With the 97th Academy Awards having recently taken place, many people are celebrating the victories of their favorite films of 2024, while others are lamenting that their least favorites managed to sneak in a nomination. The thing is, it's not at all uncommon for a bad movie to earn an Oscar nomination. In fact, it has happened plenty of times throughout the awards' history.
Thankfully, the majority of Oscar-nominated movies are, at the very least, good. Then, there are a few mediocre ones here and there. It takes something truly awful to join the ranks of the worst Oscar-nominated films of all time — and oh boy, there are a few of those. Over the almost a hundred years of the Academy Awards' history, a solid number of duds have somehow obtained the praise of the Academy.
10. 'The Broadway Melody' (1929)
The 2nd-ever winner of the Best Picture Oscar, as well as the first talkie and the first musical to earn such an honor, The Broadway Melody tends to be recognized as the single worst Best Picture winner of all time — and for good reason. This drama follows a pair of sisters from the vaudeville circuit trying to make it big on Broadway, a story that might sound fun on paper, but is mostly awfully uninteresting in execution.
When analyzing any movie, but particularly old movies, it's important to examine them within the framework of the historical context they were made in. Broadway Melody was made at a time when sound film was barely a couple of years old. Most (if not all) films from this early transitional period have aged terribly, and today look, sound, and feel pretty clunky. To make matters worse, Broadway Melody is a musical, undoubtedly the most sound-dependant of all movie genres, making the clunkiness stick out even more. It might have been a delight back in 1929, but nowadays, it's as boring, grating, and dated as Oscar nominees (and winners) get.
9. 'Song of the South' (1948)
For pretty much anyone familiar with Disney history, Song of the South needs no introduction. The movie that got Splash Mountain at Disney World killed, it's about a kind storyteller telling a young boy stories about the trickster Br'er Rabbit, who outwits Br'er Fox and Br'er Bear. As time passed, people started to realize that a children's film that paints the lives of Black people on a plantation as cheery and joyous was not cool, to say the least.
There are many who defend Song of the South as a misunderstood "product of its time," but even if one looks past the problematic content (which, for any decent human being, should be a tough thing to do), there isn't really much there, either. The music is iconic, but the story and mixture of animation and live-action don't hold up nearly as well as in other Disney classics. Then again, why would one look past the problematic content? It's seethingly racist enough that it should be plenty of reason to call Song of the South a terrible film.
8. 'Star Wars: Episode IX — The Rise of Skywalker' (2019)
Star Wars is perhaps the biggest film franchise in history, the granddaddy of transmedia storytelling. As such, the legendary Skywalker Saga deserved an equally legendary ending. Alas, it didn't get it. Instead, Star Wars: Episode IX — The Rise of Skywalker is typically recognized not just as the worst mainline Star Wars movie, but also one of the worst sci-fi films of the 2010s.
Despite having infuriated the Star Wars fanbase, the movie still nabbed three Oscar nominations, of which it won none. There are some redeeming qualities, like the visuals and a few fun throwbacks and Easter eggs, but all in all, it's pretty much the consensus that Rise of Skywalker is absolutely abysmal. "Somehow, Palpatine returned" will live in infamy as the worst omen in the history of Star Wars.
7. 'The Swarm' (1978)
The iconic Michael Caine has plenty of great movies. The Swarm is not one of them. This rather forgotten disaster film wasn't nominated for its special effects, as sometimes happens with movies in this genre, but for costume design. As a result, those aiming for the ambitious goal of getting through every Oscar-nominated film ever will have to suffer through this hammy soap opera.
The costumes sure are good, but not nearly good enough to distract the audience from how cheaply produced and terribly written this B-movie about killer bees (you could say it's a bee-movie) really is. It's not completely irredeemable, as its campy badness earns it some entertainment value; but if a so-bad-it's-good disaster flick is what they're looking for, cinephiles have plenty of better places to look.
6. 'Mulan' (2020)
1998's Mulan is one of Disney's biggest and most beloved animated classics, an endearing tale that goes from whimsical musical to dark war drama in the blink of an eye. Now imagine that same story, but without any of the music, charm, or Mushu. That's 2020's live-action remake of Mulan, which sought to be closer to the Chinese folk tale than its animated predecessor, but fell flat on its face in its attempt.
