The Most Unlikely Best Picture Winner Of The Century Happened 21 Years Ago

The Oscars are only weeks away from crowning the 25th Best Picture winner of the 21st century, and all signs point to One Battle After Another winning, unless Sinners pulls off a minor surprise. One of the reasons for confidence in Paul Thomas Anderson’s film winning the biggest category at the 98th Academy Awards is how well its done at the biggest precursor awards.

Over time, the Golden Globes, Producers Guild of America, Actor Awards (formerly SAG), Directors Guild of America, Writers Guild of America, BAFTA, and Critics’ Choice Awards have become the biggest places for movies to win and position themselves for Oscar glory. Each one has categories that have become incredibly predictive of the Best Picture winner.

The Globes, PGA, BAFTA, and CCA have their version of Best Film, but there’s also the SAG’s Best Cast category, DGA’s Best Director, and both screenplay categories at WGA. In the 30 years these categories have all been around, history tells us that three wins or more make a movie a real contender; 79% of Best Picture winners this century hit this mark.

That’s why Best Picture wins for Slumdog Millionaire and Argo were so expected, as they won the top category at each of these seven precursors. That also helped a few wins really surprise, such as Parasite over 1917 in 2020, Moonlight over La La Land in 2017, and Crash quite famously over Brokeback Mountain in 2006. But the most unlikely Best Picture winner happened the year before.

Million Dollar Baby Is The Oscars’ Most Surprising Best Picture Winner This Century

Clint Eastwood’s fighting drama Million Dollar Baby had a strong performance at the 2005 Oscars, winning four Academy Awards off seven nominations. This included Eastwood claiming his second Best Director win, as well as his second for Best Picture. In both categories, Million Dollar Baby beat strong contenders like The Aviator, Ray, and Sideways.

But the 2005 awards season gave no real reason to think that outcome was coming. Million Dollar Baby had no trouble gaining recognition throughout the season, with Eastwood’s directing and Hilary Swank’s Oscar-winning performance the film’s main sources of nominations and wins. Yet this rarely translated to success at the biggest precursors.

Million Dollar Baby only had one win at these seven main precursors: Eastwood for Outstanding Directing at the DGA Awards. It is the only movie of the 21st century to win Best Picture with only one of these wins. The only other example in the 30 years of history is Braveheart, which won Best Picture despite only having a Best Original Screenplay win at the WGA Awards under its belt.

Eastwood’s film had opportunities to do more, with nominations for Best Motion Picture – Drama at the Golden Globes, Best Theatrical Motion Picture at the PGA Awards, and Best Cast at the SAG Awards. Million Dollar Baby didn’t get any recognition from the WGA Awards, CCA, or BAFTA.

2005 Oscars Precursor Scorecard
Golden Globes (Drama)	Golden Globes (Comedy/Musical)	PGA	SAG Best Cast	DGA	WGA Adapted	WGA Original	Critics’ Choice Awards	BAFTA
The Aviator	Sideways	The Aviator	Sideways	Million Dollar Baby	Sideways	Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind	Sideways	The Aviator

If it had won even just one of those awards it was up for, it’d have looked more like the favorite to win Best Picture. Instead, The Aviator and Sideways had much more support going into the 77th Academy Awards. The Aviator had three precursor wins, while Sideways had four.

Everything seemed to be in The Aviator‘s favor to win Best Picture. It had the year’s highest Oscar nomination total (11). It was Scorsese’s fifth movie nominated in the category, but none of the previous four won. And with Scorsese also lacking a Best Director win at the time, it really looked like The Aviator would be what crowned him an Oscar winner.

Instead, Million Dollar Baby pulled off the Best Picture win, leaving the Oscars to finally give Scorsese his due two years later with The Departed. Considering the greater importance these precursors have gained over time, we might never see as unlikely a Best Picture win again as we did in 2005.