What are award ceremonies good for if not arguing? It’s a time for people to place themselves in the shoes of a critic, to question which films had phenomenal cinematography, which directors worked harder than ever, which films blew them away from start to finish. If each year brought clear standouts, then we wouldn’t feel the need to debate whose work is the true best for each category. But we’re lucky enough to be surrounded by talent day in and day out. So with that comes loss — a lot of it.
Choosing the worst losses in Oscar history is near impossible. The award ceremony has been going on for 87 years at this point, and that means there are over 87 losses for Best Picture, Best Director, Best Actor, and everything in between. Hell, even choosing 10 from this current century took plenty of debating.
If you don’t believe us, just scroll through past winners. Remember when Joaquin Phoenix didn’t win Best Actor for The Master because Daniel Day Lewis’ stone-cold biopic performance in Lincoln was too critic-baiting? Or when Martin Scorsese lost Best Director for Gangs of New York to Roman Polanski for The Pianist? Then there was the obvious shoe-in where Jean Dujardin won Best Actor for The Artist even though Brad Pitt went above and beyond in Moneyball.
So join us in looking at the losses that truly devastated us. But most importantly, bring your pitchforks. Award season is all about righting the wrongs, and heaven knows there have been undeserving losses (and even, gasp, undeserving wins) aplenty in the last 17 years. So here’s who the Academy Award really would’ve gone to … if we had our way.
–Nina Corcoran
Senior Writer
Best Actress: Ellen Burstyn
Requiem for a Dream (2000)
Lost to… Julia Roberts for Erin Brockovich
We won’t pretend as though Roberts’ Oscar-winning take on the titular real-life environmentalist and legal genius is bad. It’s great. But it’s the test of time that sways us here; Erin Brockovich isn’t even Steven Soderbergh’s best film of the year 2000, and it’s not the first of the Best Actress nominees that comes to mind. Not when Ellen Burstyn’s horrifying portrayal of an amphetamine-addled would-be star is in the mix. Of all the depravity chronicled in Requiem, it’s Sara’s descent into celebrity-fueled madness that gives Darren Aronofsky’s iconic film its most painful and resonant moments. –Dominick Suzanne-Mayer
Reaction to Loss:
