Top 10 Most Undeserving Oscar Winners

Jennifer Lawrence - Silver Linings Playbook

Sorry, but I am just disgusted and ashamed at how corrupted and messed up Hollywood is nowadays. Though Jennifer Lawrence can act, I just don't think she deserved such a prestigious award. The Oscar is the top of the top for great actors.
Please, just think for a moment. Katharine Hepburn, Vivien Leigh, Julie Andrews - all those amazing actresses - then compare them with Jennifer Lawrence. I just want Hollywood to stop making crappy films and stop making celebrities famous just for their looks! If anything, I thought Jessica Chastain should've gotten the award for her performance in Zero Dark Thirty.

Gwyneth Paltrow - Shakespeare In Love

I have too many reasons to say that this Oscar was not deserved. I love Gwyneth, but this is very unfair. First of all, I don't know if it's true, but it was rumored that she stole her role from her friend Winona Ryder. Her performance was no more than any mediocre movie performance (I'm not saying that in a bad way).
Second, I have not seen Fernanda Montenegro's performance, but I have read a lot about her, and I could say that it was better than Gwyneth's. And Cate Blanchett in Elizabeth? I can't even begin to talk about how well she did in that movie. Honestly, in my opinion, Cate was the best Elizabeth I that there has been in the movies so far.
I think Cate and Fernanda were robbed (especially Cate, in my opinion), and they deserved it much more than Gwyneth. In addition, the connections with Harvey Weinstein are repugnant to even name.

Denzel Washington - Training Day

I very much enjoyed Training Day and Denzel's performance in it. Many have said that he only won because Crowe was notoriously obnoxious, confrontational, and self-aggrandizing during the campaigning, and thus didn't deserve the award. Others have said that Denzel's win was politically motivated, as that year's historic ceremony also gave Oscars to Halle Berry and Sidney Poitier and was hosted by Whoopi Goldberg.
To be honest, I don't think that either Training Day or A Beautiful Mind were profoundly excellent cinema, nor were their performances among the best of all time. But if I had to pick between them, I'd probably lean a bit towards Denzel. I just thought that he left more of an impression.

Reese Witherspoon - Walk the Line

If anybody should have won an Oscar for that movie, it's Joaquin Phoenix. Just look at the real footage of Johnny Cash and June Carter on YouTube, and you will understand why Reese Witherspoon didn't deserve to win. Although she's a very good actress, she's just not convincing in that role.

Reese Witherspoon is definitely a worthy Oscar-winning actress, but in this movie, she was not that exceptional.
I think it would have been better if they had cast another actress because she doesn't really fit the role.

Tommy Lee Jones - The Fugitive

Worst Oscar clip ever! I think the line was, "I don't care." Why do I know this? It's been over 20 years and I can't forget a clip so stupid.
As far as the Oscar that year, well, it's a toss-up between all nominees. Tommy Lee Jones paid his dues, and I can't argue with that.

Jones plays your everyday cop, as thousands of other actors have done on average TV crime dramas. If you want to see truly astonishing performances as cops, watch Frances McDormand in Fargo or Willem Dafoe in The Boondock Saints. The latter wasn't even nominated for an Oscar.

Anne Hathaway - Les Miserables

She comes in for a few minutes, sings terribly, and wins. Jennifer Lawrence gave one hell of a performance.

This movie is about 167 minutes, and Hathaway's screen time is most likely about 15-20 minutes, and she didn't do anything special. That's all about makeup, costume, and lighting. She didn't add anything groundbreaking.

She should have won a Razzie for sounding like a cat getting skinned alive. Les Mis sucks, full stop.

Art Carney - Harry and Tonto

Judy Holliday - Born Yesterday

Judy was great in this picture. But if we compare her performance with the other nominees, she had no chance to win. Gloria Swanson for Sunset Boulevard, Bette Davis, or even Anne Baxter (both for All About Eve) deserved the Oscar more than Judy. I still get mad about their loss in front of the typical dumb blonde performance that Judy gave in Born Yesterday.

Helen Hunt - As Good As It Gets

I only saw As Good As It Gets once and don't really remember much about it. I thought that everyone in it was good, if not especially Oscar-worthy. In general, though, I don't think that Helen Hunt is a particularly great actress. Kind of cute and funny sometimes, but that's about it.
Her weird expressions and body language (she seems to always be sticking her face forward with confused eyes and her mouth half-open like some kind of lizard) just kind of annoy me.

I can't believe that a mediocre actress like Helen Hunt got away with an Oscar. The movie itself was not that great, and Helen Hunt's performance (like all her performances) was certainly not good or even fair. She's just not an Oscar-worthy actress (and not only for that movie).

Jennifer Hudson - Dreamgirls

Amateur hour in any scene that involved actual acting. Best singer in the film by far, but painfully bad acting. She was pushed so hard by the American Idol controversy that she won a sympathy Oscar.

She got this for one scene, and that's when she is just singing. One of the women from Babel deserved this award.

No shade at JH, but she got the award for her singing performance. Last time I checked, she was a professional singer, and there was no acting involved. I guess MJ should've gotten an Oscar for Space Jam.

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Brendan Fraser - The Whale

The fact that Felix Kammerer wasn't even nominated says it all.

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Zoe Saldana - Emilia Pérez

Roberto Benigni - Life Is Beautiful

Edward Norton should have walked away with the Oscar this year, but somehow a ranting, screaming maniac was allowed to run over and yank it from his hands. I think the Academy only brought him back one single time - the following year, to present the best supporting actress award (as is customary) - and then never mentioned him again.
Seriously, when's the last time the world, let alone the Oscars, ever made a point of acknowledging this win? There's probably a good reason for that.

