(Photo by Universal / Everett Collection)
The 40 Lowest-Rated Best Picture Nominees Of All Time
A Certified Fresh movie winning the Best Picture Oscar? That’s expected. The last time that didn’t happen was in 1995 when the “just” Fresh Forrest Gump took home the big gold. And you’d have to go back to 1985 for the last Rotten winner of Best Picture: Out of Africa, the creaky and nearly three-hour romantic epic starring Meryl Streep and Robert Redford.
Out of Africa may not be looked back upon with much fondness among critics, but the movie’s got plenty of company in our guide of the 40 Lowest-Rated Best Picture Nominees. Across 92 Academy Awards ceremonies, we’ve collected every Best Picture nominee with less than 70% on the Tomatometer. From recent times, this includes popular favorites that may have divided critics but hit big-time with audiences, like Joker and Bohemian Rhapsody – both Fresh at 68% and 60% respectively, and both with astronomical Audience Scores – and already almost-forgotten curiosities such Extremely Loud & Incredibly Close, the most recent Rotten film to be nominated for Best Picture. (If you want to see only the winners, check out All 92 Best Pictures Ranked.)
Rotten movies to actually take home the Best Picture statue, besides Out of Africa, include Cimarron, The Greatest Show on Earth, and The Broadway Melody. The latter won in the second Academy Awards ceremony, and is part the most Rotten crop of Best Picture nominees ever, with The Hollywood Revue of 1929 and In Old Arizona. This was the year sound film became the new standard in filmmaking, so it’s easy imagining the Academy being dazzled by these on a technical level.
Other famous movies to nearly win despite not being that great – according to the Tomatometer, at least – include The Big Chill, Babel, and The Godfather: Part III. We guess Francis Ford Coppola will just have to take solace in the fact that he’s directed one of only two series where every movie was nominated for Best Picture (the other being Lord of the Rings). See more of the movies that got less than 70% in our guide to the Lowest-Rated Best Picture Nominees! —Alex Vo
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