The 15 Most Awkward Oscars Moments, Ranked

Look, we all love a beautiful, inspiring Oscar moment. But we’re also only human, and we also like a little bit of a trainwreck now and again. Luckily, the Academy Awards provideth. A lot. Like, there have been a shocking amount of flubs, considering what a tightly-run production an Oscars telecast has to be. For every sweet and charming moment celebrating the magic of movies and the ephemeral quality of celebrity, we are blessed with at least a few total cringe-fests. 

Whether it’s the Academy making a misguided attempt to swing for the fences and falling flat on their faces or actors and presenters making choices that will haunt them well beyond the grave, awkward moments are never in short supply. If the Academy Awards were to ever go fully meme-happy and create a Best Gaffe category, these would undeniably be the nominees for the Most Awkward Oscars Moments.

Okay, so before we start getting into the really egregious Oscar moments, you’ll have to indulge us in a little bit of toilet humor, because this one is just too good not to mention. Dick Pope was a British cinematographer, and over the course of his storied career he received two Oscar nominations: one for “The Illusionist” and one for “Mr. Turner.” The second nomination for “Mr. Turner,” a 2014 period drama starring Timothy Spall as British painter J.M.W. Turner, is the one that concerns us today. 

When Academy president Cheryl Boone Isaacs announced his nomination, a slip of the tongue saw her call the esteemed film legend “Dick Poop” instead of “Dick Pope.” While this sort of verbal mix-up would have been devastating for Pope if he was seven years old and on a school playground, the cinematographer took it in stride. “I’ve been called a lot worse in my time,” he joked in an interview with USA Today, graciously adding, “I feel sorry for the lady who made the mispronunciation.” Sadly, Pope passed away in October 2024.

The censors for the Academy Awards telecast may not always be able to catch every accidental f-bomb before it makes it to the air, but they’re usually pretty good at not airing nudity. They had their hands full, however, at the 1974 Oscars show, when David Niven was interrupted by a naked man running across the stage. The streaker in question was Robert Opel, a 34-year-old artist and activist who used his nudity as a form of protest. As memorable as the streaking was, however, it was matched by Niven’s nimble comment, “Well, ladies and gentlemen, that was almost bound to happen … But isn’t it fascinating to think that probably the only laugh that man will ever get in his life is by stripping off and showing his shortcomings?”

Unfortunately, Opel’s life after his brief brush with fame took a turn for the tragic — just a few years after that fateful Oscars, he was robbed at gunpoint, shot in the head, and killed. But despite his sad end, we’ll always have him to thank for one of the most iconic moments in Oscars history.

In 2020, we lost Chadwick Boseman, who tragically died from colon cancer, and he was posthumously nominated for best actor for his work in “Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom.” Because Boseman was so beloved among his colleagues — and because the Academy can’t resist an uplifting narrative — they restructured the Oscar ceremony so that, instead of Best Picture ending the show, the Best Actor award would be handed out last. They would end with a bang, the producers apparently thought, awarding a cherished actor who was taken from the world too soon.

But there was just one little problem: Chadwick Boseman didn’t win the Best Actor Academy Award that year. Instead, the Welsh acting legend Anthony Hopkins won for “The Father.” To make things even more embarrassing for the Academy, Hopkins wasn’t present at the ceremony at all — it was in the middle of the COVID-19 epidemic, and the 83-year-old actor had chosen to stay home in Wales rather than attending a crowded event. So, after making a special effort to give the best actor award the most prominent spot in the telecast, the show ended abruptly on an absent winner. (Hopkins gave a belated acceptance speech when he woke up the following morning.)

Michael Moore is no stranger to controversy — we all know that. When he took home the best documentary award for “Bowling for Columbine,” a scorching indictment of America’s toxic relationship with guns and school shooting incidents, he made a speech — and boy, did he make it count.

“We like non-fiction because we live in fictitious times. We live in a time where fictitious election results give us a fictitious president. We are now fighting a war for fictitious reasons,” he said, referring to Bush’s war in Iraq, which was only days old at the time of the telecast. “We are against this war, Mr. Bush. Shame on you, Mr. Bush, shame on you. And, whenever you’ve got the Pope and the Dixie Chicks against you, your time is up.”

The audience’s reaction to these comments was decidedly mixed. Although he was at first met with applause, there was also a significant portion of the audience who booed him. The vibe of the room seemed to switch back and forth as battle lines were drawn in the audience, and he was swiftly played off by the orchestra.

When Jack Palance won best supporting actor for his work in “City Slickers,” he was old. Not to put too fine a point on it, but he was born a few months after World War I ended, and “City Slickers” came out in 1991. But as we all know, age is only a number, as Palance was keen to prove as much when he went on stage to accept his award. 

