Academy Awards 2024: The 5 worst and 5 best Oscars hosts of all time

Get our free weekly e-mail for all the newest cinematic information from our movie critic Clarisse Loughrey

Get our The Life Cinematic e-mail without cost

How do you observe an Oscars evening like final 12 months’s?

Amid all the unscripted Will Smith dramatics on the 2022 Academy Awards, it was simple to miss the well-received efficiency from the ceremony’s three hosts: Regina Hall, Amy Schumer and Wanda Sykes.

This 12 months, producers will certainly be hoping for a extra subdued evening, with Jimmy Kimmel set to compere the occasion.

It’s no surprise that discovering the precise individual for the job has confirmed tough lately.

Presenting the Oscars is a tough factor; success as a comic, as a TV presenter or as an actor by no means ensures a profitable flip on the ceremonies. And a foul host can tarnish the evening, for viewers and for the Academy.

On the opposite hand, an awesome host can elevate an awards evening past merely its winners and losers.

Frequent hosts Bob Hope and Billy Crystal turned famend for his or her skill as comperes, defining, for a lot of viewers, their respective eras of Oscar historical past.

2019’s host-less method was thought-about so successful that the 2020 ceremony repeated it; 2021 noticed the ceremony forgo a bunch as soon as once more.

This format wasn’t not a very current concept; the 1989 ceremony additionally had no presenter. A dreadful opening quantity during which an off-key Rob Lowe sang a lavish medley with Snow White (performed by Eileen Bowman) was sufficient to finish the Hollywood profession of its bombastic producer, Allan Carr, single-handedly.

Here is a glance again at 5 of the best Oscar hosts of all time…

5. Jon Stewart

After a tepidly obtained flip internet hosting in 2006, Stewart made essentially the most of his second probability in 2008, giving a assured efficiency presenting the eightieth Academy Awards. The former Daily Show comic’s jokes have been tighter and higher delivered, and he confirmed an actual aptitude for letting others take the limelight. Perhaps most commendable of all, Stewart used one of his transitions to ask Marketa Irglová again on-stage to complete her acceptance speech for Best Original Song after being abruptly minimize off.

4. Whoopi Goldberg

Goldberg was not solely the primary African American individual to host the ceremony, however the first girl too. Having already gained an Oscar for her supporting flip in 1990’s Ghost, the actress gained over audiences along with her elaborate costume modifications and sharp sense of humour. Over the course of her 4 stints within the function, she would additionally show deft at dealing with extra delicate moments, presiding over the Oscars during which Schindler’s List took Best Picture, in addition to the primary ceremony post-9/11. Goldberg just lately instructed herself for the host after Kevin Hart was faraway from the 2019 ceremony amid a scandal surrounding homophobic tweets.

3. Ellen DeGeneres

The comic and discuss present host wasn’t met with the fondest reception when she hosted the ceremony in 2007. But her 2014 return was a a lot tighter affair, and was instrumental in reconfiguring the Oscars for social media age. DeGeneres was a consummate luvvie and stored the humour low-key and respectful. The ceremony peaked with a star-studded selfie stay on air, taken with a bunch of A-listers that included Bradley Cooper, Jennifer Lawrence, Brad Pitt, Angelina Jolie, Meryl Streep and Julia Roberts. The picture would rapidly develop into the most well-liked tweet of all time (now displaced), with a complete of over 3.3 million retweets.

2. Billy Crystal

Crystal is credited with reinventing the function of Oscars host throughout his four-year run from 1990 to 1993. A extra high-energy character than most of his predecessors, the When Harry Met Sally… star proved himself a flexible awards present entertainer, and would return once more 5 instances through the years. He was comfy with showmanship, to not point out self-promotion: on the 1991 awards, to advertise City Slickers, he closed the ceremony by driving offstage on a horse. Crystal’s most up-to-date look as host got here in 2012, when he was introduced in as a gradual hand on the tiller after James Franco and Anne Hathaway’s disastrous spell the 12 months beforehand.

1. Bob Hope

For a long time, the comedian stylings of Bob Hope have been synonymous with the Oscars. The comic hosted (and co-hosted) the awards ceremony 19 instances between 1940 and 1978, presenting for the ultimate time on the Oscar’s fiftieth Anniversary. Hope was well-liked for his appeal and assuredness, in addition to his droll one-liners. Jack Lemmon introduced him with a novel gold medal for his providers to the Academy through the 1966 Oscars. Accepting the award, he quipped “anyone that wants to look at this can come to my place and it’ll be in the shrine”.

And 5 of the worst Oscar hosts of all time…

5. David Letterman

Attempting to switch his well-liked Late Night shtick to the significantly much less receptive territory of the Oscars, Letterman noticed his internet hosting tenure finish in catastrophe. From a stinker of a joke close to the start about two actresses with supposedly related names – “Oprah. Uma. Oprah. Uma. Oprah. Uma. Have you kids met Keanu?” – the often dependable presenter failed to search out his circulation. Just a few later gags have been met with near-total silence, and Letterman was accused by the New York Times of leaving the ceremony’s “pacing in shambles.”

4. Chevy Chase

“Good evening, Hollywood phonies.” So started Chevy Chase’s badly obtained second run on the 1988 Oscars. Taking place within the center of a writers’ guild strike – Chase makes a crack concerning the night’s monologue being “donated by five teamsters” – the actor’s largest downside is solely that the jokes don’t land. An overlong bit about movie critics fails to get a lot of a response, and Chase’s makes an attempt at ad-libbing by no means handle to rescue the state of affairs.

3. Walter Matthau, Liza Minnelli, Dudley Moore & Richard Pryor

In 1983, the internet hosting function was given to the idiosyncratic quartet of Matthau, Minnelli, Moore and Pryor, in an effort to shake issues up after 4 straight years of Johnny Carson. Whether it was a failure of rehearsal, choreography or efficiency, the sight of the 4 actors standing in a straight line, arrhythmically swaying to the opening quantity, stays one of essentially the most awkward Oscar clips of all time. Minnelli tries to save lots of face with a joke, commenting how “Richard, Dudley and Walter are still rehearsing” backstage, however the painfully gauche routine set the tone for a disjointed and forgettable night.

2. Seth MacFarlane

The Family Guy creator was given a prestigious platform for his notoriously low-brow comedian sensibilities when he hosted the Oscars ceremony in 2013. True to kind, MacFarlane included a creepy, obnoxious song-and-dance quantity during which MacFarlane calls out actresses who’ve finished topless scenes up to now (entitled “We Saw Your Boobs”). The reactions ranged from awkward smiles to a horrible embarrassment. The barefaced sexism of the skit attracted no small share of criticism on the time, however six years later, within the wake of #MeToo, it beggars perception that such a sleazy routine ever noticed the sunshine of day. Despite the response, MacFarlane claimed the Academy invited him again to host the next 12 months.

1. James Franco and Anne Hathaway

Having efficiently paired Alec Baldwin and Steve Martin in 2010, the Academy threw Franco and Hathaway collectively the 12 months after, in an obvious try to synthesise some youth attraction. As it labored out, the pair’s dreadful chemistry – an uneasy combine of Hathaway’s cloying perkiness and Franco’s disconnected grinning – made for a clumsy and traditionally uncomfortable expertise that mockingly appeals to no demographic in any way. Early jokes are met with mirthless silence, and a later skit during which Franco attire in drag goes down like a lead balloon.