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.
Genre movies rarely get trotted out on the Oscar red carpet, but M. Night Shyamalan's 1999 thriller was different: a breakout, box-office hit that scared up six nominations, including a best supporting actor nod for Haley Joel Osment. Still, some critics enjoyed the twist ending more than the movie itself.
“Because the movie never fully engages us, it never quite manages to allay our queasiness about watching the boy's distress.” —Charles Taylor, Salon
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