What Are Some of the Biggest Oscar Shocks?

The Academy Awards are the pinnacle of Hollywood recognition. Every actor, actress, and producer dreams of capturing one of the famous golden statues and cementing their place in the cinematic history books. The Oscars have a long-standing tradition of delivering jaw-dropping snubs and surprise wins that leave audiences stunned and in utter disbelief.

Whether it is a legendary acting performance that goes unrecognized or an upset in a major category, these moments have fueled debates for decades. The 2025 Oscars, the 97th Academy Awards, gave the movie world a couple of shocks. First, Flow won the Best Animated Feature over The Wild Robot, and the box office hit Inside Out 2. We also saw Mikey Maddison take home the award for Best Actress over Demi Moore. Then, Emilia Perez, with 13 nominations, lost to I’m Still Here in the Best International Feature category.

Although those results raised a few eyebrows, they are probably not considered groundbreaking shocks. However, the following five results are still discussed decades after their respective results were announced on stage in front of an A-list audience.

Saving Private Ryan Loses Best Picture to Shakespeare in Love (1999)

Saving Private Ryan is a masterpiece, and Steven Spielberg’s World War II epic was an unassailable favorite to win Best Picture at the 1999 Oscars. The movie’s infamously harrowing opening sequence and deeply emotional storytelling had already won Best Director for Spielberg, and it was expected to win the Best Picture category by a landslide.

However, the award instead went to Shakespeare in Love, a charming but relatively lightweight romantic drama. The shock reverberated throughout Hollywood, with many attributing the surprise win to the aggressive marketing campaign by now-disgraced producer Harvey Weinstein.

The upset remains one of the Oscars’ most controversial results in the awards’ history, often cited as an example of how strategic lobbying can triumph over artistic achievements.

Crash Wins Best Picture Over Brokeback Mountain (2006)

Like Saving Private Ryan, Ang Lee’s Brokeback Mountain headed into the 78th Academy Awards as an overwhelming favorite to win the Best Picture category. The love story had already captured the BAFTA, Directors Guild of America (DGA), and Golden Globe for Best Picture, so adding an Oscar was considered a forgone conclusion.

In true Oscars style, the trophy went to Crash, a multi-narrative drama about race relations in Los Angeles. While it is true that Crash was well-received, it had nowhere near the impact of Brokeback Mountain. Critics and fans lambasted the result, saying the upset was a reflection of the Academy’s discomfort with awarding a film centered on gay romance.

Almost two decades later, the decision to crown Crash as the Best Picture remains one of the most questionable decisions the Academy has ever made.

Glenn Close Loses Best Actress Eight Times

Glenn Close is widely regarded as one of the greatest actresses of all time, but she holds an unenviable record: eight Oscar nominations and no wins. In 1982, Close was nominated for Best Actress in a Supporting Role for The World According to Garp but lost to Jessica Lange in Tootsie.

Close was nominated for the same category in the next two Oscars for her roles in The Big Chill and The Natural, yet missed out again. Her superb performance in Fatal Attraction earned her a Best Actress in a Leading Role, but Cher pipped her to the post for her role in Moonstruck. She then lost to Jodie Foster the following year.

Close went 23 years before receiving another Best Actress in a Leading Role nomination, doing so for Albert Nobbs. However, the result was the same. At the 2019 Oscars, Close was expected to win for her portrayal of Joan Castleman in The Wife, but British actress Olivia Coleman won for The Favourite. The result was so surprising that Coleman apologized to Close during her acceptance speech.

More recently, at the 93rd Academy Awards, Yuh-jung Youn was chosen over close in the Best Actress in a Supporting Role category. Close must wonder what she has to do to win an Oscar.

Goodfellas Loses Best Picture to Dances With Wolves (1991)

Martin Scorsese’s Goodfellas is considered one of the greatest films ever made. It was a revolutionary piece of filmmaking that influenced a generation of directors. Most people thought Goodfellas would win the Best Picture award despite going up against Awakenings, Ghost, The Godfather Part III, and Dances with Wolves. It was the latter that pipped Goodfellas to the post.

Dances with Wolves was a critical and commercial success, but most critics thought Goodfellas edged matters. The Academy caused a stir by not only awarding Best Picture to Dances with Wolves but also Best Director to first-time filmmaker Kevin Costner over Scorsese.

Scorsese finally won his overdue Oscar in 2007 for The Departed, but it should have been Goodfellas that secured him his first honor.

Alfred Hitchcock Never Wins Best Director

Perhaps the most significant surprise of all Oscars wins and losses is that the legendary Sir Alfred Hitchcock never won Best Director. Known as the “Master of Suspense,” Hitchcock directors some of the industry’s most iconic films, including Psycho, Rear Window, Vertigo, and North by Northwest. Hitchcock received five nominations for Best Director but never walked away with the award.

Hitchcock’s films received 46 nominations and won six Oscars, but he was always left empty-handed. The most glaring omission was for his 1961 smash hit Pyscho, which was nominated for four awards but won none.

In 1968, Hitchcock received the Irving G. Thalberg Memorial Award, which is considered an Honorary Oscar, the 20th person to receive the award. He is also a Hollywood Walk of Fame member and was knighted in December 1979, only three months before his death.