The Most Disastrous Oscar Moments Ever

The Oscars are "Hollywood's biggest night," and even the most serious and reclusive of actors will put on their fanciest clothes and head down to the Dolby Theatre if there's a chance they or someone they work with might win one of those elusive little gold statues. The hours-long show is broadcast live to millions of viewers around the world, with a massive crew working together to present a glamorous, entertaining, and emotionally resonant evening, while movie industry professionals wait around to see if they'll earn filmmaking's most important honor.

But with so many people and so much pressure involved at the Oscars, there's a big chance for things to go wrong. And when things can go wrong, they generally do go wrong. For example, hot mics get a little too hot, envelopes and teleprompters fail, jokes flop, and earnest sentiments get taken the wrong way. Over the past 90 years, the Academy Awards have given the world as many fascinatingly awful experiences as they've provided ones of triumph and exhilaration. Here are the cringiest Oscars moments of all time.

Shortly after taking home a Grammy Award for best new artist, Sam Smith received another prize historically offered up to newly minted stars: Like Adele, Sheena Easton, and Duran Duran before him, Smith got to do a James Bond movie theme song. He both co-wrote and performed "Writing's on the Wall" from the 2015 film "Spectre," and it won Smith the Academy Award for best original song.

Alongside songwriting partner Jimmy Napes, a rightfully elated Smith took the stage at the Oscars to give his acceptance speech: "I read an article a few months ago by Sir Ian McKellen, and he said that no openly gay man had ever won an Oscar, and if this is the case — even if it isn't the case — I want to dedicate this to the LGBT community all around the world. I stand here tonight as a proud gay man and I hope we can all stand together as equals one day."

As rousing a message that is, it's not remotely accurate. As pointed out by Salon, the McKellen article Smith referenced was specifically about how no openly gay man had ever won the Oscar for best actor. Then The New York Times proved Smith was wrong by publishing a list of the many LGBTQIA+ individuals who had won an Academy Award before, from screenwriter Dustin Lance Black ("Milk") to previous best song winner Elton John ("The Lion King"). Oops.

The craziest thing happened at the 2017 Academy Awards, when the honor of presenting best picture fell to Hollywood legends and "Bonnie & Clyde" co-stars Warren Beatty and Faye Dunaway. After the nominees were announced, Beatty opened the enveloped and read the words inside, but seemed perplexed. Dunaway, visibly annoyed or at least aware of the deafening silence dragging on, took the job off Beatty's hands, looked down, and said the first printed words she saw: "La La Land." The movie's producers triumphantly took the stage and thanked the people who made the dreamy musical possible, while a lot of rushing around and chaos went on behind them. "La La Land"'s Jordan Horowitz took the mic, finally, and revealed, "There's a mistake. 'Moonlight,' you guys won Best Picture." Horowitz then held up the prize envelope to reveal that, indeed, "Moonlight" won, prompting that movie's crew to hit the stage.

Only after the debacle was it made clear how such a huge error happened. According to The Hollywood Reporter, one of the PricewaterhouseCoopers accountants tasked with making sure the right papers got handed to the presenters didn't do their job and gave Beatty the previously opened best actress envelope, which read, "Emma Stone, 'La La Land.'" Dunaway saw the name of the movie and ran with it.

In many ways, John Travolta is an ideal Academy Award presenter, particularly for a performance of one of the tunes nominated for best original song. A two-time nominee for best actor in the music-heavy films "Saturday Night Fever" and "Pulp Fiction," he's probably better known for singing and dancing his way through "Grease" and "Hairspray." But while music came easy for Travolta, speaking words regularly did not at the 2014 Oscars ceremony. His duty: read a speech off the teleprompter and throw to Idina Menzel so she could sing "Let It Go" from "Frozen." The speech was a little much, with Travolta giving praise to both the "gorgeously empowering" tune and its "wickedly talented" singer. But then, at the very end, when Travolta was just supposed to say "Idina Menzel" and get out of the way, he instead bafflingly mispronounced her name as "Adele Dazeem."

On an appearance on "Jimmy Kimmel Live!" a year later, Travolta blamed the gaffe on a backstage encounter with Goldie Hawn. "Now, Goldie Hawn is charismatic, sexy, beautiful," he told host Jimmy Kimmel. "And I was starstruck! I'm starstruck, hugging and loving her up, and forgetting that I have to go and do this bit, and they said, 'You're on.'" Right before he took the stage, a crew member told Travolta that the teleprompter would display a "phonetic spelling" of Menzel's name, a method which the actor explained he "didn't rehearse."

