The 10 Most Disliked SAG Award-Winning Performances, Ranked

The Screen Actors Guild Awards, or SAG Awards, were first given out in 1995. Since then, they have become one of the most important award ceremonies on the planet, defining much of the conversation around the acting Oscar categories from early in the award season. Throughout their history, they have rewarded plenty of exceptional performances. However, they’ve also lauded some less-than-deserving ones.

To be totally fair, there has never been a single SAG-winning performance that’s bad. Even the weakest of them all are still above-average performances; but above-average doesn’t cut it in this business. Fans of movie awards love when performances that are truly extraordinary win a SAG, and hate it when an actor is instead celebrated for a performance that’s forgettable at best and problematic at worst.

10

Helen Hunt as Carol Connelly

‘As Good As It Gets’ (1997)

Image via TriStar Pictures

The refreshing and charming rom-com As Good As It Gets stars Jack Nicholson as a misanthropic author, Helen Hunt as a single mother and waitress, and Greg Kinnear as a gay artist. The three form an unlikely friendship after the artist is assaulted in a robbery, but something more begins to bloom between the artist and the waitress.

As Good As It Gets doesn’t really break any new ground or do anything particularly special with the rom-com formula, but it’s so lovingly written and has such strong performances that it’s easy to ignore its shortcomings. Indeed, it was the acting that catapulted the movie to the stage during many award ceremonies — including the 1998 SAG Awards, where Hunt won Best Lead Actress. It’s a fine enough piece of acting for what it is, but doesn’t really offer much more than any other typical rom-com female lead performance. What makes matter worse is that Hunt beat out Pam Grier for Jackie Brown and Kate Winslet for Titanic that year, two far superior and more timeless works.

As Good As It Gets

Release Date: December 19, 1997
Cast: Helen Hunt
, Jack Nicholson
, Greg Kinnear
, Cuba Gooding Jr.
, Shirley Knight
, Jesse James
, Yeardley Smith
, Lupe Ontiveros
, Skeet Ulrich
, Harold Ramis
, Bibi Osterwald
, Ross Bleckner
, Bernadette Balagtas
, Jaffe Cohen
, Laurie Kilpatrick
, Alice Vaughn
, Brian Doyle-Murray
, Kristi Zea
, Annie Maginnis Tippe
, Patricia Childress
, Rebekah Johnson
, Missi Pyle
, Leslie Stefanson
, Tara Subkoff
, Shane Black
Runtime: 139 minutes
Writers: James L. Brooks

9

Jamie Lee Curtis as Deirdre Beaubeirdre

‘Everything Everywhere All At Once’ (2022)

Jamie Lee Curtis as IRS Auditor Deirdre Beaubeirdre, holding up a form and looking frustrated in Everything Everywhere All At Once — Image via A24

Somewhat divisive, but mostly loved all across the board — including by Hollywood awards —, Everything Everywhere All At Once is a delightfully offbeat sci-fi action comedy about an aging Chinese woman who one day finds out that the fate of the multiverse rests on her shoulders. She’s accompanied by a vast ensemble of secondary characters both friendly and hostile. Depending on the occasion, Jamie Lee Curtis‘s Deirdre Beaubeirdre, an IRS investigator, can take on either role.

Everything Everywhere is one of the best post-pandemic sci-fi movies by a decent margin, brimming with creativity and existentialist wit. Its many performances are incredible, too, which meant that in 2023, it took home three of the four individual SAG awards: Best Actress for Michelle Yeoh, Supporting Actor for Ke Huy Quan, and Supporting Actress for Curtis. It’s this last one that, even almost two years later, still doesn’t sit quite right with people. Curtis is hilarious as Deirdre, adding a surprisingly physical slapstick dimension to a surprisingly nuanced character. It isn’t even close to being an award-worthy performance, though, lacking the emotion and complexity that other nominees from that year showed (including Stephanie Hsu from the very same movie!)

Release Date: March 25, 2022
Runtime: 132 minutes
Budget: 14.3–25 million

8

Roberto Benigni as Guido Orefice

‘Life Is Beautiful’ (1997)

Life is Beautiful, Roberto Benigni — Image via Miramax Films

The SAG Awards have rarely had surprises as big as Roberto Benigni winning Best Lead Actor for his performance in the Italian comedy Life is Beautiful. It’s a movie as charmingly innocent as it is deceivingly dark and poignant, following a Jewish waiter who’s locked up in a concentration camp with his son. He uses a mixture of humor and imagination to make his boy think that the whole thing is an elaborate game.

The acting is overall really good in this period film, but Benigni’s purely comedic performance isn’t exactly demanding, since it became clear in marketing for the film that he was pretty much playing himself. This SAG win was the one that cemented Benigni as a frontrunner for the Oscar, which he indeed ended up winning. That’s one of the most disliked acting Oscar wins of all time, particularly since it left Ian McKellen‘s illustrious performance in Gods and Monsters in the mud, and his victory with the Actors Guild is no different.

