Awards season is upon us, which can mean only one thing: FRAUD. Every year, studios roll out “For Your Consideration” campaigns for their annual slates of films, and every year, some studio tries to game the system by campaigning a lead performance as a supporting one, or vice versa, to increase its chances of bringing home a trophy. Last year, Oscar pundits feuded over whether Lily Gladstone should have campaigned in the Best Supporting Actress category for her role in Killers of the Flower Moon; in the 2019-20 season, many wondered whether Brad Pitt should really be winning Best Supporting Actor for what seemed, on paper, like more of a coleading role in Once Upon a Time … in Hollywood. It’s a tale as old as time, and a song as old as the Academy itself.
But this year is poised to be the fraudiest awards season in Oscar history, with many pundits predicting that the supporting wins will go to Zoe Saldaña for Emilia Pérez and Kieran Culkin for A Real Pain, both objectively leading performances. And aside from them, we’ve got Danielle Deadwyler in The Piano Lesson, Ariana Grande in Wicked, and Mike Faist and Josh O’Connor in Challengers, all leading turns looking to break into the race by avoiding the crowded Best Actor and Actress categories and stealing slots from genuine supporting bids.
Of course, calling anything in the Oscar race “fraud” is inherently silly; there’s nothing criminal about George Burns winning Best Supporting Actor for the leading role of Al Lewis in The Sunshine Boys, even if it did take a slot from John Cazale’s incendiary work in Dog Day Afternoon or make it so that Brad Dourif couldn’t win for his heartbreaking turn in One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest.
Still, it’s a Hollywood tradition, and it’s fun to debate the more questionable category placements in Oscar history and examine the various sliding-doors moments opened and closed by such malfeasance. So here are, in ranked order, the 25 most egregious bits of category fraud in the 97 years of the Academy Awards.
25. Gene Wilder, The Producers, 1969 Academy Awards
Nominated: Supporting
Should’ve been: Lead
Could’ve been nominated instead: Anthony Hopkins, The Lion in Winter (BAFTA nomination for Best Actor)
It’s hard to grouse about a comedic performance nomination at the Academy Awards, particularly an all-timer such as this, but calling this a supporting performance is a debacle on par with Springtime for Hitler. Not only does Wilder’s turn as the nebbish, blue-blanket-nursing accountant Leo Bloom match Zero Mostel’s blustering Max Bialystock pound for pound but his journey from spineless pencil pusher to big-shot Broadway producer makes him the de facto protagonist of the film. At the 2001 Tony Awards, Matthew Broderick (who played Bloom in the Broadway musical adaptation) was nominated alongside Nathan Lane (Bialystock) for Lead Actor. Lane won, but at least Broderick didn’t take up a legitimate supporting slot.
24. William H. Macy, Fargo, 1997
Nominated: Supporting
Should’ve been: Lead
Could’ve been nominated instead: Paul Scofield, The Crucible (BAFTA, Golden Globe nominations)
Fargo is about pregnant Minnesota police chief Marge Gunderson investigating a triple homicide inadvertently caused by Macy’s car dealership sales manager, Jerry Lundegaard. The two characters drive the story equally and share a similar amount of screen time, yet Frances McDormand won Best Actress for playing Marge, while Macy was nominated for Best Supporting Actor. The only major awards body to correct this blunder was the Independent Spirit Awards, which gave Macy the win for Best Male Lead.
23. Cate Blanchett, Notes on a Scandal, 2007
Nominated: Supporting
Should’ve been: Lead
Could’ve been nominated instead: Emily Blunt, The Devil Wears Prada (Golden Globe, BAFTA nominations)
It should’ve been a “gold star” day in Best Actress for both Judi Dench and Blanchett, whose category division feels like a blow to Notes on a Scandal’s status as a camp actress face-off on par with All About Eve or What Ever Happened to Baby Jane? The objective truth is that this movie is a two-hander; while we begin from the point of view of Dench’s obsessed teacher, Barbara Covett, equal agency is given to Barbara and Blanchett’s transgressive Sheba Hart.
