Winning an Oscar is generally considered the highest achievement of a Hollywood career, a “golden ticket” to fame, prestige, and what seems like never-ending opportunities. However, for some actors, it appears that this desired statuette brings along a kind of hidden cost. The “Oscars curse” concept means the performer who wins this golden trophy is the one whose career path can, sometimes quite dramatically, change in a way unexpected to them. So, this change might manifest in a user becoming the main actor of box office flops, disappearing from the public eye, or being typecast into some trivial roles; many of those who have won an Oscar have experienced that triumph does not necessarily bring a continuous flow of career success. Here we present these occurrences of the Oscars curse that range from mere unlucky instances to those that are truly notorious. The list of the 18 most intriguing examples of the phenomenon, featuring the most infamous ones last, first.
18. Alicia Vikander
After Alicia Vikander was given the Oscar for Best Supporting Actress in The Danish Girl in 2016, she looked like a future supernova. Based on her poised and brilliant performance, one could easily predict a bright future for her, but the subsequent roles she took up turned out to be quite inconsistent. Jason Bourne sequel (Vikander appeared to be completely forgettable), Tomb Raider, and Tulip Fever are some of the films in which the actress failed to demonstrate her early potential. She even confessed in interviews that despite being in the spotlight of Hollywood, she was lonely. Not even the well-received The Green Knight was able to make a complete turnaround of her post-Oscar track, which has been far from easy.
17. Sean Penn
Sean Penn is one of the very few actors who have been awarded the Oscar for Best Actor twice (for Mystic River in 2004 and Milk in 2009), but this also could not protect him from the curse. Penn’s career after the second triumph was full of the following: box office failures (The Gunman), minor supporting roles (Tree of Life, Licorice Pizza), and a directorial debacle, The Last Face, which was met with negative reviews at Cannes. The road he took after the post-Oscars is proof that even multiple wins cannot ensure steady success.
16. Jean Dujardin
Jean Dujardin charmed the world and won the Academy Award by portraying a character in a silent film in The Artist (2012). However, Hollywood didn’t beckon him very much after that. Except for a minor role in The Wolf of Wall Street, Dujardin mostly went back to doing French films, where he is still a very popular artist. To the average American movie-goer, it is quite a far-fetched idea that the actor who got an Oscar has become nearly invisible, a very strong case of how global recognition does not always lead to a lasting career in Hollywood.
15. Roberto Benigni
One can hardly forget watching Roberto Benigni’s joyous acceptance speech when he won the Oscar for Best Actor for Life Is Beautiful in 1999. But few would know that his following movies, like Pinocchio and The Tiger and the Snow, were met with negative reviews and poorly performed at the box office. Although he is doing a few projects, such as Woody Allen’s To Rome With Love, whose success is spread by his cameo, the brilliance of the golden evening never resurfaced, hence a career that lit briefly then faded is left.
14. Marlee Matlin
Marlee Matlin got the chance to make history as a deaf female actor who won the Oscar for Best Actress for Children of a Lesser God in 1987. Although she has had a successful career on TV (The West Wing, Switched at Birth) and acted in the Oscar-winning film CODA, the Hollywood film industry has offered her very few opportunities. Matlin’s journey not only signals the presence of the Oscars curse but also highlights the existence of barricades for an industry with limited roles for deaf performers.
13. Mercedes Ruehl
After winning the Best Supporting Actress Oscar for The Fisher King in 1992, Mercedes Ruehl’s film career took a slow turn. Although she kept appearing in TV shows and small projects, the Oscar didn’t lead her to a consistent trail of main roles. Ruehl has spoken about the difficulty and noticed that studios sometimes think Oscar winners command higher pay, hence more challenging casting opportunities.
12. Jennifer Connelly
Jennifer Connelly’s winning the Oscar for Best Supporting Actress in A Beautiful Mind in 2002 was expected to be the turning point leading to her getting main roles. However, she has largely remained a supporting character alongside male leads. Her move to TV through Snowpiercer is evidence of the struggle that comes with post-Oscar visibility in Hollywood, which means that having a trophy does not necessarily lead to getting the top position.
11. Jonathan Demme
Jonathan Demme winning the Oscars for The Silence of the Lambs (Best Director) and Philadelphia (critically acclaimed) might have been taken as a sign of a brilliant era of filmmaking ahead. Yet his subsequent films did not do well either at the box office or with the critics. Demme often encountered lower budgets and less studio support, which was a result of the pressure to follow up on the previous success, and therefore led him to a career plateau instead of an upward continuation.
