What is the biggest shock in Oscar history?
 

What have been the biggest Oscar shocks? Any actors that have won when they had an outside chance, for example?

Can't think of any specific names off hand but one of those old guard who'd been looked over for years then get an OSCAR for probably one of thier worst films just because they 'deserved it'.

Yes, there have been quite a few of those. Al Pacino is one that springs to mind.

Not the biggest ever, but Kate Winslet winning for the Reader was a bit of a 'crap, she's been nominated 6 times for better films we better hurry and give it to her'. Her performance in Revolutionary Road in the same year was far superior. BUT she should have won for Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind. She was amazing in that.

As she said in Extras, you have to player either a Nazi or a nun to get an oscar :p

Sean Penn winning best actor in 2009(?) over Mickey Rourke was surprising. Not shocking, but surprising.

In recent years, I think the biggest shock was Crash beating Brokeback Mountain in 2005, as the latter had won just about every other Best Picture award all award season till that point.

At the time and probably by some even today, Marisa Tomei winning for My Cousin Vinny was a shock, as was Brokeback Mountain losing out for best film. Tilda Swintons win was also unexpected, but deserved .

Marcia Gay Garden and Juliette Binoche winning. Neither were regarded as front runners at all, esp Binoche beating Lauren Bacall.

First one I thought of.

A lot of people seem to think Ellen Burstyn should have won over Julia Roberts in 2001. Maggie Smith's win for California Suite seemed to surprise people back in the day.

I've been used to the Academy's "worth over quality" decisions (only in IMHO of course) over the years.
The only real time I've been genuinely shocked was when "The Silence of the Lambs" cleaned up! :eek:

A genre film, that was popular with the audience, and didn't have any social statements to make!

Doesn't happen very often ...

I'm still gutted that Marcia Gay Harden won over Kate Hudson. Kate may not have built on the early promise of Almost Famous but she deserved the Oscar for her role as Penny Lane.

The greatest shock in oscars history would be anything half decent ever getting nominated ,Every year its the same old same old artsy fartsy rubbish that makes bugger all at the box office getting all nominations

The Blockbuster awards or the MTV movie awards are more realistic than the farce that is the oscars ffs even the Razzies are :D

So, in your opinion Transformers films and Danny Dyer should be getting nominated for Oscars then?

Titanic and Gladiator could perhaps be added to that list.

Apart from the fact that both have lavish historical settings, they're both big dumb blockbusters.

Not a shocker as such, but it's amazing to think Psycho did not win anything. Deserved best art direction that year.

Was stunned they gave Roman Polanski best director for The Pianist, you'd think the whole he raped a 13 year old thing may have been an issue.

Agree with all of this, except that it wasn't a shock in any sense. It was a pretty much cert.

Yep, biggest shock for a while.

Absolute rubbish.

Not sure if this was a shock as such, as I wasn't old enough to appreciate the reaction at the time, but seeing that Midnight Cowboy won the Oscar for best film in the late sixties, being the first X-rated film to win, then maybe that has some claim to being the biggest shock in Oscar history. Maybe as the "times were a changing", something like this would have come about, but I can imagine some of the people at the time would have been a bit "shocked" and thinking that the world was going to implode.

It was more disappointing than surprising, and it certainly was not shocking. For Hollywood to even recognise a film of such content was a step forward, but for it to win was just too much as far as they were concerned.

Crash was one of those awful films that likes to think it's dealing with political and social problems without actually scratching the surface or really offending anyone. Hollywood loves that shit. It was an acceptable substitute in an otherwise weak year in their eyes.

With all due respect, it most certainly was shocking, every one but every one expected it to win, it was a red hot favourite. In my life time no films failure to win Best Picture has caused more of a stir than this one. There was even the notorious full page ad taken out in Variety magazine in relation to this issue, which is certianly the only time anything like that ever happened.

Grace Kelly beating Judy Garland for Best actress. Was a huge huge shock in the day and something still discussed about to this day. If you have seen Judy in A Star Is Born, you will see why she deserved it.

I agree about Kate Winslet. Her performance in The Reader was crap and perhaps the only performance of her career I have never liked. She should of won for Titanic, but was beaten by the forgettable performance of Helen Hunt.

I thought Winslets best nominated performance was Sense And Sensibility. Shocks abound for the many great performances that weren't even nominated, notably IMO Anthony Perkins great performance in Psycho.

The streaker.

Sean Connery's one of the most famous recipients on that basis. I don't necessarily think his performance in The Untouchables was any worse than his fellow nominees, but the general feeling is that he got it precisely because of the 'Old Guard' need to recognise him.