Established in 1929, The Academy Award of Merit, also known as the Oscar, is presented annually by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts & Sciences (AMPAS) to honor the finest artists working in feature films. Why it is known as the Oscar is disputed, but the most commonly accepted legend is that a secretary working for The Academy saw the first sculpted award - a golden statuette of a bald man clutching a sword - and declared “He looks just like my Uncle Oscar!”
Founded in 1980 as a joke at the Oscar Awards viewing party of Hollywood publicist John J. B. Wilson, the Golden Raspberry Awards (or The Razzies for short) have grown into an institution in their own right. It’s far less exclusive than the AMPAS - anyone willing to pay the $40 membership fee can join The Razzie Academy. The Razzies routinely dishonor Hollywood’s worst - endless sequels, pretentious passion projects, and the promotion of special-effects over story.
Surprisingly, there have been few occasions when an Oscar winner has also been won a Razzie. So few, in fact, that we felt compelled to compile a list of those rare few individuals honored as both The Best of the Best and The Worst of the Worst.
May we have the envelope please? Here are 16 Actors Who Won A Razzie And An Oscar!
Al Pacino
Considered one of the finest method actors of his generation, Al Pacino first found international acclaim playing the role of Michael Corleone in The Godfather. His performance won him an Oscar nomination for Best Supporting Actor. He later earned a Best Actor nomination when he reprised the role for The Godfather Part II. Nominated for Oscars several times in the decades that followed, he finally won Best Actor for his portrayal of the blind U.S. Army Lieutenant Colonel Frank Slade in 1992’s Scent Of A Woman.
Pacino also won the 2012 Razzie for Worst Supporting Actor for his role in the Adam Sandler “comedy” Jack and Jill. Pacino appeared playing himself, as Sandler’s advertising executive character Jack attempted to woo him into agreeing to appear in a Dunkin’ Donuts commercial. We have no doubt that Sandler’s efforts to recruit Pacino for Jack and Jill were far funnier than Jack and Jill itself.
Nicole Kidman
Renowned as a talented singer, dancer, actress, and comedienne, there is little Nicole Kidman hasn’t done in her long and varied career - and even less she can’t do. She’s been nominated for awards by over fifty different organizations, including Best Actress Oscar nominations for Moulin Rouge! and Rabbit Hole. She won the Best Actress Oscar in 2003 for her performance in The Hours.
While Kidman may have the magic touch, it wasn’t enough to save her from the shame of “winning” a Razzie Award. She was dishonored, along with Will Ferrell, as Worst Screen Couple in 2006 for their performances in the 2005 movie Bewitched, adapted from the classic sitcom.
The film, which was based around the unlikely meta conceit of a real witch being unknowingly cast in the lead role in a Bewitched remake, failed to enchant audiences or critics.
Leonardo DiCaprio
It was a running gag for many years in Hollywood how many times Leonardo DiCaprio had been nominated for an Oscar only to be denied a win in the end. That changed in 2016, when DiCaprio won the Best Actor Oscar for his performance as frontiersman Hugh Glass in The Revenant.
While considered one of the world’s greatest actors today, DiCaprio was not always so revered. The Razzies dishonored him with two Razzie Awards for Worst Screen Couple in 1999 for his performances in The Man In The Iron Mask.
Based on the classic novel by French author Alexandre Dumas, the film saw DiCaprio cast in the dual roles of King Louis XIV of France - and the titular man in the iron mask. The movie was a financial success, though a critical flop. It’s largely believed DiCaprio’s Razzie win was given in retaliation for his role in 1997’s Titanic.
Halle Berry
It was a historic moment in 2002 when Halle Berry became the first black actress to win the Oscar for Best Actress for her role in the romantic drama Monster’s Ball. As of 2017, she is still the only black actress to have won the award and is still remembered for her tearful acceptance speech.
Berry made history again three years later by being the first actress to accept her Razzie Award for Worst Actress in person. Berry “won” the Worst Actress award for her starring role in the critical and commercial bomb Catwoman.
Proving that she had a sense of humor about the whole thing (or, at least, acting as if she did), Berry delivered a tearful parody of her classic Oscar acceptance speech, with her Oscar in one hand and her Razzie in the other.
Brad Pitt
It has been said that Brad Pitt is a great character actor cursed with a leading man’s good looks. While Pitt found fame playing romantic roles and action heroes, his most critically acclaimed work as an actor has come from playing off-beat characters, such as Jeffrey Goines in Terry Gilliam’s Twelve Monkeys. While having won several awards for his acting, Pitt’s only Oscar to date is for his work as a producer on the film 12 Years A Slave.