22. LaKeith Stanfield and Daniel Kaluuya, Judas and the Black Messiah, 2021
Nominated: Supporting (Kaluuya won)
Should’ve been: Lead, at least for Stanfield
Could’ve been nominated instead: Alan Kim, Minari (BAFTA nomination, its own kind of fraud)
Could’ve won if Kaluuya had moved: Paul Raci, Sound of Metal (Independent Spirit Awards, National Board of Review, National Society of Film Critics wins)
It’s hard to justify this one as any type of active fraud. Warner Brothers’ FYC campaign for the film made it clear that Stanfield was campaigning for the lead and that Kaluuya would be going for the supporting category. Kaluuya became the sweeper of a bizarre awards season (this was the COVID year), clinching wins at the Golden Globes, BAFTA Awards, and SAG Awards, while Stanfield never really found a place in a fairly crowded Best Actor category. That is, until Oscar-nomination morning, when he was announced as an out-of-the-blue nominee in Best Supporting Actor alongside his costar. The nomination was controversial at the time; though, retrospectively, it was most likely the product of a weak field and confusion as to where the two actors should be placed. Academy voters can nominate performances in whichever category they deem fit, and the math did what the math did.
Still, Stanfield is the undeniable protagonist of the film. If anything, one could argue Kaluuya should’ve been in Best Actor with him. Either way, putting both “Judas” and “the Black messiah” in the supporting category for a movie called Judas and the Black Messiah is one of the strangest things that’s ever happened at the Oscars.
21. Julia Roberts, August: Osage County, 2014
Nominated: Supporting
Should’ve been: Lead
Could’ve been nominated instead: Oprah Winfrey, The Butler (SAG, BAFTA nominations)
Fun fact: Nobody has thought about this movie since 2014. That said, this is a weird instance where the person nominated for a supporting performance was actually in more of the movie than the one nominated as a lead (Meryl Streep). According to screen-time tracker Matthew Stewart, Roberts is on-screen for 46.55 percent of the film, while Streep clocks in at 43.97 percent. Evidently, this is a colead situation—in kind, both roles were up for Best Actress at the Tony Awards. If both needed to get Oscar attention, that’s how it should have happened there as well.
20. Meryl Streep, The Devil Wears Prada, 2007
Nominated: Lead
Should’ve been: Supporting
Could’ve been nominated instead: Beyoncé, Dreamgirls (Golden Globe nomination)
Sometimes a role looms so large that it feels like the lead, even if it really isn’t. It’s hard to argue with Streep’s placement in the lead category, given that her turn as Miranda Priestly is inarguably one of the most iconic performances of the century, as well as the single role that catapulted her into the “Great Actress Behaving Badly” era in which she’s still thriving today. Plus, it feels somewhat more ethical to campaign a supporting performance in a lead category: In doing so, one is at risk of getting overshadowed by performances with more screen time, while the reverse often takes nomination slots away from true non-lead performances. But the fact of the matter is that this is a really juicy supporting role; it’s no different than something like J.K. Simmons’s Best Supporting Actor–winning turn as Terence Fletcher in Whiplash. While Streep feels like the clear highlight, the movie centers on Anne Hathaway’s Andy; we are never privy to Miranda when Andy is not directly interacting with her. And though screen time isn’t everything, she’s in the film almost three times less than Hathaway. (Hathaway is on-screen for 68.16 percent of Prada. Streep? Just 26.22 percent.)
19. Ethan Hawke, Training Day, 2002
Nominated: Supporting
Should’ve been: Lead
Could’ve been nominated instead: Steve Buscemi would’ve likely stood a chance for Ghost World, for which he picked up several critics prizes and a Golden Globe nom. But it’s also worth spotlighting the BAFTA nominees of 2002, which included Robbie Coltrane as Hagrid in Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone and Eddie Murphy as Donkey in Shrek. What I’m saying is Shrek was robbed.
