Mad Ramblings of a Movie Geek 02.04.09 Top 10 Oscar Upsets of the Last 20 Years

Posted by Jordan Bruns on 02.04.2009

The Oscars are known as much for their glitz and glamor as they are for their famous (and infamous) snubs and surprises...




Welcome to this week's Mad Ramblings of a Movie Geek! First off, I'd like to address some accidental omissions in last week's column. They were not pointed out to me by a reader. Instead I realized them on my own while simply browsing the net. It turns out that Laura Linney, Sigourney Weaver, and Debra Winger were also eligible for inclusion, since they've each had three Oscar nominations and no wins. I guess I could justify the exclusion of Winger and Linney because they aren't as "high profile" as the names I mentioned, but Sigourney Weaver should have been included for sure. I apologize for the oversight.

Since last week's column was nearly complete before the SAG Awards were broadcast, I was unable to include any commentary on the show itself. It turns out my predictions were not so accurate, as I successfully predicted only two of the winners, Heath Ledger for Best Supporting Actor and Slumdog Millionaire for Best Ensemble Cast. I predicted Kate Winslet for Best Actress for Revolutionary Road when she won Supporting Actress for The Reader instead. I was actually surprised to see Sean Penn win Best Actor over Mickey Rourke. I'll admit, though, that I didn't put as much thought into my SAG predictions as I do my Oscar predictions, mostly because the SAG Awards don't adhere to the same type of buzz as the Oscars do. All one needs to do in order to make successful Oscar picks is follow the pre-awards buzz. This method almost guarantees 60 to 75 percent accuracy.

Moving on now to this week, I'm going to do something I've never done before here on 411: a top ten list. I've generally shied away from such lists because I consider them trendy and overdone. However, if used right, they can be quite effective. This week I am presenting the Top 10 Oscar Upsets of The Last 20 Years…

Honorable Mention : The Silence of the Lambs wins the "big five" (1992):
The Silence of the Lambs became only the third movie in Oscar history to win what are known as the "big five": Picture, Director, Actor, Actress, Screenplay. It Happened One Night in 1936 and One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest forty years later are the only other films to have done so. So, why does this receive an honorable mention instead of a place in the final tally? The answer is simple. While Silence's sweep, particularly in these five categories, was a huge surprise, none of its individual wins really classify as a true upset.

#10: Braveheart wins Best Picture (1996):
This was more of a surprise than an upset, since there was no clear favorite to win that year but it was a pretty big surprise. Braveheart hadn't won any major awards all season but came out of nowhere to take home 5 Oscars. Despite Mel Gibson's win in the Best Director category, it was still widely expected that the top prize would go to the crowd-pleasing Apollo 13 or the Golden Globe-winning Sense and Sensibility. The handicappers must have been scratching their heads with this one. No other film won more than two awards this year.

#9: Alan Arkin wins Best Supporting Actor for Little Miss Sunshine (2007):
Some may curse me for putting this on the list, but I stand by my choice. Even before Dreamgirls was released, some critics had already picked Eddie Murphy to win this award for his performance as fictional R&B singer James "Thunder" Early. He won both the Golden Globe and the SAG award, so he was considered a lock for the Oscar as well. Thus, many people were taken aback by Arkin's win. Dreamgirls was repeatedly bitch-slapped by Oscar that year. After being hailed as the front runner for the Best Picture Award, it didn't even get nominated. Even worse, it won only two of the eight awards for which it was nominated. Arkin's portrayal of a foul-mouthed, heroin addicted grandfather won over the Academy, most likely due to a Dreamgirls backlash.

#8: Marcia Gay Harden wins Best Supporting Actress for Pollock (2001):
The Supporting Actor and Actress categories are well known for their potential for upsets. This was one of those years. Kate Hudson won the Golden Globe for her performance as Penny Lane in Almost Famous and was touted as the favorite by handicappers. Along came Marcia Gay Harden, who won the award for playing painter Jackson Pollock's wife, Lee Krasner. Harden's win was quite a surprise.

#7: Daniel Day-Lewis wins Best Actor for My Left Foot (1990):
He won his second Best Actor trophy last year in one of the most predictable races in history. However, when he won his first statuette nearly twenty years ago, Day-Lewis was a little-known Irish actor. Most thought Tom Cruise would win for his portrayal of quadriplegic Vietnam vet Ron Kovic in Born on the Fourth of July. However, when the awards were handed out, the Academy chose to honor Day-Lewis's portrayal of cerebral palsy stricken painter and author Christy Brown.

