Best And Worst Oscar-Winners Of The Last Decade

While the Oscars are one of the most high-profile award ceremonies in cinema — and certainly the one most familiar to the average moviegoer — that doesn't mean that a movie that's nominated for an Academy Award is automatically good. By the same token, movies ignored at the Academy Awards aren't necessarily bad. As with any awards ceremony, those eligible to vote for the Academy Awards have their own biases, preconceptions, and relationships to the movies nominated. Since you have to be in the industry (among other requirements) to vote in the Academy Awards, that usually means that the movies nominated and awarded are often the films that those in Hollywood find most valuable and reflective of how they want their industry to be perceived, for better and for worse.

As a result, we often wind up with some rather disastrous decisions that prompt discussions long after the Oscar broadcast is over. On the other hand, sometimes miracles happen, and we wind up with a truly fantastic result, one that surprises everybody and restores faith in the Academy's decision-making skills. That was especially true in the 2010s, a decade that saw some major changes in the Academy Award show itself, along with seismic shifts in film studios, popular genres, and concerns about diversity in Hollywood. All these changes led to some pretty controversial picks, as well as some feel-good moments. From underdogs taking their rightful prize to industry giants crushing worthier competition, here are the best and worst Oscar decisions of the last decade.

The Best Animated Feature Film award, unfortunately, often goes to the film that the voting members have heard of, rather than the one that's arguably best. In fact, according to multiple anonymous sources at The Hollywood Reporter, plenty of voting members don't even bother to watch the animated movies unless the children in their lives want to see them. But while that often means that the Best Animated Feature Film award goes to the most popular film, occasionally a work of genuine ground-breaking art can pierce through that voter apathy. 

That's what happened at the 91st Academy Awards when Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse took home a well-deserved Oscar. Whether you're a long-time comic book fan or the type of moviegoer that can't tell Andrew Garfield from Tom Holland, the film tapped into the core appeal of the character. With animation that looked like nothing else and a self-aware script that had plenty of heart in between the Spider-Man Easter eggs and jokes, Spider-Verse was genuinely amazing, spectacular, and sensational. Of the five films nominated, it was undoubtedly the superior film, even if Murai and Isle of Dogs were fantastic in their own right. With over half a dozen movies on the big screen and countless cartoon adaptations on television, Spider-Verse proved itself to be the ultimate encapsulation of everyone's favorite friendly neighborhood Spider-Man.

Genre films don't tend to attract the sort of Academy Award attention that period pieces about British royalty or the magic of cinema do. Considering that most of the genre pictures that could be defended as Oscar-worthy also make more money at the box office than most of the Best Screenplay nominees combined, it more or less shakes out. One area where genre pictures tend to do well is in the technical categories, where impressive visual effects, weird character designs, and otherworldly sound effects can get their due. The 88th Academy Awards saw Mad Max: Fury Road scoring six Oscars altogether, winning Best Film Editing, Best Production Design, Best Costume Design, Best Makeup and Hairstyling, Best Sound Mixing, and Best Sound Editing.

Anyone who saw George Miller's return-to-form action epic would be hard pressed to disagree on any one of those wins. After all, Fury Road is a practically flawless movie, and it still stands as a ludicrous achievement in filmmaking — an achievement not only in terms of filmmaking skill, but also an achievement in that it was created with zero fatalities. If we had to acknowledge one particularly noteworthy award that Fury Road won, it would have to be the Best Editing award for Margaret Sixel's outstanding work. Even with the world of the film perfectly realized by the cast and crew, Fury Road remains such an eminently watchable and easy-to-follow movie primarily because of her editing style.

There's a reason that "Oscar bait" exists as a term in film, and it's not because the Academy likes to award a wide variety of diverse films its highest honor. It's because in the absence of a truly, inarguably fantastic film (and even in years with one), the Best Picture Award tends to go to stuffy period pieces about important historical moments. There are always exceptions, but generally, it's movies about tragedy or the healing power of cinema that tend to win the Best Picture.

When 2016's Moonlight won Best Picture (after an unfortunate accident led to La La Land briefly getting named instead), it was genuinely unlike anything that came out all year. A coming-of-age story following the life of a gay, black man in Miami, Moonlight could've been overly sentimental or marinated in the tragedy of the difficult life of the protagonist. Instead, Moonlight was genuinely moving, filled with shots and performances and style that no other film came close to matching. In other words, it was genuinely the best picture of the year. Not every Oscar-winning film is worth rewatching decades (or even a few years) later, but we're looking forward to watching Moonlight for many more years to come.

Following Moonlight, all eyes were on director Barry Jenkins to see what his next film would be. Jenkins shot high, adapting James Baldwin's seminal novel, If Beale Street Could Talk, into a feature film. When it was released, it was as immediately striking as Moonlight, shot with undeniable style and somehow proving a worthy adaptation to one of the best novels in American history. Despite that, it arrived in theaters with little fanfare, making a little less than twice its budget in box office gross. Luckily, bringing attention to the movies that audiences didn't catch in theaters is one of the truly valuable aspects of the Academy Awards. If Beale Street didn't snag audience's attention, the critical consensus on its quality seemed sure to make it an Academy Award contender.

If Beale Street Could Talk was nominated for Best Adapted Screenplay, Best Original Score, and Best Supporting Actress, with Regina King ultimately winning Best Supporting Actress. For filmmakers, proven box office success usually means that they can continue making films. Failing that, an Oscar win can mean the difference between getting to make another movie or getting sent to director purgatory. King's win wasn't only well-deserved, but it hopefully means that we can continue enjoying Jenkins' work for many years to come.

Whether you love or loathe Wes Anderson, you can't deny that the man loves production design on his films. In fact, both critical and laudatory reviews of his films tend to echo the same talking points about his tendency toward whimsy and impeccably crafted shots. He's more successfully carved out a niche building little worlds for his films than nearly any other living director. In short, you know exactly what you're getting when you put on a Wes Anderson movie, and you really only have yourself to blame if you don't like it.

It's not exactly surprising that Anderson's The Grand Budapest Hotel won Best Production Design, but it's hard to argue that the film wasn't deserving. From the mixture of dollhouse sets to the lavishly colored and lovingly shot interiors, the sets of Grand Budapest looked like the logical aesthetic end goal for a director like Anderson. Even against a film as impressive in scope as Interstellar, there was simply no argument that any other film deserved this award.