The Worst-Reviewed Best Picture Nominees of the 21st Century — Why ‘Wicked: For Good' Might Join Them

This weekend’s box office just threw “Wicked: For Good” an Oscar lifeline. Despite mixed reviews, the film blew up the box office with a $150M domestic opening. Much like the first instalment, “Wicked” is back to being a cultural event.

As it currently stands, “Wicked: For Good” has a 58 on Metacritic and a 70% fresh rating on Rotten Tomatoes, but audiences have responded strongly to it with an “A” CinemaScore and a 95% Popcornmeter. I’m not ready to write off the Oscar conversation. It’s probably #10 or #11 in current Best Picture rankings. The film is too popular, and too much of a genuine crowd-pleaser, to eliminate.

We can look at Oscar’s near 100-year history and find dozens of bad movies getting Oscar recognition — “Doctor Dolittle,” “Broadway Melody,” “The Greatest Show on Earth,” “The Alamo,” “Cimarron” — but let’s just focus on modern-day voting. What other Best Picture nominees this century have received mixed reviews? I found nine of them. Here’s a look back at some of the worst-reviewed films to have gotten a Best Picture nomination in the 21st century.

• “Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close” — 44%

• “Don’t Look Up” — 56%

• “Bohemian Rhapsody” — 60%

• “The Reader” — 63%

• “Chocolat” — 63%

• “Vice” — 64%

• “The Blind Side” — 66%

• “Joker” — 68%

• “Babel” — 68%

• “Wicked: For Good” — 70%

The most obvious title is 2011’s “Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close,” a 9/11 weepie that benefited from a unique voting system the Academy had introduced that year, which required films to secure at least 5% of first-place votes rather than broad overall support. That rule favored movies with small but passionate pockets of admirers, and this film had strong appeal among older, traditional Academy members who responded to its sentimental story. That 5% rule was dissolved in 2020.

Another ill-reviewed film was “Don’t Look Up,” and we might as well blame it on the “Adam McKay rule,” which I’ve made up but deserves scrutiny. The filmmaker just seems to have this broad, enthusiastic support from within specific Academy branches, especially writers and actors. He had become an Academy favorite after “The Big Short” and “Vice.” It also helped that Netflix pushed one of its most aggressive campaigns of the year.

Meanwhile, “The Reader” reached the Best Picture lineup, when it was just five nominees, largely because Harvey Weinstein executed one of his most aggressive late-season campaigns, capitalizing on the Academy’s love for prestige literary adaptations and Holocaust-themed dramas. The film did not play well with critics, but it screened extremely well for older voters, especially within the Actors Branch, who were already keen on rewarding Kate Winslet.

What about “Bohemian Rhapsody”? Now widely ridiculed for its Oscar glory, which included a Best Actor win (Rami Malek) that’s aged worse with each passing year. The fact remains that the Academy often gravitates toward widely embraced crowd-pleasers, especially in years without many broad-consensus contenders. The film was also hugely popular — it earned over $900M worldwide.

So it’s not that rare for a mediocre film like “Wicked: For Good” to make it into a Best Picture lineup. It happens, and one particular detail I’ve noticed about the films above is how, despite the middling reviews, they all struck a major chord with moviegoing audiences: “Bohemian” has a 7.9 on IMDb, “Joker” (8.3), “Les Misérables” (7.6), “The Blind Side” (7.6), “The Reader” (7.6), “Don’t Look Up” (7.2), “Chocolat” (7.2), and even “Extremely Loud” has a 7. Sometimes critics just don’t matter.