17 Lowest-Grossing Best Picture Winners in Oscars History
Many of this year's Best Picture nominees were bigger hits with critics than at the box office. If one of them wins, then they will join the club of lowest-grossing films (domestic) to win the Academy's highest honor. Here are other winners that went home with the gold despite their low grosses.
17. 'Moonlight' (2016)
Domestic Total Gross: $27,854,932 Remember when the Oscars messed up the Best Picture winner live on TV? This powerful and emotionally resonate indie deserved better. Thankfully, it has the big award for its trouble.
16. 'The English Patient' (1996)
Original Gross: $78,676,425 Adjusted Gross: $121,024,800 This adaptation of the epic romantic drama grossed double overseas what it made in the U.S. It was a hit with critics and the Academy -- winning nine Oscars.
15. 'The Last Emperor' (1987)
Original Gross: $43,984,000 Adjusted Gross: $91,660,178 The Bernardo Bertolucci film, which earned nine Oscars, never got a release wider than 877 theaters, making its per-screen average a rather impressive $50,153.
14. 'No Country for Old Men' (2007)
Original Gross: $74,273,505 Adjusted Gross: $84,802,946 This was the Coen Bros.' highest grossing film until “True Grit” (2010), which racked up $171 million. “No Country for Old Men” out-earned three of its Best Picture competitors: “Atonement,” “Michael Clayton” and “There Will Be Blood.”
13. 'Crash' (2005)
Original Gross: $54,557,348 Adjusted Gross: $66,132,556 “Crash” may have gone home with the Oscar (and the title of Most Overrated Best Picture Winner Ever), but “Brokeback Mountain” beat it at the box office with $83 million. And if Academy members were voting today, they'd go with “Brokeback” a poll by the Hollywood Reporter found.
12. 'Gigi' (1958)
Original Gross: $7,321,000 Adjusted Gross: $59,970,389 The musical, starring Leslie Caron and the late Louis Jourdan, won a then-record-breaking nine Oscars. It's considered the last great MGM musical but earned less than half of “South Pacific’s” box office that year.
11. '12 Years a Slave' (2013)
Original Gross: $56,671,993 Adjusted Gross: $57,591,319 A harrowing tale of slavery wasn't an easy sell to the American public. It never expanded beyond 1,474 screens, giving it a $38,447 per screen average, but it clearly found an audience.
10. 'The Great Ziegfeld' (1936)
Original Gross: $3,000,000 Adjusted Gross: $51,094,100 This biopic of entertainer Florenz Ziegfeld, Jr. stars “Thin Man” leads William Powell and Myrna Loy. It earned more than some of its Best Picture competition, including “A Tale of Two Cities” and “Mr. Deeds Goes to Town.”
9. 'The Artist' (2011)
Original Gross: $44,671,682 Adjusted Gross: $47,014,503 While critics loved it, audiences weren't sold on a modern-day silent film. “The Artist” was the 71st highest-grossing film of 2011.
8. 'Spotlight' (2015)
Original Gross: $45,055,776 Adjusted Gross: $45,880,028 This engrossing Best Picture winner is one of two to star Michael Keaton back-to-back -- and this slow-burn, old-school journalism drama out-grossed the other (“Birdman”).
7. 'It Happened One Night' (1934)
Original Gross: $2,500,000 Adjusted Gross: $44,167,164 It was the first film to win Best Picture, Actor (Clark Cable), Actress (Claudette Colbert), Director (Frank Capra), and Screenplay. But at the box office, it couldn't compete with Colbert as “Cleopatra.”
6. 'Birdman' (2014)
Original Gross: $42,340,598 Adjusted Gross: $43,166,355 We're still reeling over Michael Keaton losing the Best Actor award here. And what the film lacks is robust grosses it makes up for with four Oscar wins, including Best Original Screenplay and Best Director.
5. 'An American in Paris' (1951)
Original Gross: $4,531,000 Adjusted Gross: $41,255,800 The musical, starring Gene Kelly, won Best Picture over the higher-grossing “A Streetcar Named Desire,” which swept the acting awards that year.
4. 'Marty' (1955)
Original Gross: $4,000,000 Adjusted Gross: $35,330,000 With a reported budget of just $350,000, this drama about a lonely butcher (Best Actor winner Ernest Borgnine) also had small returns at the box office, which went nuts that year for “Mister Robert” and big-budget musicals like “Oklahoma!”
3. 'All the King's Men' (1949)
Original Gross: $3,500,000 Adjusted Gross: $34,814,117 This political drama was the lowest-grossing film in the 1949 Best Picture race. Deal with it.
2. 'Hamlet' (1948)
Original Gross: $3,075,000 Adjusted Gross: $30,205,942 Fifty years later, audiences (and the Academy) fell for Best Picture winner “Shakespeare in Love” but the great Laurence Olivier (who also won Best Actor) as Hamlet failed to do big box office.
1. 'The Hurt Locker' (2009)
Original Gross: $17,017,811 Adjusted Gross: $19,415,300 After taking home six Oscars -- including Best Director for Kathryn Bigelow -- that less-than-$20 million gross is a non-issue. It is currently the lowest-grossing winner ever.