10. Harold Russell
The story of Harold Russell is at the same time uplifting and sad. He was given an Oscar for The Best Years of Our Lives in 1947, a movie in which he played a disabled veteran just like himself. However, Russell did not make another film for nearly forty years and eventually decided to sell his Oscar to pay for his wife’s medical expenses. “I love the Oscar, but I love my wife more,” is what he said once, which is a reminder that personal priorities often outweigh professional awards.
9. Matthew McConaughey
The peak of “McConaissance” was marked by Matthew McConaughey’s Best Actor win for Dallas Buyers Club in 2014. However, the projects that came after Interstellar, such as The Dark Tower and The Beach Bum, couldn’t keep up with that momentum. McConaughey has been quite busy with his personal life in the last couple of years, including his relocation to Texas, which is one way of showing that an Oscar doesn’t always guarantee further career successes.
8. Marcia Gay Harden
Marcia Gay Harden was given the Oscar for Best Supporting Actress in Pollock (2001) and received a nomination for Mystic River as well. Nevertheless, she has been quite frank about the fact that the win did not automatically open the doors of Hollywood for her. Harden has maintained a stable career on TV, but her post-Oscar journey is a vivid example of how acknowledgment doesn’t necessarily mean getting blockbuster offers.
7. Kim Basinger
The Best Supporting Actress Oscar for L.A. Confidential, which Kim Basinger garnered in 1998, was thought to be her career summit. However, subsequent battering of films, amongst which fell short of box office success, along with a personal life going through rough patches, e.g., a very public divorce from Alec Baldwin, were what she faced afterward. The motivation for many, coming from the short-lived career resurgence in her later works, such as the Fifty Shades sequels, was in vain. These roles did not bring back the momentum expected from an Academy Award-winning actress.
6. Luise Rainer
Luise Rainer achieved the feat of being awarded two Oscars in a row for The Great Ziegfeld (1937) and The Good Earth (1938). Nevertheless, she encountered the pressure of success and shortly after was removed from the spotlight due to a limited number of roles caused by typecasting. She had a handful of lackluster films before she quit Hollywood entirely. Her brilliant career ended prematurely.
5. Halle Berry
Monster’s Ball is the movie that earned Halle Berry her first Best Actress Oscar in 2002, an achievement that set a record for being the first (and currently the only) Black woman to receive such recognition. However, the momentum was not sustained due to the likes of Catwoman and some other failed projects. Although her X-Men character got her some box office success, the so-called “curse” of her career after the Oscar still dangles.
4. Michael Cimino
It was the direction of The Deer Hunter, awarded to Michael Cimino, that earned him the Oscar for Best Directing in 1979, and in this way, the expectations were set extremely high. But his subsequent work, Heaven’s Gate, was the reason for the near bankruptcy of a studio and was not received well by the industry. In retrospect, Martin Scorsese commented, “Heaven’s Gate was a disaster for all of us. I realized at that very moment it was the end of something, something had died.” Ciminio’s downfall is a warning story of how a single blunder following success can change Hollywood altogether.
3. Adrien Brody
In 2003, The Pianist lead actor Adrien Brody was the youngest Oscar for Best Actor winner ever, but he wasn’t able to follow up with the same level of success in his subsequent career. He has chosen to play eccentric roles in Wes Anderson movies and a few other projects, but none of these roles have had the impact or scope of his breakthrough achievement.
2. F. Murray Abraham
As a Best Actor winner for Amadeus in 1985, F. Murray Abraham is the first and foremost example of a textbook case of the Oscars’ curse. After he refused most film roles and concentrated on theater, he later found success on television in shows such as Homeland and The White Lotus. Nevertheless, the Hollywood recognition that once shone brightly on him eventually dimmed, leaving a career that is still respected but has quietly gone off the radar of the general public.
1. Hilary Swank
The Hilary Swank tale might be the perfect case of the Oscars’ curse. With two Oscars for Best Actress, Boys Don’t Cry (2000) and Million Dollar Baby (2005), she seemed invincible. Still, Swank’s career took a downturn right after her second win. She took a three-year break from work in order to look after her father, and then did a short-lived TV project (Alaska Daily), both are examples of how a double win cannot be a guarantee for continued presence at the top of the A-list. People who have been scolding Hilary’s acting career usually give her credit by saying that she, being such an accomplished actress, must have been given opportunities similar to those of Cate Blanchett or Denzel Washington. However, Swank’s path narrates an opposite story.
This is the case for those artists whose winning the Oscar has often been a double-edged sword. It tells them that fame, recognition, and success are by no means certain and that the most prestigious awards can also bring along some unexpected downsides.