Most people would probably spend their allotted time in the spotlight delivering a speech, stumbling over a list of names and rushed thanks before narrowly avoiding getting played off. Palance, on the other hand, decided to treat the audience to a display of his ability to do one-armed pushups. Honestly, he was in his mid-70s at the time, so more power to him. If you’ve got it, flaunt it — even if it does make for one of the more bizarre Oscar acceptance speeches of all time.

Buckle up, folks, because this one is a two-parter. You’re likely familiar with that one time at the Academy Awards when John Travolta was called upon to introduce star of stage and screen Idina Menzel, but he referred to her, proudly enunciating, as the baffling “Adele Dazeem.” How he managed to get Adele Dazeem from Idina Menzel is one of the world’s greatest mysteries — we just don’t have the science to know.

But it gets even stranger. The next year, the Academy — ever eager to embrace a bit that proved popular with audiences — brought back Idina Menzel to introduce John Travolta, only this time, she referred to him as “Glom Gazingo.” Cute, right? Well, it would be, except for the fact that Travolta felt the best response to this was to creepily clutch at her chin and wrap his hand around her throat. Credit to Menzel for being a good sport two years in a row, but honestly, Travolta’s reign of terror needs to end.

If you’re familiar with Elia Kazan, it’s likely for one of two reasons. It’s either for his work as a director — his filmography includes “Gentleman’s Agreement,” “A Streetcar Named Desire,” “East of Eden,” and “On the Waterfront,” to name just a few — or for his cooperation with the House Un-American Activities Committee. There, he testified against friends and colleagues during the Red Scare, which led to the Hollywood Blacklist. So Kazan was a great director but also kind of a rat. But when it comes to the Academy Awards, do we judge solely based on creative output, or is there an expectation that the people we honor also reflect our values?

This issue came to a head when Elia Kazan was given a Lifetime Achievement Award in 1999, as the Oscars audience was seemingly split on whether or not to celebrate Kazan. You can see members of the audience making choices in the moment of how to respond — Nick Nolte and Ed Harris pointedly refuse to clap for him, while others reject the standing ovation that Lifetime Achievement Award winners usually receive. The entire atmosphere is tense, made even more so by the fact that there were crowds of protesters outside the star-studded event.

It doesn’t seem like a hard task to put together a montage of important film figures who died in a given year, but somehow, the Academy always manages to goof it up. Normally, however, it involves leaving off a deceased celebrity who deserved to make the cut — not including members of the living in their annual memorial. Jan Chapman is an Australian film producer, best known for her work on “The Last Days of Chez Nous” and “The Piano.” Jan Chapman is not dead. Please remember this last detail, because it will be important later.

The fact of Chapman’s continued survival must have come as something of a shock to the Academy, who included her picture in the in memoriam segment at the 2017 Oscars ceremony. Her photograph was mistakenly used to commemorate a different member of the Australian film industry, costume designer Janet Patterson. Chapman was quick to confirm that she was very much alive  –undoubtedly horrified by seeing her face in Hollywood’s most prominent funeral ceremony — especially since Patterson was a close friend of hers.

The opening number at the Academy Awards is always a bit of a gamble. But one thing’s for sure: Seth MacFarlane’s opening song is a master class in what not to do as host. The convoluted bit involved a cameo from William Shatner as Captain Kirk, reporting from the future to help MacFarlane avoid a disastrous hosting gig. 

We’re then treated to the musical number that MacFarlane needs to avoid doing: A crude song called “We Saw Your Boobs.” In this song, MacFarlane humiliates many of the female nominees, reminding them that although they’re now in prestige films and acknowledged with the industry’s highest honor, once upon a time they got naked in front of the camera. Because we just can’t miss an opportunity to take women down a peg, right? MacFarlane’s misogynistic number is a mess, but the most difficult part of it to watch is the reactions from the audience — especially the nominees who are forced to be denigrated in the name of comedy on what should be a celebration of their career. That’s a big part of what makes him one of the worst Oscars hosts.

Do you even know how long 11 minutes is? Here’s a fun exercise. Set an alarm on your phone for 11 minutes, sit on your couch, and wait. When you think 11 minutes had to have gone by, look at your phone. We guarantee you barely made it to the five-minute mark. Now imagine you’re sitting in an audience where a camera could land on you at any moment, so you have to pretend to be fully engaged. Talk about a nightmare.

Anyway, when the Oscars decided to do an 11-minute-long musical sequence between Snow White and Hollywood heartthrob Rob Lowe, audiences were baffled. Or at least, they were baffled at first. After a certain point, we imagine those in the room fell into despair and wondered if they would ever be allowed to leave the Oscars ceremony. In the years since, the Snow White number has had its reputation cemented as one of the worst ever Oscar bits, and for good reason — if it was possible to die of cringe, the Academy would have a lot of blood on their hands.

