The most shocking moment in Oscars history is the 2022 slap, with the 2017 Best Picture envelope mix-up a close second. Here are eight ceremonies, from 1973 to 2022, where the show went badly off script.
Updated October 31, 2026.
Watch the Academy Awards long enough and the pattern never changes. The moments people still talk about are the ones nobody rehearsed. The planned jokes and the teary speeches are forgotten by Monday. A wrong envelope or a surprise walk to the stage sticks around.
Every year the movie business gathers to hand itself trophies on prime-time TV. Grown adults campaign hard for a golden statue, and the whole thing gets pretty silly. While you work to make ends meet, somewhere an overpaid actor is losing sleep over a trophy. Put that many big egos on one stage and something is bound to go off script. These are the eight times the room was most stunned.
The Slap at the 2022 Oscars
Who: Will Smith, Jada Pinkett Smith and Chris Rock.
What: At the 94th Academy Awards on March 27, 2022, Chris Rock came out to present Best Documentary Feature. A category that quiet sounded like a safe bet for a dull moment. Rock, the way comedians do, started riffing. He made a joke about Jada Pinkett Smith, who had shaved her head because of alopecia, saying he was looking forward to “G.I. Jane 2,” a nod to Demi Moore’s buzz-cut soldier. Pinkett Smith looked upset by the joke. Her husband, Will Smith, walked up on stage and slapped Rock in front of a worldwide audience.
Smith resigned from the Academy after a string of apologies. On April 8, 2022, nearly two weeks after the ceremony, the Board of Governors banned him from all Academy events for ten years.
Why: Was it a husband protecting his wife, or wounded pride? We can only guess. What we know is that Smith won Best Actor for King Richard later the same night, and the slap swallowed the win whole. Most of us have seen an argument break out in public and found it hard to look away. If you want to know what a physical assault at work looks like, this is the clip. Whatever else it was, it was the strangest live TV the Oscars have ever had. Microwave the popcorn.
The Best Picture Envelope Mix-Up in Oscars History (2017)
Who: Warren Beatty and Faye Dunaway.
What: At the 89th Academy Awards on February 26, 2017, La La Land, a musical about dreamers in Los Angeles, tied the record with 14 nominations and was the favorite to take the night. Moonlight, a coming-of-age story about a young Black man in Miami, had eight nominations. Beatty and Dunaway opened the Best Picture envelope, and La La Land was announced. It was the wrong winner.
Beatty had been handed the backup Best Actress envelope, the one naming Emma Stone for La La Land. He paused, then passed it to Dunaway, who read out the film title. The PwC accountant Brian Cullinan had given Beatty the wrong envelope. The whole La La Land team walked up and started their speeches. Picture it: each producer thanking family and soaking in the moment, only to have it pulled away. If it weren’t so funny, it would be almost sad. Then producer Jordan Horowitz stopped them, announced that Moonlight had won, and held up the winning card for the audience. Moonlight took three Oscars that night, La La Land six.
Why: It was the wrong bloody envelope. Most of us know the sick feeling of grabbing the wrong thing and only noticing when everyone is watching. Beatty said afterward that the card confused him. Rather than say so, he handed it to Dunaway and let her read it, so she carried the mistake on live TV. In effect, he made her the scapegoat. What a gentleman.
Sacheen Littlefeather Refuses Brando’s Oscar (1973)
Who: Marlon Brando and Sacheen Littlefeather.
What: Brando won Best Actor for The Godfather at the 45th Academy Awards on March 27, 1973, and did not show up. He stayed away to protest how Hollywood showed Native Americans and the standoff at Wounded Knee. Sacheen Littlefeather took the stage in his place and turned down the award. His prepared speech ran 739 words, so she cut it down to about a minute. The room was split between boos and applause.
The show’s producer and its TV director both said later that John Wayne had to be held back by six security guards to keep him from pulling her off stage. Film historian Farran Nehme and Wayne biographer Scott Eyman call that an urban legend, so treat it as a story, not a fact. It is the kind of tale people love to believe about a swaggering cowboy star. Either way, it was an odd piece of theater.
Why: Native American rights was the stated cause. Still, the look of it was strange: a white man writing a speech for someone else to deliver for him. If it helped the cause, it did so in a peculiar way. The Academy sent Littlefeather a written apology in June 2022, written by then-president David Rubin. She died on October 2, 2022, at age 75. Soon after, two of her sisters said the family had no Native American ancestry, which makes the whole thing stranger still.
Adrien Brody and Halle Berry Kiss in Oscars History (2003)
Who: Halle Berry and Adrien Brody.
What: At the 75th Academy Awards on March 23, 2003, Halle Berry presented Best Actor, and Adrien Brody won it for The Pianist. At 29 he was the youngest winner in the category, and the adrenaline must have been pumping. He walked up and kissed Berry on the mouth in front of everyone. She had no warning.
Berry called the kiss “great” in the week after the ceremony. In a 2017 TV interview she said she went along with it, understanding the emotion of the moment. Weeks before the 2025 Oscars, Brody said that views of the kiss have changed and that he never meant to offend her.