Pitt’s acting did however earn him a dishonorable accolade at the 1995 Razzie Awards. It was here that Brad Pitt and Tom Cruise were named that year’s Worst Screen Couple, for their performances as the vampires Lestat and Louis in Interview with the Vampire.
Sandra Bullock
When Sandra Bullock was nominated for multiple Razzies for her performance in All About Steve, she promised that she would collect her Worst Actress and Worst Screen Couple awards in person if she won.
Bullock was true to her word and gave everyone in the audience at the 2010 Razzie Awards All About Steve on DVD, saying they clearly hadn’t watched the movie as it was about a stalker and “that doesn’t really set up the premise for a loving couple.”
Though the award was aimed at acting duos and not romantic couples, the Razzies may have decided Bullock had a point. Two years later, the Worst Screen Couple award was renamed Worst Screen Combo.
Bullock won the Best Actress Oscar for her performance in The Blind Side the next day, making her one of the few people to win both an Oscar and a Razzie in the same weekend!
Eddie Redmayne
Even before he won the highly-coveted role of Newt Scamander in the Fantastic Beasts series, Eddie Redmayne had proven himself as an incredibly accomplished actor.
Inducted into the Order of the British Empire in 2015 for his services to the art of Drama, Redmayne also won the Oscar, the Golden Globe, and the BAFTA Award for Best Actor for his portrayal of physicist Stephen Hawking in the 2014 film The Theory Of Everything. Redmayne also won a 2010 Tony Award for Best Featured Actor in a Play for his performance in Red.
All of Redmayne’s skill as an actor proved insufficient to sell audiences or critics on the convoluted story behind Jupiter Ascending. For his performance as the Emperor Balem that alternated between breathy whispering and sudden shouting with no range of delivery in between, Redmayne won the 2015 Razzie for Worst Supporting Actor.
Kevin Costner
It is a rare thing for a film director to be nominated for an Oscar for their first professional work. It is even rarer for them to win it.
Actor Kevin Costner - already a critical darling for his performances in films such as The Untouchables,Bull Durham, and Field of Dreams - joined that elite fellowship with his directorial debut, Dances With Wolves. Though Costner would lose out on the Best Actor Oscar for his performance in the movie, he won the Oscar for Best Picture along with Best Director.
Sadly, Costner’s next directorial effort was not so well received. Costner’s 1997 adaptation of the Locus Award-winning post-apocalyptic novel The Postman was a critical and commercial flop. Costner would earn three Razzies for his work on The Postman, including Worst Picture, Worst Actor, and Worst Director.
Marlon Brando
Regarded as a film legend for his efforts in bringing the acting techniques of Stanislavski to the silver screen, Marlon Brando is one of the most acclaimed actors of all time. He won the BAFTA Award for Best Foreign Actor, the Golden Globe for Best Actor and the Oscar for Best Actor for his work in 1954’s On The Waterfront. He almost repeated the feat in 1971, winning the Golden Globe and the Oscar for Best Actor for his performance in The Godfather.
Brando’s best days were behind him, however, when he played the title role in a 1996 adaptation of the H.G. Wells’ novel The Island of Dr. Moreau. The films’ production was the stuff of nightmares, with Brando’s demanding behavior on-set being one of the many factors that extended the film’s shooting schedule. Brando was dishonored with the Razzie for Worst Supporting Actor for his eccentric performance.
Faye Dunaway
Faye Dunaway won numerous awards and accolades over her long career, including the Oscar for Best Actress for her performance as television executive Diana Christensen in the 1976 satire Network. Her performance in 1981’s Mommie Dearest, where she played actress Joan Crawford, proved much more divisive.
Dunaway was nominated for the Best Actress awards of several critics’ groups, including the National Society of Film Critics and the New York Film Critics Circle. Many singled out her impersonation of Joan Crawford as the high point of Mommie Dearest. Some felt, however, that Dunaway went over the top with her performance and was as melodramatic as the rest of the film.
In the end, the only award Dunaway got for Mommie Dearest was a Razzie for Worst Actress. To this day Dunaway refuses to discuss the film and blames it for stalling her career.
Kevin Kline
Widely considered to be one of the funniest comedies of all time, A Fish Called Wanda won its cast several awards. There seemed to be some national loyalties at play with the wins, however, as Monty Python alumni John Cleese and Michael Palin won the British Academy of Film & Television Arts (BAFTA) Awards for Best Actor and Best Supporting Actor. Kevin Kline was the only member of the cast nominated for the American Oscars, and his win for Best Supporting Actor was the film’s only Oscar win, despite also being nominated for Best Screenplay and Best Director.