Life Is Beautiful

Release Date: December 20, 1997
Cast: Roberto Benigni
, Nicoletta Braschi
, Giorgio Cantarini
, Giustino Durano
, Sergio Bini Bustric
, Marisa Paredes
Runtime: 116 Mins

7

Cuba Gooding Jr. as Rod Tidwell

‘Jerry Maguire’ (1996)

Cuba Gooding Jr_Jerry Maguire — Image via Sony Pictures Releasing

All in all, Jerry Maguire may not be the best rom-com of the ’90s, but it is one of the decade’s most fun and re-watchable. It’s a sports movie about a sports agent who has a moral epiphany and is fired for expressing it. He decides to put his new philosophy to the test as an independent agent with the only athlete who decides to stay with him, played by Cuba Gooding Jr., and his former colleague.

The actor’s performance as Arizona Cardinals wide receiver Rod Tidwell is an entertaining and very amusing one, and his delivery of the iconic line “show me the money” has become the film’s best-remembered and most quoted scene. However, it’s also a very one-note performance for it to be a SAG winner, particularly when Nathan Lane for his hilarious turn in The Birdcage and William H. Macy for one of the best performances of his career in Fargo also received a nod that year.

Jerry Maguire

Release Date: December 13, 1996
Director: Cameron Crowe
Runtime: 139 minutes
Writers: Cameron Crowe
Budget: $50 million

6

Michael Caine as Dr. Wilbur Larch

‘The Cider House Rules’ (1999)

Michael Caine in 'The Cider House Rules' — Image via Miramax Films

The Cider House Rules is set during World War II, and follows an orphan growing up under the tutelage of a doctor who runs an orphanage, played by Michael Caine. However, he yearns for freedom and soon decides to leave so that he can make a life for himself. It’s an old-fashioned drama without a doubt, but it’s profoundly moving, so clearly the formula works.

Many feel that Caine shouldn’t have even been nominated for his performance as Dr. Wilbur Larch, which also went as far as making him one of the worst Supporting Actor Oscar winners of the ’90s. It’s a warm, powerfully subdued performance, but it doesn’t hold a candle against other hard-hitting nominees from that year, like Tom Cruise in Magnolia and Michael Clarke Duncan in The Green Mile. Even setting aside the competition for a moment, though, this is definitely not one of Caine’s best works. His New England accent is pretty terrible, making it even harder to focus on the emotional layers of a performance that’s already excessively subtle as it is.

The Cider House Rules

Release Date: December 17, 1999
Cast: Tobey Maguire
, Charlize Theron
, Delroy Lindo
, Paul Rudd
, Michael Caine
, Jane Alexander
, Kathy Baker
, Erykah Badu
, Kieran Culkin
, Kate Nelligan
, Heavy D
, J.K. Simmons
, Erik Per Sullivan
, Paz de la Huerta
, K. Todd Freeman
, Evan Parke
, Jimmy Flynn
, Lonnie Farmer
, Spencer Diamond
, Skye McCole Bartusiak
, Sean Andrew
Runtime: 126 Minutes

5

Renée Zellweger as Judy Garland

‘Judy’ (2019)

Judy Garland singing on stage in Judy. — Image via 20th Century Studios

Judy Garland was an icon, so a biopic about her life and legacy was bound to happen at some point. Sadly, no one expected it to be as bland and forgettable as Judy. It stars Renée Zellweger as the legendary performer at the time that she arrived in London in the winter of 1968, very shortly before her death, to perform a series of sold-out concerts.

It’s probably the weakest Best Actress win of the 2010s, feeling more like a legacy SAG for Zellweger.

Zellweger’s emotional and committed portrayal of Garland is, admittedly, the best part about the otherwise completely flat Judy, but that doesn’t mean it’s an award-worthy performance. It’s probably the weakest Best Actress win of the 2010s, feeling more like a legacy SAG for Zellweger than a truly well-earned celebration of her work in this particular movie. That was a somewhat weak year for leading female performances in movies, but performances like Scarlett Johansson‘s in Marriage Story would still have been more deserving of the SAG victory.

Judy

Release Date: September 27, 2019
Director: Rupert Goold
Cast: Bella Ramsey
, Diana Alexandra Pocol
, Renée Zellweger
, Royce Pierreson
, Andy Nyman
, Jessie Buckley
, Lucy Russell
, Finn Wittrock
, Zina Esepciuc
, Fenella Woolgar
, John Dagleish
, Gaia Weiss
, Rufus Sewell
, Michael Gambon
, Phil Dunster
Runtime: 118 minutes
Writers: Tom Edge
Budget: $10 million

4

Rami Malek as Freddie Mercury

‘Bohemian Rhapsody’ (2018)

Freddy Mercury singing on stage at the Live AID concert in Bohemian Rhapsody. — Image via 20th Century Studios

Now one of the most infamous messes to ever be hyper-celebrated films in award season, Bohemian Rhapsody is one of the blandest and most watered-down biopics of any musician ever. In it, Rami Malek plays the almost-mythical Freddie Mercury, whose skyrocketing success the movie follows while he grapples with his ego, sexuality, and a fatal illness.

