the worst actor/actress oscar winners ever in the past 20 years
by smith-d-c | created - 02 Oct 2010 | updated - 02 Oct 2010 | PublicThese are good actors who are given awards for mediocre performances because they missed their chance earlier or the academy refused to wait for another year.
1. Al Pacino
Actor | Serpico
Alfredo James "Al" 'Pacino established himself as a film actor during one of cinema's most vibrant decades, the 1970s, and has become an enduring and iconic figure in the world of American movies.
He was born April 25, 1940 in Manhattan, New York City, to Italian-American parents, Rose (nee Gerardi)...
Scent of A Woman - Six time oscar loser for incredible performances from the Godfather, Dog Day Afternoon, Serpico, you name it. He won for playing blind shouting "Hoo-hah!"
2. Cuba Gooding Jr.
Actor | Jerry Maguire
Cuba Gooding Jr. was born on January 2, 1968, in The Bronx, New York. His mother, Shirley (Sullivan), was a backup singer for The Sweethearts. His father, Cuba Gooding, was the lead vocalist for the R&B group The Main Ingredient, which had a hit with the song "Everybody Plays The Fool". His ...
Jerry McGuire - He has completed wasted his career afterwards with continuous terrible performances in horrible movies. The academy should take back the award.
3. Holly Hunter
Actress | Broadcast News
Holly Hunter was born in Conyers, Georgia, to Opal Marguerite (Catledge), a homemaker, and Charles Edwin Hunter, a part-time sporting goods company representative and farmer with a 250 acre farm. She is the youngest of seven children. Her parents encouraged her talent at an early age, and her first...
The Piano - the one good thing about the Piano is that Holly Hunter didn't speak because if she could talk, she would say, "What the hell am I doing in the stupidest movie ever made about the most despicable woman on earth?"
4. Judi Dench
Actress | Skyfall
Dame Judi Dench was born Judith Olivia Dench in York, England, to Eleanora Olive (Jones), who was from Dublin, Ireland, and Reginald Arthur Dench, a doctor from Dorset, England. She attended Mount School in York, and studied at the Central School of Speech and Drama. She has performed with the ...
Shakespeare in Love - The academy failed to see Mrs. Brown and gave this old bat an oscar for less than 5 minutes of screentime, most of which was watching a play.
5. Halle Berry
Actress | Catwoman
Halle Maria Berry was born Maria Halle Berry on August 14, 1966 in Cleveland, Ohio and raised in Oakwood, Ohio to Judith Ann Berry (née Hawkins), a psychiatric nurse & Jerome Jesse Berry, a hospital attendant. Her father was African-American and her mother is of mostly English and German descent. ...
Monster's Ball - One good performance does not a good actress make. She wasn't bad but the academy in the year of Sidney Poitier getting lifetime achievement needed to give a black woman a best actress. Why didn't they give it to Angela Bassett for "What's Love Got to Do With It?" or Whoopi Goldberg for "The Color Purple" will remain a mystery? How were we rewarded? She became a bad Bond girl and we got Catwoman.
6. Jessica Lange
Actress | Tootsie
Jessica Lange was born in 1949, in Cloquet, Minnesota, USA, where her father worked as a traveling salesman. She obtained a scholarship to study art at the University of Minnesota, but instead went to Paris to study drama. She moved to New York, working as a model, until producer Dino De Laurentiis...
Blue Sky - In 1994 the best actress was given to a terrible movie that was made four years before and released only to get an award. This must have been the worst year for women in Hollywood.
7. Tom Hanks
Producer | Cast Away
Thomas Jeffrey Hanks was born in Concord, California, to Janet Marylyn (Frager), a hospital worker, and Amos Mefford Hanks, an itinerant cook. His mother's family, originally surnamed "Fraga", was entirely Portuguese, while his father was of mostly English ancestry. Tom grew up in what he has ...
Philadelphia - I love Tom Hanks but this was a manipulative bad movie overacted by everyone except Denzel Washington. He won because he could cry over an opera and die of AIDS. The academy should have waited until Forrest Gump or nominated him for Sleepless in Seattle that same year.
