It finally happened: 25 years after making his feature film debut in the horror sequel Critters 3, Leonardo DiCaprio has his Oscar. And although we are incredibly happy for Leonardo DiCaprio, who is undoubtedly one of the finest actors of his generation (and who steadfastly refuses to star in generic Hollywood crap), we can’t help but feel bad that the Academy finally saw fit to honor him for one of his lesser performances.
The Revenant stars Leonardo DiCaprio as Hugh Glass, a trapper left for dead on the frontier, who crawls for miles through ice (after a bear attack no less) to get his revenge for the death of his son. It’s a gorgeously filmed but simplistic motion picture, one that seems desperate to elevate a by-the-numbers revenge saga into something deeply meaningful. It doesn’t quite succeed. Leonardo DiCaprio spends most of The Revenant in torment, a visceral emotion but not a terribly nuanced one, and the sort of thing that we’ve long since learned that DiCaprio could have done in his sleep.
Also: 10 Oscar Snubs We Should All Stop Whining About
It sure seems like the Academy just gave DiCaprio an Oscar this year because they failed to honor him for many years now, and for many roles that are even more impressive and interesting than his performance in The Revenant. If that sounds cynical, it’s not. It’s standard operating procedure. The Oscars have been making up for past mistakes since damn near the start of the ceremony. We looked back at the history of the Oscars, and we didn’t even have to look back very far to find eight actors who won Academy Awards for films that obviously weren’t their best, and which seem now to be a sort of apology for an unforgivable earlier snub.
Again, we congratulate you, Leonardo DiCaprio. You gave a perfectly respectable performance in The Revenant, but you were sublime in at least one other Oscar-nominated performance.
8 Actors Who Won the Wrong Oscar
Top Photo: 20th Century Fox
William Bibbiani (everyone calls him ‘Bibbs’) is Crave’s film content editor and critic. You can hear him every week on The B-Movies Podcast and watch him on the weekly YouTube series Most Craved and What the Flick. Follow his rantings on Twitter at @WilliamBibbiani.
8 Actors Who Won The Wrong Oscar
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Leonardo DiCaprio
Won: Best Actor, The Revenant
Should Have Won: Best Actor, The Wolf of Wall Street
Leonardo DiCaprio's icy endurance test will forever be remembered as the film that won him an Oscar, not as his best work. For that, turn to Martin Scorsese's ebullient and damning recollection of 1980s excess, with a performance by DiCaprio that is equal parts horrifying and hilarious.
Photo: 20th Century Fox
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Meryl Streep
Won: Best Actress, The Iron Lady
Should Have Won: Best Supporting Actress, Adaptation
To be fair, Streep had already won two Academy Awards, but her win for The Iron Lady was her first Oscar in 29 years, and she had been nominated 13 times in the interim. Sadly, her turn as Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher is one of her worst films from those three decades. Adaptation, on the other hand, gave her one of the most remarkable roles of her career, and is still celebrated almost 15 years later while The Iron Lady, less than five years later, has been all but completely forgotten.
Photo: The Weinstein Company
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Colin Firth
Won: Best Actor, The King's Speech
Should Have Won: Best Actor, A Single Man
Colin Firth gave a perfectly respectable performance as the stammering King George VI, but it's such an unremarkable film that his win can't help but play like an apology. The year prior, Firth gave one of the best performances of the decade in the insightful character study A Single Man.
Photo: The Weinstein Company
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Kate Winslet
Won: Best Actress, The Reader
Should Have Won: Best Actress, Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind and Best Supporting Actress, Sense and Sensibility
After nearly 15 years of Oscar-worthy performances, the Academy finally gave Kate Winslet a trophy... for one of her worst films. Her iconic turns in Ang Lee's Sense and Sensibility and Michel Gondry's Eternal Sunshine should have already made her an Oscar-winner twice over.
Photo: The Weinstein Company
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Morgan Freeman
Won: Best Supporting Actor, Million Dollar Baby
Should Have Won: Best Actor, The Shawshank Redemption
One of the most respected actors of his generation, Freeman only received an Academy Award for an unremarkable supporting turn in Clint Eastwood's once-popular, now mostly disregarded boxing drama. And yet his Oscar-nominated turn in The Shawshank Redemption, a modern classic, remains one of his greatest performances.
Photo: Warner Bros. Pictures
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Russell Crowe
Won: Best Actor, Gladiator
Should Have Won: Best Actor, The Insider
Russell Crowe was in the middle of an epic streak at the turn of the century, starring in one great film after another. And yet while Gladiator may be a solid flick, it's a generic action hero performance from Crowe, who did more nuanced and impressive work in Michael Mann's cigarette company exposé The Insider just one year earlier.
Photo: Dreamworks Pictures
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Judi Dench
Won: Best Supporting Actress, Shakespeare in Love
Should Have Won: Best Actress, Mrs. Brown
Dame Judi Dench's win for Shakespeare in Love is considered one of the funniest jokes in Oscar history. She's barely in the movie and has very little to do or say when she does appear on camera. It seems to be yet another apology: her incredible performance as Queen Victoria in Mrs. Brown was nominated, but not rewarded the year before.
Photo: Miramax Films
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Al Pacino
Won: Best Actor, Scent of a Woman
Should Have Won: Best Actor, Serpico and Best Actor, The Godfather Part II
Al Pacino, one of the most celebrated actors in history, only has one Oscar, and it's for... well, not his WORST movie, but easily his most mockable. His mannered performance in Scent of a Woman comes complete with a quirky catchphrase ("HOO-ha!"), and pales in comparison to many of his great performances, particularly from the early 1970s, when he did some of the best acting of his career or anybody else's.
Photo: Universal Pictures
