Even the Academy Awards, one of TV’s most sophisticated ceremonies, can be the subject of controversy every once in a while. Getting nominated is no easy task, and winning requires much more than just talent and goodwill. While the Oscars value quality and diversity to a certain extent, at the end of the day the awards go to those who carried out the most effective campaigns. To make the battlefield fair for everyone, the Academy has implemented plenty of new rules throughout the years, limiting Q&As with the directors and stars, taming lobbying practices, and bringing any post-nomination parties for a particular film or celebrity to a halt (via Oscars.org).
Even with new rules added every year, there’s always room for problems. The Oscars have been going on ever since 1929, and the Academy continues to learn from its mistakes. Over the decades, scandals only piled up: multiple actors refused their Oscars, revealing dresses stirred commotion on the red carpet, and some displays of affection got out of hand. However, these minor occurrences fall into oblivion or simply age poorly, while some controversies will forever remain a big stain in the Academy’s history.
10 Citizen Kane Missed Best Picture
Not to shade How Green Was My Valley, a succinct movie from one of America’s most sophisticated directors, but its Best Picture win is the kind of controversy that only grows as time progresses. It might look insignificant, but it reflects the Oscars’ tendency to stay within its comfort zone. John Ford’s movie is a nostalgic look into an adult man’s mind as he reminisces about the happy and tragic moments of his childhood.
On the other hand, Citizen Kane has been considered one of the best movies ever made, if not the best, ever since it came out, staying for 50 years at the top of Sight and Sound‘s lists of cinema’s greatest works. Citizen Kane provided the Academy members with something brand new, inventive, and bold; a story with sharp storytelling that defied capitalist structures. However, the Academy decided to go for the easy one, carrying out the most controversial snub of all time.
9 The Wrong Frank
Frank Capra was a three-time Best Director winner, yet his most memorable walk toward the Oscars stage was when he lost in 1933. When announcing the Best Director winner, presenter Will Rogers summoned a “Frank” to the stage, without mentioning any last names, unaware that both Frank Capra and Frank Lloyd were nominated for the award. The real winner was Lloyd, but Capra excitedly walked to the stage before realizing that the spotlight was on Lloyd. Capra, who would go on to direct the classic It’s a Wonderful Life, later recalled the moment with shame: “I wish I could have crawled under the rug like a miserable worm” (via THR).
8 Mistaken In Memoriam Photo
The 89th Academy Awards ceremony had quite a few gaffes, and one of the biggest passed somewhat unnoticed by the public. During the traditional In Memoriam section of the ceremony, the name Janet Patterson, one of the world’s most renowned costume designers, appeared in the slide show alongside a picture of Jan Chapman, an Australian film producer who was healthy and alive. The fact that Chapman and Patterson were long-term friends and collaborators only made things worse. Chapman was devastated by the use of her image in that circumstance and by how the error was barely picked up (via Variety).
7 The Best Actress Tie
A tie between the legendary Katharine Hepburn, known for several iconic roles at the time, and Hollywood newcomer Barbra Streisand occurred in 1969. By the look on Ingrid Bergman’s face when she opened the winner’s envelope, the audience could immediately tell something was off. The Best Actress category of the 41st Academy Awards went down in history after Streisand and Hepburn received 3,030 votes each, with both set to receive the award. What could’ve been a special moment in the ceremony unfolded quite ordinarily because only Streisand went to the stage: Hepburn had never stepped foot at the Oscars because, to her, “prizes are nothing” (via THR).
6 The Oscars Streaker
Of all the places a streaker is expected to be spotted, an Oscar ceremony would be at the bottom of the list. Yet in 1974, the Academy Awards were interrupted by a naked man running across the stage as David Niven was about to introduce the highly-acclaimed film actress Elizabeth Taylor. Robert Opel was an activist photographer and owned a successful art gallery in San Francisco, and the streaking was part of an anti-conformist performance.
Opel sneaked behind Niven and ran fully naked while making a peace sign with his hands. Niven, in the face of the deafening sound of laughter, handled the situation with a quick joke about shortcomings. Surprisingly, Opel wasn’t charged with anything and continued to carry out his naked performances in other events.