Here is another egregious case of a movie offering up a coleading performance as a supporting performance to get both actors in. Denzel Washington’s Oscar-winning turn as narcotics officer Alonzo Harris may be the film’s high-wire centerpiece, but Hawke’s Jake Hoyt is every bit a lead. In fact, as with Roberts and Streep in August, Hawke is in the movie more than his costar (61.05 percent to 60.08 percent). Given the competition, it’s unlikely Hawke could have nabbed a slot in Best Actor, but at least then there would’ve been room in his category for actual supporting performances.
18. Jamie Foxx, Collateral, 2005
Nominated: Supporting
Should’ve been: Lead
Could’ve been nominated instead: David Carradine, Kill Bill: Volume 2 (Golden Globe nomination)
Tom Cruise was not nominated for Michael Mann’s 2004 film, Collateral, but if he had been, it would’ve been yet another case of the supporting nominee having more screen time than the lead, this time significantly so (Foxx with 53.60 percent and Cruise with 38.82). This was a case where Foxx was the front-runner in Best Actor for his performance in Ray, but he wanted to capitalize on the momentum of a hot season and try to snag two nominations in the same year.
17. Casey Affleck, The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford, 2008
Nominated: Supporting
Should’ve been: Lead
Could’ve been nominated instead: Tommy Lee Jones, No Country for Old Men (BAFTA, SAG nominations), or Paul Dano, There Will Be Blood (BAFTA nomination)
Affleck plays the titular “coward Robert Ford.” He is the central figure of the film, yet he campaigned in the supporting category because his costar, Brad Pitt, was more famous. As with Foxx, Hawke, and Roberts, he is in the movie more than the actor in the lead category.
16. Mary Badham, To Kill a Mockingbird, 1963
Nominated: Supporting
Should’ve been: Lead
Could’ve been nominated instead: Hermione Gingold, The Music Man (Golden Globe nomination)
Here we are at the first instance on this list where a leading performance was nominated in a supporting category simply because it was given by a child. Anyone who’s read or seen To Kill a Mockingbird knows it’s chiefly a coming-of-age story about Scout Finch, played here by Badham. Gregory Peck deservedly won Best Actor for playing her father, Atticus, but Badham absolutely should’ve been considered a colead.
15. Julianne Moore, The Hours, 2003
Nominated: Supporting
Should’ve been: Lead
Could’ve been nominated instead: Toni Collette, About a Boy (BAFTA nomination)
Any gay man who follows the Oscars no doubt has an opinion about The Hours, Stephen Daldry’s 2002 actress-centered drama about three women of different eras all connected via Virginia Woolf’s 1925 novel, Mrs Dalloway. Meryl Streep plays Clarissa Vaughan, Julianne Moore plays Laura Brown, and Nicole Kidman plays Woolf herself—and given that the film splits its time fairly evenly between the three women, it feels only fair to consider them all leads. Yet Moore campaigned in supporting, while Streep and Kidman were in lead, with Kidman eventually winning the Oscar. When examining the field, the reasoning for this is clearly logistical and strategic; Streep was also contending in supporting for her role in Adaptation, and Moore was a Best Actress contender for Far From Heaven. While Streep picked up nods at BAFTA and the Golden Globes for The Hours, she eventually missed out at the Oscars, having to settle for a sole supporting nod for Adaptation. But Moore was a double nominee this year, losing in the lead category to her Hours costar Kidman and in supporting to Chicago’s Catherine Zeta-Jones.
14. Hailee Steinfeld, True Grit, 2011
Nominated: Supporting
Should’ve been: Lead
Could’ve been nominated instead: Mila Kunis, Black Swan (Golden Globe, SAG nominations)
This one is a bit of a double whammy: another child performance misplaced in a supporting category and another colead who’s in the movie more than her Academy-recognized male costar. Jeff Bridges was nominated for Best Actor for his performance as Rooster Cogburn, but the film begins and ends with Steinfeld’s Mattie Ross. The BAFTAs were the only ones to nominate her in the correct category.
