10 Winners the Oscars Got Right and 10 They Got Wrong This Past Decade
Ken Jones, Chief Film Critic
The Oscars are this Sunday, and heading into it, a lot of the categories seems like foregone conclusions at this point. Every year we love to parse the nominees and nitpick the winners. As times passes, it can be interesting to look back and see how the winners in certain Oscar categories have aged; sometimes it seems right in the moment but in hindsight it seems that been the wrong person won. Let’s look back at the last decade at a list of 10 winners the Oscar voters got very right and 10 winners the Oscar voters got very wrong. Will any of the winners this Sunday join their ranks?????
10 THEY GOT VERY RIGHT
10. 2014 Best Original Song – “Let It Go” (Frozen)
This was perhaps the most foregone conclusion of any category of the entire decade. “Let It Go” was ubiquitous the year Frozen came out and has had staying power as a Disney song adored by children everywhere. The only real competition it had in this category, which also featured nominations for U2 and Karen O of the Yeah Yeah Yeahs, was “Happy” by Pharrell Williams from the Despicable Me 2 soundtrack. In most other years, I think “Happy” actually would have won, but “Let It Go” was a deserved juggernaut.
9. 2012 Best Supporting Actor – Christopher Plummer (Beginners)
Plummer surpassed Jessica Tandy to become the oldest winner of an acting Oscar when he won for his role in Beginners as a elderly father who comes out to his son while announcing he has terminal cancer. It’s a sweet and uplifting performance from an actor who to that point had been in the business for nearly 60 years and had only gotten his first nomination in the previous year for The Last Station.
8. 2011 Best Actress – Natalie Portman (Black Swan)
Portman took home the Oscar in 2011 in a category that featured two established stars (Annette Bening and Nicole Kidman) giving typically good standout performances, and two up-and-coming actresses that would further cement themselves in the coming years (Michelle Williams and Jennifer Lawrence). Portman might have been that Goldilocks and the Three Bears bed that was juuuuuuust right this year. Portman gave a swirling fever dream of a performance as a woman who spirals out of control as a lead dancer in a production of “Swan Lake.”
7. 2015 Best Foreign Language Film – Ida
Ida was a movie that I came to see after it had won the Oscar for Best Foreign Language Film in 2015. Nothing a single aspect of it dissuaded me for the notion that the Academy got this right. Filmed in black and white, it’s the story of an orphaned woman on the verge of becoming a nun in 1960s Poland, who leaves to resolve her past before deciding what to do with her future. It is beautifully shot and is a genuine treat of a film while also being a challenging one.
6. 2019 Best Actress – Olivia Coleman (The Favourite)
Everyone was convinced that it was Glenn Close’s Oscar in 2019 for her role in The Wife. Truth be told, Close was nominated on the strength of her performance in the last 20 minutes of that movie. In The Favourite, Coleman gave one of the most delightfully pitiful performances as Queen Anne. It’s one of my favorite performances of the decade.
5. 2014 Best Original Screenplay – Spike Jonze (Her)
Her remains one of the singularly unique films of the decade, a movie about a love between a man and his computer AI. Conceptually, Her is a difficult high wire act, because it could very easily veer into being completely laughable, but Jonze’s script manages to thread the needle and never lose its potency. It beat out American Hustle, Blue Jasmine, Dallas Buyers Club, and Nebraska. Looking back, American Hustle is the only movie of this group that has the same kind of staying power as Her.
4. 2019 Best Animated Feature – Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse
Last year was a fairly strong list of nominees for Best Animated Feature. Pixar had The Incredibles 2, Disney put out Ralph Breaks the Internet, and Wes Anderson gave us his second stop-motion feature in Isle of Dogs. But as great as those were, Spider-Verse was head and shoulders above them all. It breathed new life into the superhero genre. It had a distinct visual style to it that set it apart and made it feel fresh compared to pretty much everything that had come before. Maybe most surprising of all is that it almost instantly became considered the best Spider-Man movie ever made and there was little disagreement among the fans, and even those who dissented basically said it was close to the best.
