Oscars: Top 10 Worst Best Picture Winners

1. Cimarron, Wesley Ruggles, 1930

I applaud the many of you who have never tortured yourself through Wesley Ruggles’ Cimarron. The film was the only Western to win the Best Picture prize until Dances with Wolves and Unforgiven six decades later.

Cimarron can’t be written of as a “product of its time,” simply because it’s not. Early sound Westerns did struggle to film outdoors, but Cimarron did that well. The issue with the film is that it is still relying on silent techniques, including title cards to move the story along. Other Westerns were already able to do that without cards.

In addition, the acting is just awful. Richard Dix, a silent film star, plays the lead role of a man who is celebrated because he’d rather be an explorer than take care of his family. He’s overacting, swinging his arms around as if he wasn’t told that his voice was being recorded. Irene Dunne, one of the best actresses of the late ‘30s, is too young to play his wife and the heavy makeup she is forced to wear at the end of the film looks terrible.

And then there’s the treatment of the Native Americans of Oklahoma. Dix’s character is supposed to be in favor of giving them rights, but he still uses racial slurs that make us squirm today. There’s also an uncomfortable moment at the very end of the film when his son’s Native American wife introduces herself.

The film’s best known sequence is in its first five minutes - the enthralling rush for land. But after that, it gets hard to watch.