8. Sandra Bullock
Producer | The Proposal
Sandra Annette Bullock was born in Arlington, a Virginia suburb of Washington, D.C. Her mother, Helga Bullock (née Helga Mathilde Meyer), was a German opera singer. Her father, John W. Bullock, was an American voice teacher, who was born in Alabama, of German descent. Sandra grew up on the road ...
The Blind Side- Sandra, I love you but this was not a good movie. The academy should have waited because there would she definately would have won for a movie in the future.
9. Renée Zellweger
Actress | Chicago
Renée Kathleen Zellweger was born on April 25, 1969, in Katy, Texas, Her mother, Kjellfrid Irene (Andreassen), is a Norwegian-born former nurse and midwife, of Norwegian, Kven (Finnish), and Swedish descent. Her father, Emil Erich Zellweger, is a Swiss-born engineer. The two married in 1963. Renée ...
Cold Mountain. She whined about the rain and used a ridiculous drawl on every line. She should have won for either Jerry McGuire, Nurse Betty, or Chicago, the academy felt it was time.
10. Tommy Lee Jones
Actor | The Fugitive
Tommy Lee Jones was born in San Saba, Texas, the son of Lucille Marie (Scott), a police officer and beauty shop owner, and Clyde C. Jones, who worked on oil fields. Tommy himself worked in underwater construction and on an oil rig. He attended St. Mark's School of Texas, a prestigious prep school ...
The Fugitive - A good action movie with Tommy Lee Jones forever being typecast from here on in. The award should have gone to Ralph Fiennes.
11. Hilary Swank
Actress | Million Dollar Baby
Hilary was born in Lincoln, Nebraska, to Judith Kay (Clough), a secretary, and Stephen Michael Swank, who served in the National Guard and was also a traveling salesman. Her maternal grandmother, Frances Martha Dominguez, was of Mexican descent, and her other roots include German, English, and ...
Million Dollar Baby and Boys Don't Cry - A terrible career in so many movies, every now and then she gets a chance to get a good script. Play a girl playing a boy win an oscar, play a crippled boxer on life support get an oscar.
12. Gwyneth Paltrow
Actress | Shakespeare in Love
Gwyneth Kate Paltrow was born in Los Angeles, the daughter of noted producer and director Bruce Paltrow and Tony Award-winning actress Blythe Danner. Her father was from a Jewish family, while her mother is of mostly German descent. When Gwyneth was eleven, the family moved to Massachusetts, where ...
Shakespeare in Love was terrible overall and completely forgettable. Put on a British accent in a fake story about how Romeo and Juliet was written, the worst Shakespeare play ever written, win an oscar.
13. Nicole Kidman
Actress | Moulin Rouge!
Elegant Nicole Kidman, known as one of Hollywood's top Australian imports, was actually born in Honolulu, Hawaii, while her Australian parents were there on educational visas.
Kidman is the daughter of Janelle Ann (Glenny), a nursing instructor, and Antony David Kidman, a biochemist and clinical ...
The Hours - Put a funny nose on, win an oscar. She should have won for To Die For or Moulin Rouge.
14. Russell Crowe
Actor | Les Misérables
Russell Ira Crowe was born in Wellington, New Zealand, to Jocelyn Yvonne (Wemyss) and John Alexander Crowe, both of whom catered movie sets. His maternal grandfather, Stanley Wemyss, was a cinematographer. Crowe's recent ancestry includes Welsh (where his paternal grandfather was born, in Wrexham),...
Gladiator - I love Gladiator but Russell Crowe was giving so many great performances and still does. He should have won for The Insider, A Beautiful Mind, Cinderella Man, LA Confidential, Romper Stomper, and supporting in American Gangster.
15. Jennifer Hudson
Soundtrack | Dreamgirls
Jennifer Kate Hudson was born on September 12, 1981 in Chicago, Illinois to Darnell Donerson (née Hudson) & Samuel Simpson. She is an Academy Award-winning actress, Grammy Award-winning recording artist and best-selling author. This bright, beautiful and booming-voiced talent is a perfect example ...
Dreamgirls - She won for singing well and showing emotion in the songs. Cate Blanchett would have been my choice.