3. 2018 Best Cinematography – Roger Deakins (Blade Runner 2049)
For most of the decade, Deakins winning an Oscar was the cause célèbre for cinephiles everywhere. A frequent collaborator with the Coen brothers, Deakins was long-regarded as one of the best cinematographers in the business, but up until 2018 had been 0-12 the previous times he had been nominated. His work on Blade Runner 2049 finally ended the drought and brought him a much-deserved Oscar win in an impressive field of nominees (Darkest Hour, Dunkirk, Mudbound, The Shape of Water).
2. 2010 Best Supporting Actor – Christoph Waltz (Inglorious Basterds)
Prior to Inglorious Basterds, Waltz was a little-known Austrian actor. He delivered a star-making turn for Tarantino in the unforgettable role of Col. Hans Landa, the Nazi Jew Hunter. Nobody else stood a chance in this category stood a chance, as he beat out Christopher Plummer (The Last Station), Matt Damon (Invictus), Stanley Tucci (The Lovely Bones), and Woody Harrelson (The Messenger).
1. 2015 Best Supporting Actor – J.K. Simmons (Whiplash)
Another Best Supporting Actor winner that was an absolute foregone conclusion, Simmons’ win for Whiplash is arguably the most deserving Oscar of the decade. He beat out Edward Norton (Birdman), Ethan Hawke (Boyhood), Mark Ruffalo (Foxcatcher), and Robert Duvall (The Judge). It remains one of the best performances of the last decade.
10 THEY GOT VERY WRONG:
10. 2013 Best Supporting Actor – Christoph Waltz (Django Unchained) over Philip Seymour Hoffman (The Master)
As deserving as Waltz was of his Oscar for Inglorious Basterds, it’s tough to look at his win for Django Unchained in the same light. I don’t think it’s much of an argument to say that his was the 2nd best performance in the category, ahead of Tommy Lee Jones (Lincoln), Alan Arkin (Argo), and Robert De Niro (Silver Linings Playbook). But there is a huge performance from Philip Seymour Hoffman in The Master that was more deserving of the win. It felt that way at the time, and seven years later, with the stature that The Master has attained and with the passing of PSH, it’s a shame that he didn’t win for one of his last, best roles.
9. 2014 Best Actor – Matthew McConaughey (Dallas Buyers Club) over Chiwetel Ejiofor (12 Years a Slave)/Leonardo DiCaprio (The Wolf of Wall Street)
Listen, I was all in on the McConaissance. I loved that Matthew McConaughey was shedding the reputation he’d had for quite a while and was doing quality work with quality directors. But it’s arguable whether Dallas Buyer’s Club was even his best work from this time period (I say Mud). Plus, Chiwetel Ejiofor in 12 Years a Slave had a very strong case for Best Actor this year, and, in hindsight, Leo DiCaprio probably gave the defining performance of his career in The Wolf of Wall Street. If Leo wins this year, the Academy doesn’t need to reward him for crawling through the forest and grunting in The Revenant.
8. 2014 Best Documentary Feature – 20 Feet from Stardom over The Act of Killing
Here’s the unvarnished truth about the Best Documentary Oscar category: The almost never get it right. Oftentimes, the best documentary of a given year isn’t even nominated. In 2014, 20 Feet from Stardom won, which was a documentary about the obscure lives of back-up singers. The previous year’s winner? Searching for Sugar Man, a doc about… an obscure musician! So the Academy doubled down on obscure musicians at the expense of The Act of Killing, which confronted Indonesian death-squad leaders with their horrific pasts. At the end of the decade, The Act of Killing and its companion piece, The Look of Silence, are considered two of the best documentaries of the decade. If you look online at any list of the best documentaries of the 2010s, you’re not likely to find 20 Feet from Stardom anywhere near the Top 20.
7. 2012 Best Adapted Screenplay – The Descendants over Moneyball/Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy
The Descendants is a good movie. I enjoyed it. But its win as Best Adapted Screenplay has not aged well, especially considering the presence of Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy and Moneyball. Tinker set of a new batch of John le Carre adaptations and is a masterclass in telling a taut spy story. Moneyball has gainedin stature over time, becoming an easily accessible and compelling story about the business of sports, and it’s an Aaron Sorkin screenplay.
