The Lowest-Scoring Best Picture Nominees of the Past 30 Years
As history—and Metascores—show, Academy Award nominations reveal best picture contenders, but not necessarily the best pictures.
We've looked through the best picture Oscar fields of the last 30 years, from the 1989 nominees through the recently announced 2018 field, cross-checked the nominees' Metacritic scores, and ranked the 24 lowest-scoring films, from the bottom to the relative top. Four of these films went on to become best picture winners—but none boasts a Metascore higher than 69.
While Variety, the Los Angeles Times and other outlets were charmed by this 2000 romantic drama starring Juliette Binoche and Johnny Depp, the Christian Science Monitor found it "more sugary than satisfying." Still, the Harvey Weinstein-era Miramax pushed the film to five Oscar nods. And while it went 0-for-5, Esquire's Michael Tedder wrote in 2017 that the fact "Chocolat was even nominated for best picture is just straight-up, goddamn embarrassing."
“The movie is barely sufferable.” —David Edelstein, Slate
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