Right prize, wrong performance: 10 actors who won an Oscar for the wrong movie
Every actor grows up dreaming of winning an Oscar, and those who claim they don’t are probably lying.
It’s a profession that requires no shortage of ego and vanity in which to succeed, so in all honesty, how many thespians can say with a completely straight face that they don’t want to take to the stage in front of their peers in front of an audience of millions to bask in the adulation of being the best?
It’s not the be-all and end-all for a career, with many legends of the silver screen going their entire careers without an Academy Award. Of course, it’s an accolade that can work wonders for a reputation and legacy, even if certain stars have been rewarded for the wrong movie.
All of the following ten names gave a performance that either wasn’t even nominated for an Oscar or went to a less deserving recipient. The common thread is that they’ve all won at least one each, and they got it for the wrong film.
10 actors who won their Oscar for the wrong film:
Tilda Swinton
One of the rare Oscar-winning actors to boast a 100% success rate, Tilda Swinton was named ‘Best Supporting Actress’ at the Academy Awards in her one and only nomination for a typically assured performance in Tony Gilroy’s Michael Clayton, making her the only winner from the film’s seven nods.
However, will anybody look back on Swinton’s career and call it her best work? Definitely not, and while opinion may vary on whether or not Lynne Ramsay’s We Need to Talk About Kevin is worthy of that distinction, it can’t be argued that the star deserved to make the ‘Best Actress’ shortlist at the very least.
And yet, despite notching Bafta, Critics’ Choice, and Golden Globe nods, Swinton didn’t make the cut. That’s even more egregious when the prize went to Meryl Streep’s blatantly Oscar-baiting turn in The Iron Lady, with the ‘Best Actress’ field plagued by similarly transparent contenders like Albert Nobbs‘ Glenn Close and My Week with Marilyn‘s Michelle Williams.
Morgan Freeman
Clint Eastwood and Morgan Freeman are a match made in awards season heaven, with the latter finally winning an Oscar at the fourth attempt when the Unforgiven pair reunited for the hard-hitting Million Dollar Baby.
Make no mistake, Freeman is phenomenal as the grizzled Eddie Dupris, but was he better than Thomas Haden Church in Sideways? That’s entirely up for debate, but what can’t be argued is that if any performance deserved to have cinema’s favourite exposition machine take to the Oscars podium, it was The Shawshank Redemption.
Not only is it one of his best, it’s undeniably his most iconic. Looking at how the tides of opinion have gradually turned against Forrest Gump in the decades since its release, it’s not madness to suggest that Freeman was a much better choice for ‘Best Actor’ that year than Tom Hanks.
Whoopi Goldberg
Jerry Zucker’s Ghost was a cultural sensation that cleared half a billion dollars at the box office and weaved itself into the fabric of pop culture forevermore, but that doesn’t make Whoopi Goldberg a worthy ‘Best Supporting Actress’ winner.
She was solid in the role of ghost-fucker Molly Jensen’s friend and confidant, Oda Mae Brown, but superior to Goodfellas‘ Lorraine Bracco, The Grifters‘ Annette Bening, or Wild at Heart‘s Diane Ladd? Absolutely not.
The best performance of Goldberg’s career, bar none, came in Steven Spielberg’s The Color Purple, which made history for all the wrong reasons when it went home empty-handed despite 11 nominations. That was the year Geraldine Page claimed ‘Best Actress’ for The Trip to Bountiful, which nobody remembers.
Henry Fonda
The legendary Henry Fonda had already been given an honorary Oscar for his contributions to cinema, which came just one year before his final performance in On Golden Pond earned him the ‘Best Actor’ statue.
That’s not to say it wasn’t richly deserved and a fitting exclamation point on a towering legacy left behind by a ‘Golden Age’ great, with Fonda’s bittersweet poignancy barely leaving a dry eye in the house by the time the credits rolled on On Golden Pond, but he should have won much sooner.
His leading role in 12 Angry Men and magnetic supporting work in Once Upon a Time in the West are more than Oscar-worthy, and that’s barely even scratching the surface of his greatest work.
Kate Winslet
Racking up Oscar nominations like it was nobody’s business, Kate Winslet was only 33 years old when she finally snagged the big one for Stephen Daldry’s The Reader, which was already her sixth nomination.
The film might have been shortlisted for ‘Best Picture’ and ‘Best Director’, but it was nowhere close to being the best, or even best-reviewed, release of 2008. Not to put too fine a point on it, but The Reader came across as nothing but Oscar bait in its purest form, so at least it succeeded on that front.