If his performance deserved an Oscar, everybody in Hollywood should win an Oscar!

Emma Stone - La La Land

Musicals are highly underrated in academia. I think that Isabelle Huppert for Elle or Natalie Portman for Jackie deserved this award more. But I'm glad she won because actresses in musicals don't usually win.

Not sure if the problem is her acting or the characterization. Her acting was just monotonous throughout the film except for the 3-minute scene "The Fools Who Dream." Maybe it is also the visuals and music that stood out in La La Land and not the acting.

It's clear that the Best Actress race was between Natalie Portman and Isabelle Huppert, and then her underwhelming performance won. Even Amy Adams, who was snubbed, did a better performance than her.

Meryl Streep - The Iron lady

Nobody is comparing her to Thatcher. But Meryl Streep is known to be a "perfectionist" (I prefer to call her an "obsessive maniac") and I'm sure she spent long days watching footage of Thatcher to get "into the skin" of Thatcher. And guess what? She didn't portray her very well! Second, the movie IS almost praising Thatcher and is therefore not very realistic. Is all that Oscar-worthy? And third, I understand better than you what movies are or what they mean.

I agree that this is a crap movie! Rooney Mara in "The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo," Michelle Williams in "My Week with Marilyn," and Viola Davis in "The Help" (too bad Sissy Spacek wasn't nominated for that movie) deserved a thousand times more to win than Meryl Streep. Living proof that she is overrated!

Ernest Borgnine - Marty

Marty was probably the most simple story to ever get an Academy Award. I didn't mind something that isn't too complex for the viewers, but that's also why I hear a lot of negative opinions regarding the whole project, not just Ernest Borgnine.

John Wayne - True Grit

John Wayne is not playing Rooster Cogburn. He's playing the only character he actually knows how to play: JOHN Wayne! Compare him to all the other nominees of that year, and he just doesn't match them. Jon Voight and Dustin Hoffman in Midnight Cowboy, Paul Newman in Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid, and the legendary Peter O'Toole in Goodbye, Mr. Chips all prove more interesting, potent, and true to their characters than Wayne ever is.

John Wayne is overrated in general. Because the guy only knew how to play a swaggering, drawling blowhard, I guess everyone was supposed to think that he was something special.

Sandra Bullock - The Blind Side

I remember laughing with shock when Sandra Bullock won an Oscar. I could barely reconcile those words: "Sandra Bullock has won an Oscar." And what did she win an Oscar for? An equally (and by equally, I mean obscenely) overrated piece of inoffensive comedy sap in which she plays a sassy mama to some lumbering adopted goon of a football player.
The popularity of this movie was a joke, and she got by on sheer goodwill, not actual acting. The fact that she's all but disappeared from major motion pictures since that point makes me wonder if she decided to quit while she was ahead.

I understand that some do not think it was well deserved because, of course, her entire career was based on rom-coms or action. But in this movie, she had to make a lot of effort to look like Leigh Anne Tuohy. She had to work with coaches because she is totally different from that character.
Her performance was exquisite and she deserved it. And maybe she deserved the Oscar for Gravity more, and I agree, but since she didn't win that one, I say she deserved this one.
And apart from her role, although it doesn't influence her award, she had a newborn while all this happened, kept it secret, and her husband cheated on her while she was making this movie. I think she deserved it and I'm glad she won it.

Renee Zellweger - Cold Mountain

In my humble opinion, she did a lousy job of acting. It was obvious she was trying too hard. Her character did not seem natural or believable.

Gary Cooper - Sergeant York

Al Pacino - Scent of a Woman

Widely recognized as THE example of the Academy's habit of occasionally handing out an "overdue" Oscar to an inferior accomplishment to make up for previous snubs of more deserving efforts.
Nothing more to see here.

He should have won for Serpico, The Godfather: Part II, or Dog Day Afternoon instead of this. Hoo-Ah.

This seemed like compensation for snubbing him for the Best Actor Oscar for The Godfather: Part II.

Cuba Gooding Jr. - Jerry Maguire

How this clown won an Oscar for this over-the-top, cringe-inducing performance is beyond human comprehension. Especially when you consider that Edward Norton gave one of the greatest performances ever in Primal Fear. Then, not to be outdone, his acceptance speech is equally awful. Pathetic.

If anyone from this movie was going to win an Oscar, it should've been Tom. Then again, I don't see why it got a single nomination.

If I were in the audience during his acceptance speech, I would take his Oscar and give it to anyone on the streets.

Joel Grey - Cabaret

Charles Coburn - The More the Merrier

This was an instance of a character actor known mainly for dramas doing a comic turn, so they rewarded him. But Claude Rains in Casablanca that year was the more deserving, nuanced performance. Rains never won an Oscar over a career of great performances.

Julia Roberts - Erin Brockovich

She was OK, but Ellen Burstyn gave the best performance of the last decade. It was a shame!

Always the same over-emoting performance.

Ingrid Bergman - Murder on the Orient Express

Alan Arkin - Little Miss Sunshine

I agree with Irini. Djimon Hounsou's acting touched me so much! So passionate! Surely a man's love for his missing son moved all moviegoers. Djimon deserved to win the Oscar. What a great acting performance that should have been rewarded!

Djimon Hounsou was better in Blood Diamond.