All those times in the '90s when Billy Crystal hosted the Academy Awards and opened the broadcast with a medley of song parodies about the nominated films might seem corny in retrospect, but those were high art compared to what they replaced. The 1989 Oscars broadcast opened with, as it often had, a big musical number, but none The Hollywood Reporter would call a "nightmare."

First, the Disney representation of Snow White (portrayed by an unknown actress named Eileen Bowman) ran up to celebs sitting in their seats while squeakily singing her way through a movie-themed parody of "I Only Have Eyes for You." Then Merv Griffin showed up to sing his 1950 novelty hit, "I've Got a Lovely Bunch of Coconuts," in a fake nightclub scene while a bunch of old-to-the-point-of-no-longer-recognizable movie stars looked on. Nearby, Bowman danced wildly, until Griffin stopped her to let her know her date had arrived — Brat Pack hunk Rob Lowe, for some reason. Together, they sang another song parody, this time of "Proud Mary." And those are just the highlights of a bombastic sequence that went on for 11 minutes.

How bad was it? Bowman quit acting and literally left Hollywood the next day, while producer Allan Carr dropped out of the movie industry for a decade.

The name "Frank" feels like a throwback — there don't seem to be as many guys with that moniker now as there were in, say, the mid-20th century. Indeed, Hollywood was lousy with directors named Frank in the 1930s, including Frank Lloyd and Frank Capra. At the 6th Academy Awards in 1934, Frank Lloyd of "Cavalcade" and Frank Capra of "Lady for a Day" competed in the best director category, and to see who would succeed the previous year's winner, Frank Borzage for "Bad Girl."

Presenting that particular award that evening: humorist Will Rogers. When it came time to announce the winner, he didn't say, "And the Oscar goes to..." or something like that, opting instead for a little speech, according to Legends Revealed. "I've watched this young man for a long time. It couldn't happen to a nicer guy," Rogers proclaimed. "Come up and get it, Frank!" Rogers shouldn't have used just a first name in a category in which two of the three nominees were named Frank. Capra shouldn't have assumed he was the Frank that Rogers was talking about. He headed up to the stage to grab his Oscar, until he noticed that the spotlight was trailing Frank Lloyd. Well, that's just embarrassing.

Today, Angelina Jolie is known primarily as a globetrotting humanitarian member of Hollywood royalty who doesn't make as many movies as she once did, deigning to participate in projects with redeeming value or which allow her to appear graceful and powerful. This is a completely different Angelina Jolie than the one who was the talk of the 2000 Academy Awards. Jolie actually won an Oscar that night, best supporting actress for her breakout role in "Girl Interrupted." What's better remembered, however, is how she pawed at and slobbered all over her brother (and lookalike) James Haven both before and throughout the show.

"I'm in shock and I'm so in love with my brother right now," Jolie said with a laugh, which prompted not a knowing or supporting laughter from the audience of her peers, but instead a palpably weird silence. "He just held me and said he loved me and I know he's so happy for me, and thank you for that," Jolie added, and with no audible reaction from the assembly. After delivering a standard acceptance speech, Jolie returned to the subject of her brother. "Jamie, I have nothing without you," she gushed. "You are the strongest, most amazing man I've ever known, I love you." That's all a little much, but it's more than the non-acknowledgement Hilary Swank gave to her husband, Chad Lowe, when she won an Oscar later that night.

The most surprising moment of the 2010 Academy Awards was not when "The Hurt Locker" upset "Avatar" to win best picture, but when a behind-the-scenes squabble spilled out onto the stage during the presentation of the otherwise scandal-free award for best documentary short. "Music by Prudence," a film about inspiring Zimbabwean musician Prudence Mabhena, won an Oscar for director Roger Ross Williams and producer Elinor Burkett. While both were officially winners, only Williams took the stage to accept ... at first. "Two years ago, when I got on an airplane and went to Zimbabwe, I never imagined in my most wildest dreams that I'd end up here. This is so exciting," Williams said, until Burkett ran up next to him, cut him off, and started giving her dramatic, prepared remarks about the power of the film's subject material.

What exactly happened there? "The director and I had a bad difference over the direction of the film that resulted in a lawsuit that has settled amicably out of court," Burkett told Salon. She added that she and Williams weren't speaking, and she hadn't been invited to any Oscars-related events, so she took matters into her own hands. "When he won, he raced up there to accept the award. And his mother took her cane and blocked me. So I couldn't get up there very fast." Uh, thanks, mom?

Arguably the most boring part of any Oscars telecast is the part when the host thanks the team of accountants who tally and keep secure those Academy Awards votes. It's a necessary, if subtle, way to let viewers know that the procedures surrounding the ceremony are legitimate and taken seriously. When hosting the 2016 Academy Awards, host Chris Rock attempted to inject some humor into this well-known, albeit lamented, tradition. 

