Albert Finney, British actor, in costume in a publicity portrait for the film 'Tom Jones', United Kingdom, circa 1963.

The 10 worst Best Picture nominees in Oscar history

Written by:
October 4, 2025
Silver Screen Collection // Getty Images

The 10 worst Best Picture nominees in Oscar history

Each year, cinema aficionados wait with bated breath for the Academy Awards, a ceremony that upholds the tradition of honoring the year's best films—in concept, at least. In reality, the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences doesn't always get it right regarding nominations and awards. That's especially true in retrospect, with previous nominees and winners showing their age over time. What was once considered classic may now seem relatively subpar, or at the very least, insignificant.

Why does a lackluster film get nominated in the first place? One might wonder. There is no single particular reason—even a bad Oscar nominee or winner will potentially offer something of value. Sometimes, the movie exhibits certain anachronisms that enrapture audiences at the time, but poorly date themselves. Or, in the case of the 1967 release "Doctor Dolittle," which tanked at the box office but won multiple Oscars, the studio aggressively campaigned during awards season.

Then there are just the bad movie years, in which the cream of the crop is still somewhat inferior to the films that came before and after. Of course, these are Best Picture nominees, so the bar still sits high on the low end—or does it?

As always, there were surprises in the Best Picture lineup for the 2025 Academy Awards, like including the Brazilian film "I'm Still Here." But there was also plenty of controversy, as largely well-reviewed fare like "The Brutalist," "Anora," and "Wicked" all found their share of vocal detractors. No Best Picture contender proved more contentious than "Emilia Pérez," the most nominated film of the year with 13 nods overall. At the night's end, "Emilia" could only net out two wins—for Best Supporting Actress and Best Original Song—a reminder that nominations are no guarantee of Oscar glory. 

We won't know which acclaimed (or not-so-acclaimed) films will be nominated for next year's Academy Awards until Jan. 22, 2026. While we're waiting patiently, Stacker gathered all of the movies nominated for Best Picture at the Oscars from 1927 to 2025, and based on data as of March 12, 2025, ranked the lowest 10 in the group by IMDb user rating, with #1 being the "worst." Ties were broken based on the number of user votes, and films had to have at least 1,500 votes to be considered for this list.

Believe it or not, some of the films ranked below actually did go on to win the Academy Award for Best Picture. Read on to see which films were the "worst" to be nominated for the top prize at the Oscars.

1 / 10
Warner Bros.

#10. Anthony Adverse (1936)

- Directors: Mervyn LeRoy, Michael Curtiz
- IMDb user rating: 6.3
- Runtime: 141 minutes

This historical epic takes place in 18th-century Italy and follows the exploits of its titular hero (Fredric March). It stars screen legend Olivia de Havilland as a love interest in one of her earliest major roles. Despite winning four Oscars, The New York Times found the film to have wasted its cast on "a pointless script and unimaginative direction."

2 / 10
Hulton Archive // Getty Images

#9. She Done Him Wrong (1933)

- Director: Lowell Sherman
- IMDb user rating: 6.3
- Runtime: 66 minutes

Mae West delivers a star-making performance as barroom singer Lady Lou in this pre-Hays Code romantic dramedy. It was adapted from West's stage play "Diamond Lil," in which she similarly dispensed her languid brand of sharp wit. The film also features one of the earliest performances by Cary Grant as one of Lou's potential suitors. With a sole Oscar nomination for Best Picture, it lost out to the war drama "Cavalcade."

3 / 10
Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer (MGM)

#8. Arrowsmith (1931)

- Director: John Ford
- IMDb user rating: 6.2
- Runtime: 108 minutes

John Ford's adaptation of Sinclair Lewis' Pulitzer Prize-winning novel tells the story of Dr. Martin Arrowsmith (Ronald Colman), who, enlisted to help fight a bubonic plague outbreak, abandons protocol in order to save as many lives as possible. The film was nominated for four Oscars, winning none.

