Entertainment Weekly Wants to “Recall The Gold” from Undeserving Oscar Winners

Posted by on October 9th, 2008   Filed under: Awards
Source: Joblo

Every Oscar season, it never fails: at some point the discussion inevitably must turn toward the unfortunate Oscar upsets from years past. (In fact, we discussed our Top 5 Biggest Oscar Upsets last year on Film Junk Podcast Episode #143.) They say that hindsight is 20/20, and this is certainly true for the Academy Awards. Certain movies don’t quite stand the test of time, while others get better with age — it’s just the way things work. But this year, Entertainment Weekly is actually doing something about it.

The magazine has started a project called Recall The Gold, sending out a massive survey to the Hollywood elite asking for them to re-evaluate previous winners. They plan to publish the results in January, but in the meantime, they are running features twice a week in the PopWatch blog about previous Oscar races and asking readers to vote too. The first poll was on the Best Picture of 1998, where Shakespeare in Love defeated Saving Private Ryan, Elizabeth, The Thin Red Line and Life is Beautiful. What do you think are the most undeserving Oscar winners?

» Related Link: EW PopWatch: Recall the Gold



  • Ian

    Well since it’s a plurality it seems that often many are hardly that deserving.

  • There’s too many to count, because it’s clear that Oscars are chosen for a variety of reasons besides artistic merit. I’d say for best picture:

    1976: ‘Rocky’ over ‘Taxi Driver’, ‘Network’, ‘All the President’s Men’ (three of my favorite movies).

    1997: ‘Titanic’ over ‘L.A. Confidential’

    1980: The obvious one–‘Ordinary People’ over ‘Raging Bull’ and ‘Elephant Man’.

    1993: ‘Schindler’s List’ over ‘The Fugitive’–WTFFFFFF??????????!!!!!!!!!!!!

    Also 1930-31: Cineastes can agree with me in saying that ‘Skippy’ was clearly a more accomplished film than ‘Cimarron’.

  • Liz

    Crash over everything else that year.

  • Ian

    Well the other side of the story is that then these films can’t be the unappreciated “too good for an Oscar status” and be the inexplicably great films that some claim them to be aside from if they really are or not? You know ’cause it’s objective … right?

  • ‘Saving Private Ryan’ should have won that year hands down. I enjoyed ‘Shakespeare in Love’ but it wasn’t oscar worthy.

  • Seconding Chris B…I can’t even watch Shakespeare in Love…now where is our Saving Private Ryan BD (it was shot in HD…why can’t we haz?)

  • I second Liz on Crash. The 2005-06 race made me realize the Oscars really are a popularity contest more than anything else. That year, Brokeback Mountain was clearly the best film, but I would have accepted Good Night and Good Luck, Capote, or even Munich as a winner. It made no sense that they picked Crash just because it was about Los Angeles and because half the Academy are friends with that massive ensemble cast. It was a *terrible* movie!

  • To me, Life Is Beautiful was a better movie that year than even Saving Private Ryan. R.B. deserved the Best Actor that he got, and this movie could’ve had the top spot. Perfect casting, funny when you needed relief, sad when it was all said and done.

  • Keenan

    The Thin Red Line over Saving Private Ryan without question. In fact that year is a good example, Shakespeare in Love I don’t think is even nomination worthy and IMO was the worst to get nominated that year, all the others are much better films.

    Forrest Gump over Pulp Fiction is pretty bad but not unexpected.

    I also find it amusing that Citizen Kane, No. 1 on the AFI top 100 American films of all time, didn’t win best picture.

  • Keenan

    The Thin Red Line over Saving Private Ryan without question. In fact that year is a good example, Shakespeare in Love I don’t think was even nomination worthy and IMO was the worst to get nominated that year, all the others are much better films.

    Forrest Gump over Pulp Fiction is pretty bad but not unexpected.

    I also find it amusing that Citizen Kane, No. 1 on the AFI top 100 American films of all time, didn’t win best picture.

    Oh and Crash winning Best Picture… I really don’t know what to say.

  • Bormomify

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