First, Rock introduced representatives of accounting firm PriceWaterhouseCoopers, who assigned "their most dedicated, accurate, and hard-working representatives" to count ballots, the comedian said, per the Los Angeles Times. "Please welcome Ming Zhu, Bao Ling, and David Moskowitz." From the wings emerged three children, dressed in suits and holding briefcases. Also, they were all of Asian descent, alluding to the stereotype that people from that part of the world are good at math. The crowd didn't laugh much, and Rock had a zinger loaded up. "If anybody's upset about that joke, just tweet about it on your phone that was also made by these kids." Oof.

Weeks later, after prominent Asian and Asian-American film professionals, including Ang Lee, George Takei, and Sandra Oh, sent the Academy a letter of protest, the Academy publicly apologized.

A critical and commercial smash, "The Godfather" also represented a comeback vehicle for former screen idol Marlon Brando. The epic 1972 crime family saga was a favorite to take home some, if not all, of the many Academy Award nominations it received, particularly a best actor statuette for Brando. What a TV moment it would make when Brando, one of the world's greatest living actors, accepted his award for leading the cast of one of the finest films ever made. But when presenter Liv Ullmann read his name, Brando didn't take the stage — a young woman named Sacheen Littlefeather, president of the National Native American Affirmative Image Committee, did.

Littlefeather was active in the American Indian Movement, which made headlines in early 1973 for siege on Wounded Knee, South Dakota. The cause found an ally in Brando, who sent Littlefeather to decline his award as a protest against "the treatment of American Indians today by the film industry," the activist said, interrupted by boos from some of the Hollywood elite. 

While Littlefeather received some cheers and a smattering of applause, some members of the Academy responded to Brando and Littlefeather's protest with some unnecessarily catty remarks. When presenting best actress, Raquel Welch quipped, "I hope they haven't got a cause," and when Clint Eastwood handed out the trophy for best picture, he said he was doing it "on behalf of all the cowboys shot in John Ford westerns over the years."

The 1974 Oscars saw some of the most iconic films and performers in cinema history receive their flowers. "The Sting" won seven awards, including Best Picture; "The Exorcist" was a multiple winner, too, and Tatum O'Neal became the youngest Oscar-winner in history for her efforts in "Paper Moon." However, the night is probably best remembered now for the Oscars streaker. As "Around the World in 80 Days" star David Niven was introducing Best Picture presenter Elizabeth Taylor, a man named Robert Opel streaked across the stage behind him in the nude, eliciting laughter from the audience.

Niven began his introduction of Taylor by saying (via Oscars/YouTube), "And now to divulge the contents of this year's most important envelope is a very important contributor to world entertainment." Before he could finish the thought, however, Opel executed his big run, contributing what was arguably the most infamous moment in Oscars history at the time. For his part, Niven mused that Opel received what would probably go down as the only earned laugh in his life "by stripping off and showing his shortcomings." Meanwhile, Taylor noted that the streaking incident was "a pretty hard act to follow." The incident may have been an embarrassment for the Academy, but Opel became an instant celebrity. Sadly, he was shot and killed at his art gallery five years later.

The 2021 Oscars appeared to be headed for a poignant moment as the Academy made the surprising move to close the show with the presentation of its Best Actor statuette. Among the nominees was the late Chadwick Boseman, who had starred as Levee Green in "Ma Rainey's Black Bottom," and the break from the show's typical format led many to believe that Boseman — who died due to complications from colon cancer in August 2020 — was slated to posthumously receive the award. Instead, Anthony Hopkins captured the trophy, becoming the oldest Best Actor winner in Oscars history for his performance in "The Father." It was a veritable Oscars upset that left many feeling heartbroken, and the kicker was that Hopkins wasn't even there to accept his award.

It was absolute cinema in the worst way possible. Wrote one X user: "An absent Anthony Hopkins winning over Chadwick Boseman during a ceremony built to end around a Boseman win, while Joaquin Phoenix awkwardly stumbles through it all is ... wow. Chaos!" For his part, the "Black Panther" star's brother, Derrick Boseman, told TMZ that he didn't view Chadwick's not winning the award as a snub, as the field was crowded with incredibly talented actors. He added that he and his family all wished Hopkins the best because, "I'm sure [Hopkins] would if Chad won." Meanwhile, Hopkins later paid homage to Boseman in a video acceptance speech on Instagram, saying, "I want to pay tribute to Chadwick Boseman, who was taken from us far too early."