Why: I suppose when the urge grabs you, you have to go with it. Today the moment looks very different from the way it did in 2003, which is why it belongs on this list. Most of us have done something in the heat of a big moment that looks a lot different years later.
The Return of the King Sweep in Oscars History (2004)
Who: Peter Jackson and the Lord of the Rings cast and crew.
What: The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King, based on J.R.R. Tolkien’s novel, came from the fantasy genre, one the Oscars rarely honored. Few people expected a film full of wizards and orcs to sweep the night. At the 76th Academy Awards on February 29, 2004, it won all 11 of its nominations, including Best Picture and Directing. That ties Ben-Hur and Titanic for the most Oscars won by one film, and it beat the nine-for-nine sweeps of Gigi and The Last Emperor as the largest clean sweep in Oscar history.
Why: The Return of the King was a tremendous film, and the whole trilogy was a stupendous feat of filmmaking. The sweep owed as much to the Academy rewarding the whole series as it did to the single film. Fans of any long series know the feeling of wanting the finale to get its due.
Angelina Jolie and the Brother Kiss (2000)
Who: Angelina Jolie and James Haven.
What: At the 72nd Academy Awards on March 26, 2000, Angelina Jolie won Best Supporting Actress for Girl, Interrupted, in which she played Lisa Rowe. Her father, Jon Voight, had won Best Actor for Coming Home (1978), which made them the second father-daughter pair of acting winners. She thanked her brother, James Haven, in her speech. “I’m in shock and I’m so in love with my brother right now,” she said.
On its own, that line would not have been a big deal. What got people talking was that she kissed her brother on the mouth afterward. Haven tried to calm the media frenzy. He called the kiss “simple and lovely.”
Why: The episode added to the feeling that Hollywood lives far outside the norms of most viewers. It also left people with the lasting idea that Jolie was a bit zany, which fit the wild-child role she had just won for.
Trey Parker and Matt Stone in Dresses (2000)
Who: Matt Stone and Trey Parker.
What: The same 2000 ceremony produced a second spectacle. “Blame Canada,” from South Park: Bigger, Longer & Uncut, was one of five nominees for Best Original Song, written by Trey Parker and Marc Shaiman. It lost to Phil Collins’ “You’ll Be in My Heart” from Tarzan. Parker and Stone already had a reputation as troublemakers, so they leaned into it and arrived in dresses previously worn by Jennifer Lopez and Gwyneth Paltrow. The song uses a word the FCC does not allow on prime-time TV, so when Robin Williams performed it on the show, the chorus gasped and he turned his back at that line.
The pair first thought about showing up dressed as ducks, but worried they might be turned away at the door.
Why: Who would expect less from the people behind South Park, The Book of Mormon and Team America? Stone and Parker are satirists by nature, and poking fun at how seriously the Oscars take themselves was almost part of the job. Most of us knew a class clown who could not resist the big, serious room.
Shakespeare in Love Beats Saving Private Ryan (1999)
Who: Steven Spielberg and the Saving Private Ryan cast.
What: At the 71st Academy Awards on March 21, 1999, Saving Private Ryan, Spielberg’s World War II film about the Western Front, was the favorite for Best Picture. It had 11 nominations and, when the nominations were announced, was the highest-grossing Best Picture nominee, with $194.2 million domestically. Spielberg won Best Director, and the film took five Oscars in all. Shakespeare in Love had the Miramax and Harvey Weinstein campaign machine behind it. It led the night with 13 nominations and seven wins, including Best Picture.
Moviegoers and critics alike were left stunned.
Why: Looking back, a middling film stole the award. The win shows how much outside influence can decide Hollywood’s biggest prize, and Weinstein is the best-known example.
Want more Oscars trivia? Take a look at the highest-grossing Best Picture winners.
What are the most shocking moments in Oscars history?
What is the most shocking moment in Oscars history?
Most people point to the 2022 slap. Will Smith walked on stage during the Best Documentary Feature presentation and hit Chris Rock, then won Best Actor later the same night. On April 8, 2022, nearly two weeks after the March 27 ceremony, the Academy banned him from its events for ten years.
Did La La Land really win Best Picture at the Oscars?
No. At the 89th Academy Awards on February 26, 2017, La La Land was announced by mistake because presenter Warren Beatty held the backup Best Actress envelope. Producer Jordan Horowitz corrected the error on stage, and Moonlight, which had won, took the award. La La Land still won six Oscars.
Which film won every Oscar it was nominated for?
The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King won all 11 of its nominations at the 76th Academy Awards on February 29, 2004. That ties Ben-Hur and Titanic for the most Oscars won by a single film, and it remains the largest clean sweep in Oscar history.
Why did Marlon Brando refuse his Oscar?
Brando boycotted the 45th Academy Awards on March 27, 1973 to protest Hollywood’s portrayal of Native Americans and the standoff at Wounded Knee. Sacheen Littlefeather declined the Best Actor award for him on stage. The Academy sent her a written apology in June 2022.