13. Mahershala Ali, Green Book (2019)
Nominated: Supporting (won)
Should’ve been: Lead
Could’ve been nominated instead: Timothée Chalamet was nominated by SAG, BAFTA, the Critics Choice Awards, and the Golden Globes for Beautiful Boy, which makes it a bit cruel that he eventually missed out on Oscar-nomination morning in favor of Sam Rockwell in Vice. For what it’s worth, this is also fraud: Not only is Beautiful Boy a bad movie but Chalamet is also a colead.
Could’ve won instead: Richard E. Grant, Can You Ever Forgive Me? (New York Film Critics Circle win)
Ali won two Oscars in the 2010s, one for the shortest Best Supporting Actor–winning performance of the decade (20 minutes and 36 seconds in Moonlight) and one for the longest (66 minutes and 38 seconds in Green Book). The latter is a case of category misplacement being not only egregious but damning for the film itself. Green Book’s insistence on telling the story of Black pianist Don Shirley’s 1962 concert tour of the Deep South from the perspective of his white bodyguard and driver (played by Viggo Mortensen in a Best Actor–nominated role) is exactly the kind of regressive choice that led to such controversy around the film. But discourse aside, this is very clearly a road movie about two men, and Mahershala is along for the ride just as much as Viggo. To relegate the Black lead of a story about a Black artist to the supporting category just magnifies the movie’s iffy politics.
12. Anne Bancroft, The Graduate, 1968
Nominated: Lead
Should’ve been: Supporting
Could’ve been nominated instead: Bibi Andersson, Persona (National Society of Film Critics win)
This is another Miranda Priestly situation. Bancroft’s performance as Mrs. Robinson is so imposing that it’s difficult to be mad at her inclusion in Best Actress. But while she acts as a catalyst for Dustin Hoffman’s Benjamin Braddock, she largely disappears around the movie’s midpoint. She is indeed the actress with the most substantial role in the film, but it’s tough to see her as a colead. This is not a story about Ben and Mrs. Robinson, nor about Ben and her daughter, Elaine—it’s a story about Ben.
11. Patty Duke, The Miracle Worker, 1963
Nominated: Supporting (won)
Should’ve been: Lead
Could’ve been nominated instead: Once again, Hermione Gingold, The Music Man (Golden Globe nomination)
Could’ve won instead: Angela Lansbury, The Manchurian Candidate (Golden Globe, National Board of Review wins)
A few years before The Graduate, Anne Bancroft won Best Actress for playing Helen Keller’s tutor, Anne Sullivan, in The Miracle Worker. Her costar, Patty Duke, who played Keller, was also able to clinch a win thanks to her strategic placement in the supporting category. But as with Badham and Steinfeld, this is another blatant example of a colead being nominated in a supporting category simply because they’re a child. Sure, playwright William Gibson’s take on The Miracle Worker was to center the story on Sullivan, but this is still very much a film about the relationship between a teacher and student. It’s like Amadeus, another story of a famous historical figure told through an atypical point of view. F. Murray Abraham and Tom Hulce were both nominated as leads for that film, and the same should have been true of Bancroft and Duke, even if it meant only one could win.
10. Emma Stone, The Favourite, 2019
Nominated: Supporting
Should’ve been: Lead
Could’ve been nominated instead: Claire Foy, First Man (Golden Globe, Critics Choice, BAFTA nominations)
The protagonist of The Favourite is Stone’s Abigail Hill. At the beginning of the film, she wants to be the favorite, and by the end of the film, she is the favorite (more or less). There are various ways you could rearrange Stone’s, Rachel Weisz’s, and Olivia Colman’s category placements in 2019. Stone being in the lead category with Weisz and Colman in supporting makes sense; Colman as the lone supporting nod with Stone and Weisz in the lead category as the competitors for her favor does too. You could even throw them all in the lead category and see what happens. But regardless of the arrangement, it makes absolutely no sense that Stone was placed in Best Supporting Actress.