#6: Shakespeare in Love wins Best Picture (1999):
Going into the 71st annual awards ceremony, Saving Private Ryan seemed poised to sweep the Oscars. Although it won five awards, including a second Best Director statuette for Steven Spielberg, Shakespeare won seven, including Best Picture. A surprise at the time, its win is now attributed to the massive campaigning that then-Miramax head Harvey Weinstein did on the film's behalf, shelling out millions of dollars to newspapers and trade magazines to pimp his product. Sometimes we forget that Oscar is a political game, and this was the year that reminded people.

#5: Adrien Brody wins Best Actor for The Pianist (2003):
Going into the 75th Annual Academy Awards, most were predicting either Jack Nicholson for About Schmidt or Daniel Day-Lewis for Gangs of New York. Along came Brody, then a young up-and comer, to steal the thunder of these accomplished veterans. Along with his surprising victory, Brody earned himself a place in Oscar infamy by planting a passionate kiss on the mouth of a stunned Halle Berry as she presented him with the trophy. At 29, Brody also became the youngest actor to win the award, breaking the record previously held by Richard Dreyfuss, who was 30 when he won Best Actor for The Goodbye Girl in 1978.

#4: Crash wins Best Picture (2006):
To me the caliber of this upset is overrated. After it happened some were calling it the biggest upset in Oscar history. It was far from that. It's included in this list mostly because surprise Best Picture winners are always noteworthy. This was the year of Brokeback Mountain. At least it was supposed to be. Unfortunately, it suffered a tremendous backlash due to its controversial storyline. Some people thought the Academy awarded Crash to prove that it was a progressive voting body. So, does that mean they're ready to acknowledge that racism is bad, but they're not ready to acknowledge that homosexuality is OK? However you look at it, people are going to be talking about this one for a long time to come.

#3: Juliette Binoche wins Best Supporting Actress for The English Patient (1997):
The English Patient won 9 Oscars that year, but some people think it only should have won 8, and many think Binoche's unexpected win was a travesty. Screen legend and former wife of Humpherey Bogart Lauren Bacall, at age 72, received her first nomination for playing Barbara Streisand's mother in The Mirror Has Two Faces. She won the Golden Globe and the SAG award and was considered a shoo-in for the Oscar as well. She looked visibly upset when she lost. In her acceptance speech, Binoche herself claimed that Bacall should have won.

#2: Roman Polanski wins Best Director for The Pianist (2003):
Chicago dominated the 75th annual ceremony, winning 6 awards in all, including Best Picture. The film's director, Rob Marshal, went home empty-handed. It's rare for a movie to win Best Picture and not Best Director, but this year, he was competing against Martin Scorsese, who had for years been overlooked by Oscar. Scorsese won his first Golden Globe for directing Gangs of New York… He was the sentimental favorite who could possibly upset Marshal…
In the end, neither of these men won. The award went to Roman Polanski, who couldn't even attend the ceremony because he's been wanted by US authorities on a charge of sexual misconduct with a minor since 1978. This was the second upset The Pianist pulled off that evening after Brody's surprise win. Polanski's, however, was much more surprising, and somewhat scandalous given the circumstances.

#1: Marisa Tomei wins Best Supporting Actress for My Cousin Vinny (1993) :
This was one of Oscars "Holy Shit!" moments that no one could have predicted, though in hindsight I'm sure several people are claiming they "saw it coming." Going into the race it looked like Golden Globe winner Joan Plowright or veteran Vanessa Redgrave would get the ward. Tomei was the true definition of a dark horse candidate that year- she wasn't even nominated by any other award-giving body. Furthermore My Cousin Vinny, despite moderate box office success, wasn't exactly an "Oscar movie." Her win was such a shock that there's a long-standing rumor that Jack Palance read the wrong name when presenting the award. The Academy denies this, insisting they have representatives waiting in the wings to read the correct name should such a mistake occur. It never has. For this reasons, Tomei's surprise victory for Best Supporting Actress tops my list.

It seems that the supporting actor and actress categories often have the most potential for upsets. Will such an upset happen this year? Well, I'm not about to bet against Heath Ledger, that's for sure. Than again, history has proven that whenever something appears to be that much of a lock is when an upset occurs.

That's it for my first top ten list. As usual, feel free to send feedback my way. Did you agree or disagree with any of my picks and/or their ranking? I encourage readers to chime in. The amount of feedback I get on this may have some bearing on whether or not I do any future top ten lists.

Next week the Oscar theme continues here at Mad Ramblings. Until then…