Spanish chick who Sandra Bullock was a bitch too), it had more plotlines than a tranny-hooker has venereal diseases, not to mention the entire film was SO manipulative and over-bearing, yet in 2005 every single voter at the Academy was taking stupid pills or something and thought it would be a good idea, or maybe a really disgusting joke, if they chose Crash as the best film of the year. GOOD ONE OSCAR, JOKES ON ME! The movie absolutely destroys every single quality that makes a film good. Subtlety? Apparently Paul Haggis thinks that’s too much to ask. Why did Matt Dillon touch her like that? RACISM. Why does Sandra Bullock hate that guy? RACISM. Why is Don Cheadle banging that chick? RACISM. Why is Ryan Philippe driving that car? RACISM.Give me a break! If you want to see a more intelligent and accurate approach to racism listen to the song “Everyone’s A Little Bit Racist” from Avenue Q, and skip this over pretentious piece of white trash.

5. The Great Ziegfeld (1936)

I’ve already explained how much I enjoy a good musical, so you’d think I’d at least spare this turd from my ten worst list, right? How, very wrong you would be. This biopic of the legendary Flo Ziegfeld and his rise to incomparable fame and success moves slower than my invalid grandfather hobbling across the kitchen without his walker. And it’s much less exciting too. (There’s no thrill of “Will Grandpa make it? Won’t he?” offered in this over-indulgent piece of shit). Robert Leonard devotes waaay to much screen time to extravagant musical numbers which become mind-numbingly repetitive about a third way into the first song. There’s also a clear lack of narrative focus, not to mention a disturbing lack of attention placed on Ziegfeld himself – the subject of the whole goddamn film! Besides an extraordinary scene involving Luise Rainer and a telephone, there is nothing to gain from this three hour headache, and by the time the whole ugly thing was done I found myself thinking “God I’m thirsty”. The Academy ditched Modern Times and My Man Godfrey for this. Suck it Oscar! I could’ve read Ziegfeld’s Wikipedia page instead!

4. Cimarron (1931)

Oh, the joy’s of expansion in the old west! Nothing screams entertainment louder than Richard Dix overacting his way through native territory in this 1931 Best Picture Winner that just keeps going, and going, and going, and going, and going, and going, and going, and going, and going, and going, and going, and going, and going, and going, and going, and going, and going, and going, and going, and going, and going, and going, and going…

3. My Fair Lady (1964)

Oh dear me. Have words even been invented to describe this loud, obnoxious, annoying musical? Are there any words that illustrate just how vapid, unpleasant, excruciating and noisy this film is? I forget myself! Yes, yes there is, and they are *ahem* - Rex Harrison. I hated just about every moment in this film. From Audrey Hepburn’s screechy and unbearable Cockney voice, which made me want to pull a Van Gogh on my right ear, to Rex Harrison’s, brutal, nay – horrendous, performance as the extremely unlikable Professor Higgins, there is so much to not enjoy. Fuck the Bermuda Triangle, Stone Hedge, the dark side of the moon, and Jack the Ripper – there is no greater mystery on this earth than why in the hell Eliza goes back to the atrociously sexist Henry Higgins at the end of the film. Love-er-ly it ain’t.

2. Around the World in 80 Days (1956)

If you think David Niven, balloons and crazy exotic locations are the greatest thing ever, then you might just enjoy this flick. However, if you attest to owning a shred of intelligence, and like to watch movies where everyone involved still has their dignity at the end (including you!), then you should stay far, far, far, faaar away from this horrendous, over-long nightmare. Three hours of Hollywood entertainers jerking each other off does not dignify a movie.

1. The Greatest Show on Earth (1952)

By the time Betty Hutton started belting out some shitty circus propaganda number by the films end, I just about wished I had killed myself back in eighth grade when I thought being picked last for volleyball was the worst thing in the world. I assure you horny, angsty, depressed preteens, it is not. There are things much worse. One of them is called The Greatest Show On Earth. I was scared of circus people before I saw this movie, and I’m still scared of them now, probably even more so. Cecil B DeMille’s horrendous piece of trash is so garish, so over-indulgent, so pointless, so excruciating, that the fact that it was even nominated for an Oscar makes me wonder how the human race has continued to exist for thousands of years. You can only watch a flying trapeze act so many times until you find yourself impulsively screaming at the TV “Just FALL and DIE already so this movie can END and I can go back to living!”
And to add insult to injury, some sick sadist in the casting department thought it would be a brilliant idea to add James Stewart to this cast of sketchy carnies, which is made even more cruel by the fact that every time he pops up he reminds us that while we are watching The Greatest Show on Earth, it is not a wonderful life.

Dishonourable mentions: These movies could've easily made my list, but their exclusion does not mean they are any less weak.

-Cavalcade

-The Life of Emile Zola

-You Can't Take it With You

-How Green Was My Valley

-Mrs Miniver

-Going My Way

-An American in Paris

-Gigi

-Oliver!

-Ordinary People

-Chariots of Fire

-Out of Africa

-Rain Man

-Driving Miss Daisy

-Forrest Gump

-Braveheart

-A Beautiful Mind