Bohemian Rhapsody has lots of remarkably fun music scenes and should provide an alright time for any fan of Queen and classic rock, but it also has plenty of drawbacks. To be fair, Rami Malek’s performance isn’t one of them. Malek is great as Freddie, nailing the concert sequences and the more emotional moments from the story. However, it also feels more like a caricaturistic impression of the singer than a true embodiment of what he represented. The script and direction are largely to blame, but Malek’s performance feels a bit too one-note. As such, his SAG win and eventual Oscar win are among the most disliked in history. Christian Bale and Bradley Cooper in Vice and A Star Is Born, respectively, delivered infinitely better performances in 2018.

Release Date: October 24, 2018
Runtime: 2h 14m
Writers: Anthony McCarten
, Peter Morgan
Budget: 50 million

3

Jodie Foster as Nell Kellty

‘Nell’ (1994)

nell1 Cropped — Image via 20th Century Studios

The very first SAG Awards ceremony was held in 1995, and unfortunately, that year’s winner in the Best Lead Actress category didn’t exactly kick things off on the right foot. It was Jodie Foster for Nell, a drama where she plays a beautiful young hermit with many secrets who’s discovered living in a remote woodland cabin by a small-town doctor.

It’s somewhat funny that Foster ended up receiving so much awards praise that year for her performance, since the public at the time found that the actress’s exaggerated performance as a woman with Asperger syndrome was more laughable than commendable. It’s a piece of acting that reminds one of a particular Tropic Thunder scene where Robert Downey Jr. speaks about Sean Penn‘s performance in I Am Sam. Both Nell and Foster mean well, but the film is far too melodramatic and the actress’s work is far too cartoonish to really strike a chord. Fortunately for Foster, cinephiles seem to mostly have forgotten about this film that was so passionately ridiculed back in the mid-’90s. Jessica Lange would go on to win that year’s Oscar for Blue Sky, and if anyone else was going to win the SAG award, it should have been her.

Nell

Release Date: December 23, 1994
Director: Michael Apted
Cast: Jodie Foster
, Liam Neeson
, Natasha Richardson
, Richard Libertini
, Robin Mullins
, Nick Searcy
, Jeremy Davies
, O’Neal Compton
, Joe Inscoe
, Stephanie Dawn Wood
, Heather M. Bomba
, Marianne E. Bomba
, Sean Bridgers
, Mary Lynn Riner
, Lucile McIntyre
, Al Wiggins
, Beth Bostic
, Rob Buren III
, Chris T. Hill
, Tim Mehaffey
, Dana Stevens
, Nicole Adair
, Robin Rochelle
, Susan Correll Hickerson
, Marlon Jackson
Runtime: 112 minutes
Writers: William Nicholson

2

Sandra Bullock as Leigh Anne Tuohy

Sandra Bullock and Quinton Aaron in The Blind Side — Image Via Warner Bros.

Mainly because of recent revelations about the way the Tuohy family allegedly used popular NFL tackle Michael Oher, saying that The Blind Side has aged like milk would be a bit of an understatement. It’s a tone-deaf docudrama that very poorly adapts the story of Oher, who used to be a homeless boy before he became the first-round draft pick that football fans know and love today.

Even setting aside what can’t be deemed anything less than morally deplorable behavior by the Tuohies, Sandra Bullock‘s performance as the white savior mother in The Blind Side may not exactly be a bad piece of acting work, but it sure isn’t SAG-worthy. It’s emotionally flat and more grating than it is compelling, and when Gabourey Sidibe was right there that year for her harrowing performance in Precious, this win becomes even more unforgivable.

Release Date: November 20, 2009
Director: John Lee Hancock
Runtime: 129 Minutes
Writers: John Lee Hancock
, Michael Lewis

1

Gwyneth Paltrow as Viola De Lesseps

‘Shakespeare in Love’ (1998)

Shakespeare kissing his lover's forehead in "Shakespeare In Love" — Image via Miramax Films

Perhaps the most infamous of Best Actress SAG wins, coming from what’s perhaps the most infamous of Best Picture Oscar winners, Shakespeare in Love‘s Gwyneth Paltrow as Viola De Lesseps needs no introduction. The movie is a period drama where the legendary William Shakespeare, young and out of ideas, meets De Lesseps, who becomes his muse and inspires him to write one of his most famous plays.

The movie itself is pretty good, and has mostly received compensatory hate because of how many awards it received throughout 1999 — largely thanks to Harvey Weinstein and Miramax’s aggressive campaigning. Likewise, Paltrow is okay in Shakespeare in Love. It’s not the movie’s best performance, as it demands a lot more from her than she was apparently prepared to give at that point in her career, but it’s an alright piece of work. That’s just the thing, though: Alright performances shouldn’t be winning SAGs. Still, Paltrow’s did, and as a result, it remains the most infamous SAG victory ever for good reason.