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.
This film brings this list to a fitting end. Perhaps no modern best picture-winner has been more assailed than writer-director Paul Haggis' 2005 ensemble drama on race. Up until it upset Brokeback Mountain for Oscars' top prize, it actually enjoyed a number of glowing reviews from the likes of Roger Ebert ("four stars") and The New Yorker ("often breathtakingly intelligent"). But the view that Crash was a "well-intentioned but obvious, often clumsy picture" (Charlotte Observer) has come to dominate its narrative.
“It's too bad that the movie induces eyeball-rolling almost as much as it does armrest-clutching.” —Glenn Kenny, Premiere
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