Björk Lays an Egg
Best Song nominee Björk appeared on the 2001 carpet wearing a feathered dress that looked as if a swan were draped around her neck. “This girl should be put in an asylum,” Joan Rivers later cracked. Cut to 2015, when the creation (designed by Marjan Pejoski) was showcased at NYC’s Museum of Modern Art for a retrospective of the Icelandic singer.
1. Orson Welles Sees Green
Though Citizen Kane is now regarded as one of the greatest movies of all time, the Academy voters in 1942 didn’t feel that way. The result: How Green Was My Valley won Best Picture.
2. A Star Isn’t Born
This year, Renée Zellweger is a Best Actress frontrunner for portraying Judy Garland in Judy. The Wizard of Oz icon was part of an Oscar upset in 1955, when she was nominated for her work in the classic A Star Is Born—but she lost to Grace Kelly for the forgettable The Country Girl.
3. The Mob Doesn’t Take All
Though The Godfather walked away with wins for Best Picture, Best Actor and Best Screenplay in 1973, director Francis Ford Coppola lost Best Director to Bob Fosse for Cabaret, and Cabaret’s Joel Grey won Best Supporting Actor over Godfather’s Al Pacino, Robert Duvall and James Caan.
4. Yo, Victory!
In 1977, the rousing upstart Rocky, written by and starring Sylvester Stallone, knocked out Martin Scorsese’s heavyweight Taxi Driver—as well as Network, Bound for Glory and All the President’s Men—for Best Picture. Scorsese will vie again this year for Best Picture with The Irishman.
5. Dancing With Gold
Another Scorsese snub! A decade after he lost Best Director to actor-turned-director Robert Redford (Ordinary People beat Raging Bull), another movie star pulled off the same feat. This time it was Kevin Costner, the actor-director whose sweeping 1990 Western Dances With Wolves triumphed over Scorsese's epic mafia opus Goodfellas.
6. An All-American Win
Yes, Marisa Tomei really did win the Best Supporting Actress award in 1993 over Australian Judy Davis and British vets Joan Plowright, Miranda Richardson and Vanessa Redgrave for her turn as the tough-tawkin’ car-expert-in-the-courtroom Mona Lisa Vito in the comedy My Cousin Vinny. “There’s still a ridiculous conspiracy theory that [presenter] Jack Palance announced the wrong name,” Karger says. “But Marisa Tomei just gave a really fun and endearing performance.”
7. No Kidding
Rarely does the Academy reward the kiddie set, but 11-year-old Anna Paquin took Best Supporting Actress for The Piano in 1994, besting
Golden Globe winner Winona Ryder (The Age of Innocence) as well as Emma Thompson (In the Name of the Father), Rosie Perez (Fearless) and Holly Hunter (The Firm). Her onscreen mom, Hunter, won Best Actress, and Jane Campion won Best Original Screenplay for hte same film.
8. No Oscar for Bacall
In 1997, screen legend Lauren Bacall—who had never struck Oscar gold—was the go-to sentimental pick for her work in The Mirror Has Two Faces. But the Best Supporting Actress award instead went to Juliette Binoche. As Karger explains, Binoche “got caught up in the English Patient sweep,” which amounted to nine trophies that year.
9. Oh, Romeo!
Just how much was Steven Spielberg’s war drama Saving Private Ryan weighted toward a Best Picture win in 1999? The producers asked Indiana Jones himself, Harrison Ford, to present. “This was done on purpose, given his connection to Spielberg,” Karger says. But Shakespeare in Love—produced by Harvey Weinstein, then considered a master campaigner—took the trophy. Still, Karger adds that the comedy had also won SAG’s award for Outstanding Performance by a Cast, often a precursor of the Oscars’ Best Picture.
10. Hip-Hop Rules
Three members of the rap group Three 6 Mafia took Best Original Song for “It’s Hard Out Here for a Pimp,” the hip-hop song they wrote with co-winner Cedric Coleman and performed for the 2005 movie Hustle & Flow. The first rap group to take the honors, they beat Dolly Parton (“Travelin’ Thru” for Transamerica).