9. Haley Joel Osment, The Sixth Sense, 2000
Nominated: Supporting
Should’ve been: Lead
Could’ve been nominated instead: Chris Cooper, American Beauty (SAG nomination)
The trend of hating on children continues. While M. Night Shyamalan’s breakout hit begins and ends with Bruce Willis’s Malcolm Crowe (Willis was sadly not nominated at the Oscars for Best Actor), Osment’s Cole Sear objectively emerges as a colead. The film is split fairly evenly between the two characters, with plenty of time devoted to Cole separate from Malcolm. This is also another one where the so-called “supporting” actor has a screen-time edge over the “lead” (44.14 percent for Osment and 43.16 percent for Willis).
8. John Travolta and Samuel L. Jackson, Pulp Fiction, 1995
Nominated: Lead for Travolta, supporting for Jackson
Should’ve been: Either both leads or both supporting
Could’ve been nominated if Travolta had moved: Terence Stamp, The Adventures of Priscilla, Queen of the Desert (BAFTA, Golden Globe nominations)
Could’ve been nominated if Jackson had moved: John Turturro, Quiz Show (SAG, Golden Globe nominations)
Three performances from Pulp Fiction were nominated at the Oscars: John Travolta for Best Actor, Uma Thurman for Best Supporting Actress, and Samuel L. Jackson for Best Supporting Actor. Uma’s nod is fair, but separating Travolta and Jackson into the lead and supporting categories doesn’t track. While Travolta does indeed have more screen time than Jackson (33.36 percent to 25.53 percent), the film is divided into three sections, each with a clear principal character. Travolta has “Vincent Vega and Marsellus Wallace’s Wife,” Bruce Willis has “The Gold Watch,” and Jackson has “The Bonnie Situation.” Either all three actors are leads, or the whole cast should be treated as an ensemble, Spotlight style, with Travolta being bumped down to supporting.
7. Daniel Day-Lewis, Gangs of New York, 2003
Nominated: Lead
Should’ve been: Supporting
Could’ve been nominated instead: Richard Gere, Chicago (SAG, Golden Globe nominations)
DDL may very well be the greatest actor of all time, but this just feels like an ego-fueled “I don’t want to be in supporting” move. As with Miranda Priestly in The Devil Wears Prada and Mrs. Robinson in The Graduate, Bill the Butcher is the flashiest role in the film. And considering that Leonardo DiCaprio’s actual lead performance as Amsterdam Vallon never really factored into the awards season, there was room for Day-Lewis to run the table in the Best Actor race. But while Bill the Butcher is undoubtedly a full meal of a supporting role, that doesn’t change the fact that, for better or worse, it’s Amsterdam’s story.
6. Tatum O’Neal, Paper Moon, 1974
Nominated: Supporting (won)
Should’ve been: Lead
Could’ve been nominated instead: Kate Reid, A Delicate Balance (Golden Globe nomination)
Could’ve won instead: Linda Blair, The Exorcist (Golden Globe win)
Here’s the final example of a child performance being relegated to a supporting category, and it is easily the most egregious one. Addie Loggins is clearly the movie’s main character. The nomination of O’Neal alongside Madeline Kahn, who gives a true supporting performance as Trixie Delight in the same film, just exposes how very silly this is.
5. Louise Fletcher, One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest, 1976
Nominated: Lead (won)
Should’ve been: Supporting
Could’ve been nominated instead: Julie Christie, Shampoo (Golden Globe nomination)
Could’ve won instead: Isabelle Adjani, The Story of Adele H. (National Board of Review, National Society of Film Critics, and New York Film Critics Circle wins)
It’s tough to knock this one, both because Fletcher’s acceptance speech is one of the best and most affecting of all time and because her campaign in the lead category cemented Cuckoo’s Nest as one of only three films in Oscar history to win “the big five”: Best Picture, Director, Actor, and Actress, plus a screenplay award. (Cuckoo’s Nest shares that honor with It Happened One Night and The Silence of the Lambs.) But it doesn’t change the fact that with just 16.96 percent of the film’s screen time, Nurse Ratched is in the same category as Miranda Priestly, Mrs. Robinson, and Bill the Butcher. Bumping her from the lead category wouldn’t change the fact that she will always be one of cinema’s greatest villains.