16. George Clooney
Actor | The Ides of March
George Timothy Clooney was born on May 6, 1961, in Lexington, Kentucky, to Nina Bruce (née Warren), a former beauty pageant queen, and Nick Clooney, a former anchorman and television host (who was also the brother of singer Rosemary Clooney). He has Irish, English, and German ancestry. Clooney ...
Syriana was a topical movie, but the academy should have waited for "Up In the Air"
17. Morgan Freeman
Actor | Driving Miss Daisy
With an authoritative voice and calm demeanor, this ever popular American actor has grown into one of the most respected figures in modern US cinema. Morgan was born on June 1, 1937 in Memphis, Tennessee, to Mayme Edna (Revere), a teacher, and Morgan Porterfield Freeman, a barber. The young Freeman...
Million Dollar Baby - He won it for doing narration. He should have won for many other performances. The academy felt it was time.
18. Denzel Washington
Actor | Fences
Denzel Hayes Washington, Jr. was born on December 28, 1954 in Mount Vernon, New York. He is the middle of three children of a beautician mother, Lennis, from Georgia, and a Pentecostal minister father, Denzel Washington, Sr., from Virginia. After graduating from high school, Denzel enrolled at ...
Training Day - This was Russell Crowe's oscar that he stupidly messed up his chances for. Denzel should have won for Cry Freedom, Glory, and especially Malcolm X.
19. Jack Nicholson
Actor | Chinatown
Jack Nicholson, an American actor, producer, director and screenwriter, is a three-time Academy Award winner and twelve-time nominee. Nicholson is also notable for being one of two actors - the other being Michael Caine - who have received an Oscar nomination in every decade from the '60s through ...
As Good As It Gets: A great actor is given a role that requires him to insult people and has obsessive compulsive disorders and is given the oscar. He should have earned it for About Schmidt and countless others.
20. James Coburn
Actor | The Great Escape
Lanky, charismatic and versatile actor with an amazing grin that put everyone at ease, James Coburn studied acting at UCLA, and then moved to New York to study under noted acting coach Stella Adler. After being noticed in several stage productions, Coburn appeared in a handful of minor westerns ...
Affliction - The classic great actor was given an oscar as a lifetime achievement award, plays an unpleasant abusive father (oh, that's why!)
21. Helen Hunt
Actress | As Good as It Gets
Helen Hunt began studying acting at the age of eight with her father, respected director and acting coach Gordon Hunt. A year later she made her professional debut and afterwards worked steadily in films, theatre and television.
As Good As It Gets: One nomination for a character anyone could have played, just not memorable.
22. Kim Basinger
Actress | L.A. Confidential
Kim Basinger was born December 8, 1953, in Athens, Georgia, the third of five children. Both her parents had been in entertainment, her dad had played big-band jazz, and her mother had performed water ballet in several Esther Williams movies. Kim was introspective, from her father's side. As a ...
LA Confidential - Play a prostitute; win an award. Yet to prove she's a good actress in anything else she has done.
23. Julia Roberts
Actress | Pretty Woman
Julia Fiona Roberts never dreamed she would become the most popular actress in America. She was born in Smyrna, Georgia, to Betty Lou (Bredemus) and Walter Grady Roberts, one-time actors and playwrights, and is of English, Irish, Scottish, Welsh, German, and Swedish descent. As a child, due to her ...
Erin Brockovich - It was Julia's time. She missed out on Pretty Woman and Steel Magnolias, although she has yet to give another great performance.
24. Daniel Day-Lewis
Actor | There Will Be Blood
Born in London, England, Daniel Michael Blake Day-Lewis is the second child of Cecil Day-Lewis, Poet Laureate of the U.K., and his second wife, actress Jill Balcon. His maternal grandfather was Sir Michael Balcon, an important figure in the history of British cinema and head of the famous Ealing ...
There Will Be Blood - Dominate (i.e. chew up scenery) a film, win an oscar. In all fairness, he gives an okay performance the first half and the movie held my interest before the overblown ending in the bowling alley where he goes so over the top with screaming, "I DRINK YOUR MILKSHAKE!" then clubbing his son with a bowling pin.
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