4 / 10
Twentieth Century Fox

#7. Three Coins in the Fountain (1954)

- Director: Jean Negulesco
- IMDb user rating: 6.2
- Runtime: 102 minutes

While staying together in Italy, three American women (Dorothy McGuire, Jean Peters, and Maggie McNamara) undergo separate romantic journeys in this visually sumptuous dramedy. It's one of two film adaptations based on the same source novel, the other being 1964's "The Pleasure Seekers." Frank Sinatra performed the movie's Oscar-winning title song.

5 / 10
Twentieth Century Fox

#6. Doctor Dolittle (1967)

- Director: Richard Fleischer
- IMDb user rating: 6.2
- Runtime: 152 minutes

This musical comedy was beset by production problems and controversies before arriving in theaters, where it became a bomb of epic proportions. Thanks to an aggressive campaign from Fox Studios, it scored nine Oscar nominations despite its many flaws. It won Oscars for Best Special Effects and Best Original Song.

6 / 10
Twentieth Century Fox

#5. Cavalcade (1933)

- Director: Frank Lloyd
- IMDb user rating: 5.8
- Runtime: 112 minutes

This pre-Code drama spans multiple decades and centers on two British families from starkly different economic backgrounds. Despite high critical marks for production value, to this day it has failed to find a welcoming audience. It won three Academy Awards, including Best Picture and Best Director.

7 / 10
RKO Radio Pictures

#4. Cimarron (1931)

- Director: Wesley Ruggles
- IMDb user rating: 5.8
- Runtime: 123 minutes

This epic adventure from RKO Studios was one of the most expensive films ever made at the time of its release and a huge box office success to boot. It was also the only Western to win Best Picture at the Oscars until "Dances with Wolves" took home the trophy at the 1991 Oscars. Based on an Edna Ferber novel, the film finds numerous people converging on an Oklahoma boomtown in the late 19th century.

8 / 10
Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer (MGM)

#3. The Hollywood Revue of 1929 (1929)

- Directors: Charles Reisner, Christy Cabanne, Norman Houston
- IMDb user rating: 5.7
- Runtime: 130 minutes

There were no official nominees at the second Academy Awards in 1930, prompting the Academy to retroactively put this plotless musical comedy in the running for Best Picture. As the title might suggest, the film is little more than a compendium of song-and-dance numbers from MGM's stable of stars such as Joan Crawford, Norma Shearer, Stan Laurel, and Oliver Hardy.

9 / 10
Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer (MGM)

#2. The Broadway Melody (1929)

- Director: Harry Beaumont
- IMDb user rating: 5.5
- Runtime: 100 minutes

The second-ever Academy Award for Best Picture went to Hollywood's first all-talking musical, which was also alternately released as a silent film. The story follows two sisters (Bessie Love and Anita Page) as they pursue their Broadway dreams, getting romantically entangled along the way. "It is questionable whether it would not have been wiser to leave some of the voices to the imagination," wrote critic Mordaunt Hall for The New York Times.

Zoe Saldana and Karla Sofía Gascón in "Emilia Pérez."
10 / 10
Netflix

#1. Emilia Pérez (2024)

- Directors: Harry Beaumont
- IMDb user rating: 5.4
- Runtime: 100 minutes

Jacques Audiard's audacious movie musical stars Karla Sofía Gascón as the titular Emilia Pérez, a former drug lord who creates a new life for herself after she undergoes gender-affirming surgery and assumes a different identity. LGBTQ+ critics took umbrage with the film's trans representation, while recently unearthed offensive tweets from Gascón added another element of controversy. "Emilia Pérez" earned an impressive 13 Oscar nominations, but it only picked up the two awards it was largely favored to win, Best Supporting Actress for Zoe Saldaña and Best Original Song for "El Mal." Gascón also had to endure being the predictable target of host Conan O'Brien's jokes during the ceremony's opening monologue.

Additional writing by Louis Peitzman.

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