Chris Rock was well-known for not pulling punches with his comedy long before he was tapped to present the award for Best Documentary Feature at the 2022 Oscars. However, things went horribly awry while Rock was riffing with some of the stars in attendance before announcing the winner when Rock made a "G.I. Jane" joke at the expense of Jada Pinkett Smith, who was diagnosed with alopecia years earlier and had taken to shaving her head due to the condition. Although the line drew laughs from the crowd — and even Jada's husband, Will Smith, appeared to chuckle initially — the "Red Table Talk" host and actress was visibly nonplussed. Moments later, Smith walked onto the stage, slapped Rock in the face, and then returned to his seat. As Rock attempted to regain his composure, Smith twice shouted, "Keep my wife's name out [of] your f*****g mouth!"

Bizarrely, Smith received two standing ovations from the crowd later in the show when he received the Best Actor award for his turn as Richard Williams in "King Richard." In the wake of the incident, the Academy was criticized for not taking action as the show continued to unfold. "While we would like to clarify that Mr. Smith was asked to leave the ceremony and refused, we also recognize we could have handled the situation differently," a statement from the Academy read (via The Hollywood Reporter) in the aftermath. Smith later received a 10-year ban from all Academy events.

The world was seemingly Jennifer Lawrence's oyster back in 2013. In addition to being nominated for Best Actress for her efforts alongside Bradley Cooper in "Silver Linings Playbook" (as a 22-year-old, no less), the "Hunger Games" films had fully permeated the pop culture zeitgeist. When she was announced as the winner of the Oscar, it felt like the culmination of her unlikely journey to the top of the Hollywood heap — until she face-planted. As Lawrence made her way up to the stage to accept her statuette, she tripped while attempting to navigate the stairs in her pricy Dior gown. She later confessed that she had misinterpreted an instruction from her stylist on how to do so, which instead left her thinking about cake.

Lawrence's tumble remains a topic of conversation around Oscars time even now, years later. In 2024, Amelia Dimoldenberg probed the "Hunger Games" star for tips to future winners to avoid face-planting on their way to the stage. "Well, yeah, just don't do that," Lawrence told Dimoldenberg on the red carpet (via the Academy's Instagram). "You know, I fell the next year too. So, then it just looked like I 100% faked [it]. ... Oh, it was awful." Regardless of her Oscars missteps, it's difficult to deny that Lawrence has undergone a stunning transformation over the years.

After years of rumblings about its efforts to foster an inclusive environment and celebrate artists of all backgrounds, the Academy's diversity problem exploded into the public consciousness in 2015 when all 20 of the announced nominees in the major acting categories for the Oscars were white. The lack of color was shocking; in short order, the hashtag #OscarsSoWhite — originated by activist/writer April Reign in a X post — became a rallying cry on social media for those who felt that non-white artists weren't being proportionately recognized for their contributions to the film medium. In response to the outcry, Academy President Cheryl Boone Isaacs stated (via Syracuse.com) that the organization "continues to make strides toward becoming a more diverse and inclusive organization," expressing hope that the film industry would "also make strides toward becoming more diverse and inclusive."

It was a bad look for the Academy, that has a membership base that is overwhelmingly white and male, even now after the organization has attempted to diversify itself. Controversy struck again in 2023 when Andrea Riseborough shockingly received a Best Actress nomination for her efforts in the indie film "To Leslie," a movie seen by a relatively small number of people at the time. Her nomination reportedly came after a campaign by prominent (and white) actors that some claimed skirted the Academy's own rules. Meanwhile, Black stars like Danielle Deadwyler (for "Till") and Viola Davis ("The Woman King") missed out.

With each passing year, viewers move further away from the content delivery systems of years past, like broadcast television, in favor of streaming services and online platforms. In what was a sign of the times, the Academy and its broadcast partner for the 2025 Oscars, ABC, simulcast the show live on Hulu for the first time. The adoption of streaming was a landmark moment for the organization, which remains deeply rooted in Hollywood tradition. Unfortunately, the move to embrace new media went over horrendously, as viewers battled technical issues, including stream freezes, crashes, and more. 

The coup de grâce came when the Hulu stream cut out early, just before the nominees for Best Actress were announced (and before that award and the Best Picture trophy were presented). Hulu apologized in the wake of the incident, with a statement from a Disney rep reading (via The Wrap), "Yesterday evening, we experienced technical and livestream issues on Hulu which impacted some Oscars viewers. We apologize for the experience. A full replay of the event is available on Hulu and Hulu on Disney+." However, subscribers and movie fans alike had already blown their gaskets over the failed simulcast.