Despite its atrocious script and one of the worst castings in Disney history, at least Mulan's visuals are cool, and those are precisely the thing that got it two Oscar nods. Nevertheless, Disney fans would have perhaps been happier if it had gotten none. This modern retelling of the classic tale is lifeless, dull, and devoid of any significant entertainment value.
5. 'Norbit' (2007)
Throughout the 2006-2007 awards season, Eddie Murphy was the undeniable frontrunner for the Best Supporting Actor Oscar for his dramatic turn in Dreamgirls. When it came to it, though, he lost. So, what happened? Norbit did. The raunchy comedy was so unbelievably awful that it was enough for Academy voters to turn their eyes away — which is precisely what viewers will be doing constantly should they choose to subject themselves to this film.
Lacking any sort of artistic or comedic merit, Norbit is a flop worthy of its reputation.
Crass, offensive, infantile, and — needless to say — lacking any sort of artistic or comedic merit, Norbit is a flop worthy of its reputation. It was nominated for a Best Makeup Oscar, reminiscent of the time when The Nutty Professor, another awful Eddie Murphy comedy with the comedian in a fat suit, was also nominated for that Oscar (and won). The difference is that Norbit's makeup and prosthetics aren't even good.
4. 'Heartbeeps' (1981)
Heartbeeps is one of the most forgotten Academy Award nominees of all time. Collider is here to carry out the difficult task of reminding the world of its existence. One of the worst films ever scored by Maestro John Williams, it's a comedy about two household robots who run away and try to start a family together.
The film has a whopping 0% approval rating from critics on Rotten Tomatoes, and it's a well-deserved score. The Oscar-nominated makeup is admittedly fantastic, particularly for an '80s movie, but all those who aren't die-hard fans of movie makeup would be better off skipping this movie. There's no real story, the humor is atrociously ineffective, the pacing is glacial, and the whole thing is so unsettling that it will give you nightmares, but not unsettling enough that it's a "must be seen to be believed" kind of film. In other words: It's just bad.
3. 'Suicide Squad' (2016)
Suicide Squad, probably the worst installment of the old DCEU, is also one of the most infamous Oscar winners of all time. Panned by critics and audiences alike as soon as it came out, it's a horribly written, horribly directed, visually horrible disaster. If there's one thing about it that's exempt from criticism, it's the outstanding makeup work, which is precisely what earned it an Academy Award.
Nevertheless, Suicide Squad has one of the worst scripts of the 2010s and some of the worst editing ever seen in cinema, making it a real struggle to get through. It's noisy, choppy, and tonally inconsistent viewing, and for every genuinely entertaining scene that it offers, it presents three more that are abysmally crafted in every possible way.
2. 'Fifty Shades of Grey' (2015)
The erotic drama genre has some pretty incredible entries, but Fifty Shades of Grey is most definitely not one of them. Typically derided as one of the worst movies of the 2010s, if not perhaps of the entire 21st century, it's a movie that's not even nice enough to be so abysmal it's funny: It's just plain terrible and inexcusably boring and unexciting.
One of the worst dramas of the past 25 years, Fifty Shades of Grey at the very least has pretty good music. This, of course, includes The Weeknd's "Earned It," which was the tune that turned this Razzie-winning flop into an Academy Award nominee. Was it a well-deserved nomination? For the music alone, yes. Would the world have been a slightly better place if the title of "Oscar nominee" didn't apply to this movie? Also yes.
1. 'Emilia Pérez' (2024)
Surrounded by controversy as soon as it creeped its way out of the film festival circuit, Emilia Pérez is nowadays such a detested movie that calling it the worst Oscar nominee of all time isn't a controversial statement, but the public consensus. Racist, transphobic, tone-deaf, aesthetically unappealing, and artistically barren, it's an absolute disaster that somehow earned 13 nominations — tied as the second movie with the most nods in Oscars history.
This is an absolutely baffling achievement, seeing as social media sites like Letterboxd consider Emilia Pérez one of the worst Best Picture nominees of not just the 21st century, but all time. It fails as a musical, with goofy tracks with lyrics that make zero sense in not one, but two languages. It fails as a dark comedy, since barely any of its jokes land. It fails as a trans narrative, as its understanding of the trans experience is paper-thin. And it fails as a crime thriller about Mexico, since its grasp on the country's issues is as ridiculous as it is offensive.