Five times the wrong movie won 'Best Picture' at the Oscars: critics

Jeremiah Rodriguez, CTVNews.ca Staff</span>
Published Saturday, February 9, 2019 7:00AM EST

Two film critics say past “Best Picture” Oscar winners like “Crash” and “American Beauty” might not have been the most deserving movies to win “Best Picture” at Hollywood’s most prestigious awards show.

Film critic Radheyan Simonpillai told CTV’s Your Morning that the wrong movie can end up winning the top prize for a number of reasons.

2006: 'Brokeback Mountain' should have beaten 'Crash'

In the case of Ang Lee’s “Brokeback Mountain,” he said it appears the Academy’s voting members weren’t yet comfortable with a gay love story.

In 2006, several movie critics at the time argued Lee’s groundbreaking film of a love story between two cowboys should have won “Best Picture” at the 78th Academy Awards.

Simonpillai says it is a seminal movie that he believes lost out due to a “homophobic response from the Academy.” Richard Crouse, CTV News film critic and host of Pop Life, agrees.

“It was a little edgier and was a subject that [the Academy] weren’t maybe completely comfortable with -- even though the subject is just love,” Crouse told CTVNews.ca, praising the “meaningful work” and performances of Heath Ledger and Jake Gyllenhaal.

The film lost to “Crash” -- directed by Paul Haggis -- which some critics at the time called out for its character’s simplistic views on race in Los Angeles, Simonpillai said. Even when it won, at least some people at the Oscars ceremony were visibly caught off guard.

“The backlash to ‘Crash’ was immediate,” Simonpillai said, referring to presenter Jack Nicholson’s reaction. “Once [he] opened that envelope and said ‘Crash,’ you saw his face and he turned around and was like ‘Whoa.’”

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1991: 'Goodfellas' should have beat 'Dances with Wolves'

The basic themes of some “Best Picture” films don’t always hold up over time -- including Oscar winner “Dances with Wolves,” which Simonpillai describes as having a “white saviour” storyline.

The film follows Kevin Costner’s character as he interacts with the Lakota Indigenous people during the American Civil War. But Simonpillai argued the story pales in comparison to Martin Scorsese’s “Goodfellas.”

He said the crime drama is “one of the greatest gangster movies of all time” and deserved to have won.

Looking back, Crouse said the Academy’s choice showed the voting members “don’t have crystal balls. They look at what’s in front of them. Often, you like something in the moment.”

2000: 'American Beauty' should have lost to 'The Insider'

In “American Beauty,” Kevin Spacey’s character was suffering from a mid-life crisis and became infatuated with his daughter’s teenage friend. While audiences may have been OK with the film’s premise at the time, Simonpillai called the movie “garbage” because of its story line.

The film ended up winning the Oscar for “Best Picture,” but Simonpillai says other films were more deserving, particularly “Best Picture” nominee “The Insider,” starring Al Pacino and Russell Crowe.

Simonpillai also pointed out that this was the same awards year when movie-goers were treated to “Eyes Wide Shut,” “The Matrix,” “Magnolia” and “Fight Club” – all iconic movies which weren’t nominated for “Best Picture.” The calibre of films was so good the Toronto International Film Festival is currently holding a retrospective of all the groundbreaking films of that year.

In this Jan. 17, 2010 file photo, Robert De Niro, left, and Martin Scorsese, winner of the Cecil B. Demille Lifetime Achievement award backstage at the 67th Annual Golden Globe Awards in Beverly Hills, Calif.

1980: 'Raging Bull' should’ve beat 'Ordinary People'

Crouse argued that “Raging Bull” was “one of those films that Martin Scorsese probably should have won an Academy Award for, but didn’t.”

Throughout his career, the director has been nominated for 12 Academy Awards but has only won “Best Director” once, for The Departed in 2006.

Crouse said “Raging Bull” was overshadowed by “Ordinary People” starring Kevin Costner, which Crouse called “timely at the time but it’s not part of the conversation in the same way ‘Raging Bull’ is [today].”

1990: 'Do the Right Thing' deserved to win over 'Driving Miss Daisy'

“Driving Miss Daisy” starred Morgan Freeman as a driver for a white wealthy woman. Simonpillai described it a “comfort film about racism.”

He argued Spike Lee’s iconic racial drama “Do the Right Thing” deserved the “Best Picture” win instead. Actress Kim Basinger said as much when she called out the Academy -- on the Oscar stage as a presenter.

“There is one film missing from this list that deserves to be on it because, ironically, it might tell the biggest truth of all. And that’s ‘Do The Right Thing,’” Basinger said at the time.

This year, Crouse said there’s a similar competition between Spike Lee’s provocative “BlacKkKlansman and the arguably more palatable movie examining race, “Green Book.”

“In the last number of years, we’ve seen the Academy change a great deal – with a thousand new members ... who are more diverse and arguably more interesting,” he said, adding they’re nominating different types of film. ”That’s why BlacKkKlansman” is there.”

As Spike Lee celebrates his first Oscar nominations for Best Director and Best Picture, I'm reminded of the 1989 Oscars, when presenter Kim Basinger went off-book to blast the Academy for snubbing Spike's DO THE RIGHT THING pic.twitter.com/JXEMwhaBdd
— Kyle Buchanan (@kylebuchanan) January 22, 2019