Kline’s legendary ability to vanish into a role was not as well received when he played master-of-disguise Artemus Gordon in 1999’s Wild Wild West. Kline’s lack of chemistry with co-lead Will Smith led to both actors being dishonored with Razzies for Worst Screen Couple in 2000.
Sir Laurence Olivier
An astonishing fact of which few people are aware: Sir Laurence Olivier has as many Razzies as he does acting Oscars! Shocking, given Olivier’s legendary status as perhaps the greatest actor in history, but no less true for being a surprise.
Olivier was honored as Best Actor for his performance in the title role of Hamlet, which he also produced and directed in a 1948 film adaptation of the play by William Shakespeare. Though nominated many times afterward as both Best Actor and Best Supporting Actor, Olivier would never win another Oscar in his long and illustrious career. He would, however, win the 1982 Razzie for Worst Actor for his performance as General Douglas MacArthur in Inchon, which is widely believed to be the worst war movie ever made.
Roberto Benigni
A beloved writer, director, and actor in his native Italy, Roberto Benigni stunned the world by claiming multiple Oscars for his work on Life Is Beautiful - a period piece about the horrors of the Holocaust and an imaginative father who makes a game of life in a concentration camp in order to save his son. Far from the classic Hollywood heartthrob, Benigni’s Oscar win for Best Actor defied conventional wisdom.
Benigni’s next film - an adaptation of the classic Italian children’s novel Pinocchio - proved less successful internationally. Closer in tone to the surprisingly dark book than the Disney adaptation most Americans are familiar with, many were off-put by the forty-year-old Benigni’s decision to play the famous puppet himself.
Benigni won that year’s Razzie for Worst Actor, along with Breckin Meyer, who provided Pinocchio’s voice for the atrociously dubbed English version of the film.
Liza Minelli
Better known today for her work in the theatre and the stage shows built around her powerful contralto singing voice, Liza Minelli was a highly sought-after film actress in the 1970s. She received her first Oscar nomination in 1969 for The Sterile Cuckoo. She later won the 1972 Oscar for Best Actress for playing the role of singer Sally Bowles in the film adaptation of the 1966 Broadway musical Cabaret.
Largely curtailing her acting activities after appearing as Dudley Moore’s love interest in 1981’s Arthur, Minelli still did the occasional film. One of these, Rent-A-Cop, saw Minelli cast in the role of a high-class call-girl who pays a disgraced police officer (Burt Reynolds) to protect her after she sees too much during a drug-bust gone bad. Both Reynolds and Minelli were nominated for Razzies for their performances, but only Minelli saw a “win” for Worst Actress.
Charlton Heston
An obituary for Charlton Heston written by the film critic Roger Ebert said “Heston made at least three movies that almost everybody eventually sees: Ben-Hur, The Ten Commandments, and Planet of the Apes.” While the remark may have been tongue-in-cheek, it cannot be denied that Charlton Heston had a long, varied, and distinguished career in Hollywood. Heston was nominated for multiple awards, winning the Academy Award for Best Actor at the 1959 Oscars.
Heston made an uncredited cameo in the 2001 remake of Planet of the Apes, playing Zaius - the dying father of the film’s villain, General Thade. Virtually unrecognizable under heavy make-up, any doubt as to his identity was removed when he delivered a drawn out “Damn them all to Hell!” in reference to his most famous line from the original movie.
The performance was far below Heston’s usual standard and won him a Worst Supporting Actor Razzie.
Kim Basinger
Kim Basinger was a model for five years before she decided to peruse a career in acting. The former beauty pageant queen turned down a chance to be one of Charlie’s Angels before finding fame as a Bond Girl in Never Say Never Again. She appeared in the erotic romance 9 1/2 Weeks before finding more mainstream success playing reporter Vicki Vale in the first Batman movie. This led to more serious roles, including her Oscar-Winning performance as femme fatale Lynn Bracken in the 1998 neo-noir thriller L.A. Confidential.
Many felt Basinger was phoning in her performance as Elena Lincoln - the older woman who took advantage of a 15-year-old Christian Grey for her own corrupt ends - in Fifty Shades Darker. This was certainly the opinion of the Razzies voting membership, who dishonored Kim Basinger by awarding her the 2018 Razzie for Worst Supporting Actress.
Is there an actor we missed? Let us know in the comments!