If it wasn’t for that pesky Hilary Swank, 2005 should have been Winslet’s year when she was nominated for Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind. Failing that, 2007 would have been an acceptable substitute, only for the Little Children star to fall victim to the even more Oscar-baiting Helen Mirren in The Queen.
Paul Newman
The ultimate Oscars bridesmaid for the longest time, much like Henry Fonda, Paul Newman was bestowed an honorary Academy Award the year before he finally got a competitive trophy to call his own.
Befitting his status as one of the best in the business, Newman was magnificent in The Color of Money, reprising the role of ‘Fast’ Eddie Felson in Martin Scorsese’s sequel. And yet, it wasn’t close to being the best Oscar-nominated performance of his career.
As for what was? Take your pick. Whether it was Cat on a Hot Tin Roof, The Hustler, Hud, Cool Hand Luke, or The Verdict, Newman should have been an Oscar winner years, if not decades, before he actually was. There was a whiff of lifetime achievement about it, which smacked of the Academy recognising one of its longest-running mistakes.
Cate Blanchett
The only Australian actor to win more than one Oscar, Cate Blanchett won her first for The Aviator and her second for Blue Jasmine, both of which were the nailed-on favourites heading into the respective ceremonies.
Her very first nomination should have ended in victory, though, and anyone who thinks Gwyneth Paltrow’s Viola de Lesseps in Shakespeare in Love was a cut above Blanchett’s formidable tilt as the title character in Shekhar Kapur’s Elizabeth needs to have a word in their ear.
It was the best performance of the five nominees by far, only for one of the worst and most controversial multiple Oscar-winning films of all time to waltz onto the scene and commit a daylight robbery driven largely by the grubby fingerprints of Harvey Weinstein.
John Wayne
John Wayne was only nominated for three Oscars throughout his entire career, which is admittedly three more than ‘The Duke’ and John Ford’s shared magnum opus The Searchers managed to gain.
One of the most important and influential movies in the history of American cinema was completely shut out by the Academy, which sounds ludicrous when Martin Scorsese and Steven Spielberg are just two of the all-timers who owe a massive debut to the sweeping Old West epic.
Wayne got on the podium for True Grit, which is questionable in itself, considering Midnight Cowboy duo Dustin Hoffman and Jon Voight and Goodbye, Mr Chips‘ Peter O’Toole were in the running. The Searchers‘ Ethan Edwards should have been his crowning achievement, even if that year’s shortlist was stacked with winner Yul Brynner being joined by James Dean, Kirk Douglas, Rock Hudson, and Laurence Olivier.
Al Pacino
Al Pacino earned four consecutive Oscar nominations for a quartet of the finest performances American cinema has ever seen, only to come up empty-handed on every occasion.
The Godfather, Serpico, The Godfather Part II, and Dog Day Afternoon are all seminal turns that have inspired actors for generations to come, which made it one of the biggest head-scratchers in the Academy’s history that Scent of a Woman will be forever known as the movie that finally gave Pacino his long-awaited and much deserved Oscar.
A double nominee that year, Pacino’s work in Glengarry Glen Ross was Oscar-worthy, although the field was stacked with Unforgiven‘s Gene Hackman, A Few Good Men‘s Jack Nicholson, and The Crying Game‘s Jaye Davidson. As for ‘Best Actor’? Somebody would have to travel far and wide to find anyone who’d be willing to call Pacino in Scent of a Woman better than Denzel Washington in Malcolm X. Speaking of which…
Denzel Washington
Denzel Washington should have won his second Oscar, and first as a leading actor, for Spike Lee’s biographical drama. Even if he didn’t, then Unforgiven‘s Clint Eastwood or Chaplin‘s Robert Downey Jr were better picks than Scent of a Woman‘s Pacino.
Antoine Fuqua’s Training Day is a good movie, but it’s not a great one. Similarly, Washington brings every ounce of his charisma and screen presence to the role of Alonzo Harris, but it’s not his best performance. It was an important moment for obvious reasons, even if it came a decade too late.
In fairness, it wasn’t the most cutthroat field of nominees. A Beautiful Mind‘s Russell Crowe had won the year before for Gladiator, Sean Penn’s I Am Sam was as Oscar-baiting as they come, and In the Bedroom‘s Tom Wilkinson wasn’t splashy enough to be a serious contender. That said, Will Smith’s Ali wasn’t without merit as a more deserving victor.
