The Worst Best Picture Winners

1. The Great Ziegfeld (1936)

This is a fictionalized biography of Florenz Ziegfeld, a real life Broadway impresario. The film tracks Ziegfeld's life from his beginnings as a promoter at the Chicago World's Fair, to his success as a Broadway producer, to his death. The most prominent issue with this film is the musical numbers. Naturally, this film features many of Ziegfeld's stage productions, and these scenes are certainly a visual spectacle. However, they drag on and on. There is one scene that must be twenty minutes or more by itself. Over a quarter of the movie is made up of these musical numbers and they have absolutely nothing to do with the plot! The only part of this movie I enjoyed was seeing the actors who played the Wizard and the Scarecrow from “The Wizard of Oz” in other roles.

2. Cavalcade (1933)

Focusing on the life of a British family, “Cavalcade,” takes us from New Year's Eve 1899, to New Year's Day 1933. The film portrays a number of historical events including the death of Queen Victoria, the sinking of the Titanic, and World War I. This film is sort of like an turn of the century “Forrest Gump,” but because it focuses on an entire family and not just one man, we never build a connection with any of the characters. Because we never relate with the characters the movie ends up being very dry, as we don't relate to the events going on through the character's involvement. Perhaps there is a reason there have not been more movies about the Second Boer Wars. 

3.A Man For All Seasons (1966) 

Some events, no matter how important they are, don't deserve to have a movie made about them. “A Man For All Seasons” is about the decision of Sir Thomas More to stand up to King Henry XIII by not signing a letter requesting the pope to annul the king's marriage to Catherine of Aragorn so that he can marry Anne Boleyn. The entire movie is Henry XIII trying to persuade More into granting his request, and More refusing to take a side in the matter until it becomes absolutely necessary. The acting, costumes, and sets in this movie are great, but the pacing is glacially slow and incredibly little actually happens in this movie, even for a character study. 

4. The Greatest Show on Earth (1952) 

This film takes us under the big top and gives us an inside look into life in the circus. Trapeze artists duel for attention, a clown tries to evade the police, a train crashes, and Charlton Heston is crotchety. This films suffers from the same problems as “The Great Ziegfeld,” only this time the overlong, irrelevant scenes are circus acts instead of Broadway musical numbers. However, this film does have a couple bright spots. The special effects for the train crash are pretty incredible, even by today's standards. Also, the subplot involving Jimmy Stewart as a former doctor being hunted by the police for mercy-killing his girlfriend and hiding as a clown in the circus is pretty compelling regardless of how ridiculous that premise sounds.

5.Going My Way (1944)

Bing Crosby plays a priest who is assigned to replace the retiring head of a New York City parish. The unconventional methods of Crosby's youthful character clash with the highly traditional outgoing priest. The tone of this movie is so saccharine sweet that it nearly made me sick. The people behind this movie really play up Bing Crosby's magnificent singing ability and it seems like there is no problem he can't solve with a song. After organizing the local street gang into a church choir, Crosby tries to sell the rights to a song he wrote in order to save the church by having the choir sing the song for a music executive. When the executive rejects the song because it is too cloying, the choir sings an even more wholesome song, which they sell. Ugh.