4. Anthony Hopkins, The Silence of the Lambs, 1992
Nominated: Lead (won)
Should’ve been: Supporting
Could’ve been nominated instead: Kevin Costner, JFK (Golden Globe nomination)
Could’ve won instead: Robin Williams, The Fisher King (Golden Globe win)
This is perhaps the most polarizing category placement in Academy history. Hopkins’s indelible turn as Hannibal Lecter made him the Best Actor winner with the second-least amount of screen time (after David Niven in Separate Tables). He’s in The Silence of the Lambs for 24 minutes and 52 seconds (21 percent of the film), even if he spends that precious time devouring not only a good portion of the cast but the scenery as well. Still, as much as one may want to stretch an argument that the film centers on the uneasy allyship between Lecter and Jodie Foster’s Clarice Starling, the film is just not about Lecter in the same way it is about Clarice. Foster has more than double the amount of screen time that Hopkins does (56 minutes, 47.32 percent of the film). It’s her journey from beginning to end, and the entire final act exists completely independently of Lecter. If Clarice were a male lead rather than a female one, there would be no question here. Hopkins gave a supporting performance, one of the best of all time.
3. Al Pacino, The Godfather, 1973
Nominated: Supporting
Should’ve been: Lead
Could’ve been nominated instead: Robert Shaw, Young Winston (New York Film Critics Circle runner-up)
Spoiler alert: Michael Corleone is the Godfather at the end of The Godfather. He may begin the film in a supporting role, but the entire arc of the story is about his evolution from the youngest son who absconds from the family business to a cold-blooded killer who executes the heads of the Five Families while standing at the altar of his godson’s baptism. The Golden Globes had the right idea when they nominated Pacino alongside Marlon Brando for Best Actor in a Drama. There was no beating Brando that year, but still: Placing Pacino alongside genuine supporting performances such as eventual winner Joel Grey for Cabaret, or Pacino’s Godfather costars James Caan and Robert Duvall, is frankly fugazi.
2. Rooney Mara, Carol, 2016
Nominated: Supporting
Should’ve been: Lead
Could’ve been nominated instead: Helen Mirren, Trumbo (Critics Choice, Golden Globe, and SAG nominations)
Perhaps the most baffling “colead campaigned as supporting” situation in Oscars history. Mara’s Therese is the unquestionable protagonist of Carol, but because Cate Blanchett plays the title character, the Weinstein Company pulled a fast one and bumped Mara to supporting. The Globes tried to fight back on this by nominating her for Best Actress alongside Blanchett. Perhaps there would be some silver lining if Mara wound up benefiting from this category fraud and winning, but she lost, so instead this will forever be one of the best lead performances of the century to be randomly relegated to the supporting category.
1. Alicia Vikander, The Danish Girl, 2016
Nominated: Supporting (won)
Should’ve been: Lead
Could’ve been nominated instead: Alicia Vikander, Ex Machina, which just makes this whole thing even more ridiculous (BAFTA, Golden Globe nominations)
Could’ve won instead: Kate Winslet, Steve Jobs (BAFTA, Golden Globe wins)
In the very same category and year as Mara, we have the most egregious case of fraud in Oscars history. It belongs to Vikander, who is guilty of not only being in the supporting category when she gave an objectively lead performance but also giving an Oscar win to The Danish Girl. There’s very little positive to say about this clunker from Tom Hooper, whose fictionalized tale of the marriage between painters Gerda Wegener and Lili Elbe, one of the first recorded recipients of gender-affirming surgery, felt out of touch upon arrival and has grown more so over time. That said, where most films of this nature would transform the “wife” character into a one-note supporting role, this one does not, granting Vikander as much of a point of view as her costar (and Best Actor nominee) Eddie Redmayne. As with Mara’s case, this awards season had no idea what to do with Vikander’s performance and was made more complicated by the fact that Vikander was also in the conversation for her genuine supporting performance in Ex Machina. The BAFTAs and Globes had the good sense to nominate her in the lead category for The Danish Girl and supporting for Ex Machina, but ultimately, she wound up taking the win in Best Supporting Actress at the Oscars for the wrong movie.