5 Adrien Brody Kissed Halle Berry
At the 2003 Oscar ceremony, Adrien Brody took his Best Actor win surprisingly: he rushed to the stage and, without thinking twice, embraced the presenter, Halle Berry, with a long, warm kiss. No one in the audience really knew what was happening and neither did Berry, who later opened up about the controversial moment. Berry, who at the time was best known for playing Storm in the X-Men movies, said she didn’t even remember if the kiss was good or not because she was “too focused on ‘what the f*** is going on right now?’” (via Vulture).
The kiss between the two leaned more on charming than totally awkward back in 2003 but has aged somewhat poorly as the years went by. Brody indirectly cornered Berry in a difficult situation. She was caught by surprise and went along with it, but she had all the reasons to feel offended, which probably caused the puzzled reaction from the attendees: anyone could spot in their faces how they were just waiting for a commotion to start.
4 The Anticlimactic Ending Of 2021’s Oscars
At the 2021 Oscars, the producers of the ceremony made the inconvenient mistake of trying to predict the ceremony’s results. Jesse Collins, Stacey Sher, and director Steven Soderbergh organized the event in order to look like a movie, and that’s where the 2021 Oscars went wrong. They expected to end the ceremony on a memorable and emotional note; the intentions were good but executed poorly.
Usually, the most important award of the night, Best Picture, is the last one announced. Things didn’t go as planned after producers reallocated the Best Actor category for last, expecting to pay an incredible tribute to Chadwick Boseman, who had sadly passed away the previous year. However, they were too confident and forgot that the Oscar winners are decided by a democratic branch. At the end of the day, Anthony Hopkins won Best Actor for his role in The Father and wasn’t even at the ceremony to accept the award, delivering the most anticlimactic ending the Academy Awards ever witnessed.
3 Sacheen Littlefeather Accepted Marlon Brando’s Award
It took the Academy nearly 50 years to officially apologize for how they treated Sacheen Littlefeather and Native Americans as a whole following one of the darkest moments in Oscar history: her acceptance speech on behalf of Marlon Brando (via The Washington Post). In fact, what Sacheen had in hand in the 45th Academy Awards was more like a refusal speech, written by Brando himself, which was too long to be read during the limited time the Academy offered to each winner.
Sacheen gathered the courage to stand in front of the predominantly white members of the industry and expose the outrageous treatment of American Indians in Hollywood but was received with audible “boos” from the audience. Sacheen came with a message of love and witnessed an environment filled with hatred and inhospitality. As she gathered in an interview, there were even people such as John Wayne who tried to storm the stage (via People), which only made her and Brando’s words more powerful.
2 Two Best Picture Winners
The 2017 Oscars was packed with surprises and disappointments, and what better way to end a flawed ceremony than to announce the wrong winner for the final and most prestigious award of the night? Faye Dunaway and Warren Beatty were chosen to present the Best Picture winner, which culminated a neck-to-neck competition between the giant La La Land and the independent Moonlight. Beatty was visibly puzzled as he began to read the card and handed it to Dunaway, who hurriedly announced La La Land as the winner.
The film’s producers were already almost done with their speeches before someone intervened and revealed that Moonlight was the actual winner, giving rise to such a commotion that the deserving speech was pretty much overshadowed by the awe. The cause of the huge misunderstanding was a tiny mistake: someone handed Beatty a Best Actress envelope for Emma Stone’s La La Land win, which left them confused about what to do. There’s not a single frame from the whole televised sequence that is not awkward, especially when La La Land producer Jordan Horowitz, Jimmy Kimmel, and Beatty began competing for the microphone to explain what exactly happened.
1 The Will Smith Slap
Those who thought the 2017 fiasco was the most memorable Oscar moment weren’t ready for what was about to come in 2022. After host Chris Rock made a deeply upsetting joke about Will Smith’s wife, Jada Pinkett Smith, unaware of her Alopecia, Smith casually walked to the stage and slapped Rock in the face. Assuming that it was part of a skit, the attendees proceeded to laugh, but when a visibly angry Smith began to curse at Rock, an awkward silence immediately fell upon the Dolby Theatre.
The shock was so great that the beautiful speech given by the producers of Summer of Soul, the Best Documentary Feature winner, was completely obfuscated by the attendees and the TV audience trying to figure out whether the slap was true or not. To aggravate things, Smith won Best Actor and delivered a deeply emotional speech about protecting those he loves, perfectly linked to King Richard, the movie he won for, which only added to the post-controversy controversy: the Academy ultimately banned Will Smith for 10 years (via Variety).