6. 2013 Best Picture – Argo over Django Unchained/Lincoln/Silver Linings Playbook/ Zero Dark Thirty
I originally thought of making this list for the entire 21st Century so far, and so I was looking at the Best Picture winners of the 2000s. There are some to quibble with, for sure, but most of them are pretty solid winners. I don’t know what happened in the 2010s, but it seems like the Academy picks the wrong winner more often than not. This is just the first of four examples that will pop up on this list! Argo was a very good movie, but how much of its win was the quality of the film vs. the Ben Affleck redemption narrative? And how did that work out? And when you’ve got Django Unchained, Lincoln, Silver Linings Playbook, and Zero Dark Thirty all in contention? Pretty inexplicable in hindsight.
5. 2015 Best Picture – Birdman over Boyhood
I think 2015 was a solid year for the Best Picture category, with American Sniper, Boyhood, Selma, The Grand Budapest Hotel, The Imitation Game, The Theory of Everything, and Whiplash also receiving nominations. Birdman is one of those examples people point to of Hollywood loving stories about the entertainment business. Plus, it signaled the return of Michael Keaton, which everyone loved (just not enough to give him the Best Actor Oscar, oddly enough). And even though he is a great director, I think Hollywood is a little too irrationally enamored with Alejandro G. Inarritu. Boyhood was a groundbreaking film at the time and it still is. Linklater filmed that movie over the course of 12 years. It was far more impressive than what Birdman achieved. Five years later, I think most people would agree that Boyhood should have been the winner here.
4. 2018 Best Supporting Actress – Allison Janney (I, Tonya) over Laurie Metcalf (Lady Bird)
There were two kinds of people in 2018 when it came to debating the Best Supporting Actress category; those who thought Allison Janney deserved to win for the mother role in I, Tonya and those who knew that Laurie Metcalf did it better in Lady Bird, portraying a far more complex and compelling mother-daughter dynamic opposite Saoirse Ronan. I was convinced that Metcalf was the Best Supporting Actress that year when I walked out of the theater. I remain convinced of it to this day.
3. 2011 Best Director – Tom Hooper (The King’s Speech) over David Fincher (The Social Network)
So here is another thing that the Academy has difficulty with: Awarding great directors when they make their best or most complete films. Maybe they think that these generation-defining directors will keep putting out quality work in the future that they’ll have time to reward them further down the road. And that’s how you get Tom Hooper winning for The King’s Speech instead of David Fincher for The Social Network. In the near decade that has passed since, Fincher’s film has been labeled as one of the most important films of the decade and nobody talks much about The King’s Speech anymore.
2. 2012 Best Picture – The Artist over The Descendants/Hugo/Midnight in Paris/Moneyball/The Tree of Life
I enjoyed The Artist when I saw it in the theater. It was a pleasant throwback to old Hollywood and the silent film era. But has anyone watched The Artist since 2012? I’ve mentioned the merits of Moneyball previously, and I’m a big fan of Midnight in Paris. Hugo and The Descendants are also films I’d put ahead of The Artist as well. But the one that really stands out for me is The Tree of Life, which has its detractors, but I consider it a piece of art and the crowning achievement of director Terrence Malick. It was my favorite film of the decade, and to see it lose to a film that proved to have very little staying power is a huge disappointment.
1. 2011 Best Picture – The King’s Speech OVER ALL THE OTHER NOMINEES
There’s just no getting around the fact that the Oscars on the regular ended up making the wrong choices for Best Picture winner most of this past decade. I’m not sure they could have done consistently worse if they were actively trying to undermine their credibility when it came to naming the best movie every year. The prime example of the voters being captives of the moment is The King’s Speech winning Best Picture in 2011. This was the 2nd year that the Best Picture category was expanded beyond 5 films to a max of 10. This year included 127 Hours, Black Swan, Inception, The Fighter, The Kids Are Alright, The Social Network, Toy Story 3, True Grit, and Winter’s Bone. Legitimately, I think all nine of those films are better than The King’s Speech. The Social Network was clearly the most deserving winner, but a solid case could have been made for a few others as well. With each passing year, this win is more and more inexplicable.