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.
Slate's David Edelstein said writer-director-star Roberto Benigni's 1998 tale of a father who, for the sake of his son, pretends their stay in a Nazi concentration camp is a grand adventure "made me want to throw up." But others were charmed, and Weinstein's Miramax machine would not be denied. The film triumphed with seven Oscar nods, and three big wins for best foreign-language film, best original score, and best actor (Benigni).
“Life Is Beautiful is funny (kinda) and even tasteful (sorta). But in its fantasy of divine grace, it is also nonsense.” —J. Hoberman, Village Voice
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