Do you ever think about how weird it must be for nominees who have similar-sounding names as the winner to have the briefest of moments where they think they’ve actually won? Well, this early Oscars moment captures that awkwardness and multiplies it by about a million. In 1934, Will Rogers was announcing the winner for Best Director, but rather than, you know, actually saying the name of the person who won, he simply said, “Come up and get it, Frank!”

So what’s the problem? Well, as it turns out, there were two directors named Frank who were nominated that year, and one of them was a little confused about whether or not they won. Frank Capra, nominated for “Lady for a Day,” excitedly ran up to the stage only to learn that the real winner that year was actually Frank Lloyd, who directed “Cavalcade.” Whoops! He later described his return to his seat as, “the longest, saddest, most shattering walk of my life.”

When Adrien Brody took home the Best Actor Academy Award for his work in “The Pianist,” he became the youngest best actor winner in Oscars history at 29 years old. Can we chalk this whole incident up to immaturity from a brain that had only recently finished cooking? (If you ask us, no — men don’t get to play the youthful scamp card when they’re pushing 30.)

Anyway, if you don’t remember what happened, Adrien Brody ran up on stage after winning the Oscar, and proceeding to plant a big kiss on the hapless presenter, Halle Berry, who didn’t seem … well, enthused by the prospect. Over two decades years later, society has done some thinking around issues of consent, so we can safely say that one falls under the “not okay” category. Although Brody hasn’t ever really addressed the questionable nature of the kiss, Berry has confirmed on “Watch What Happens Live” that it was decidedly not planned, and the only thoughts running through her head at the time were, “What the f*** is happening right now?!”

If you’ve somehow managed to avoid hearing about the infamous Oscars slap, please send us the address of the rock you’ve been living under, because we might like to join you there. But in case you missed it, here are the quick version: Chris Rock was presenting an award at the Oscars in 2022, and delivered a monologue that — among other things — poked fun at Jada Pinkett Smith, specifically the fact that she’s bald. Her husband, Will Smith, who was nominated that night for his performance as Serena and Venus Williams’ dad in “King Richard,” didn’t take kindly to the joke. “The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air” star expressed his displeasure by walking up to Rock, slapping him across the face, and telling him, “Keep my wife’s name out of your f***ing mouth.”

It’s hard to tell what’s the most awkward part of this awkward Oscars moment: the slap itself, that the audience couldn’t tell if it was a bit or not, or the fact that Will Smith won Best Actor later that night, and everyone had to act normal about it, like he hadn’t just cold-cocked a comedian an hour earlier. For Smith’s part, he apologized to Rock the following day, but he ended up with a decade-long ban from attending the awards by the Academy.

Marlon Brando’s performance as Vito Corleone in “The Godfather” is one of the most famous in film history, so it’s no surprise that he won a Best Actor Oscar for it. What is surprising, however, is the fact that he rejected the award, sending Native American activist Sacheen Littlefeather in his place. Her speech, which had to be condensed into just 60 seconds, explained that Brando was protesting the awards ceremony to draw attention to the negative depiction of Native Americans in Hollywood and the Wounded Knee Occupation then actively taking place.

The audience reaction was mixed — to put it lightly. In addition to the cocophony of cheers and boos that erupted during her speech, other presenters — including Raquel Welch and Clint Eastwood — poked fun at the political nature of the speech. The telecast’s co-host Michael Caine was critical of Brando’s decision to send someone else to take the heat for what he must have known would be an unpopular public statement instead of delivering it himself. According to legend, John Wayne was waiting in the wings and had to be held back from physically accosting Littlefeather (although reports vary as to whether that actually happened). 

The Academy eventually made up for how Littlefeather was treated that night, albeit nearly 50 years later.

The Oscars telecast has a tendency to run pretty long, so we can sympathize with viewers who clock out before the very end. But if you did that in 2019, you missed out on one of the most incredible moments in Oscars history. 

There have long been rumors about the Academy handing out awards to the wrong recipient by mistake, Marisa Tomei’s surprise win for “My Cousin Vinny” chief among them. But the only time we know for a fact that it happened was in 2017, in an outrageous sequence of events that immediately went into the history books. Hollywood legends Faye Dunaway and Warren Beatty were tapped to present the Best Picture award. They announced that “La La Land” had won, and the excited team stormed the stage. But then, producer Justin Horowitz abruptly told the stunned audience that there had been a mistake — “Moonlight” was the actual winner.

According to the Academy, the accounting firm PricewaterhouseCoopers (PWC) had mistakenly given them the envelope for Best Actress, which went to Emma Stone from “La La Land.” Considering their only job is to make sure presenters have the right envelope, that seems pretty egregious, but hey, we’re not here to judge.