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One of the biggest talking points following the 90th Academy Awards was Michael B. Jordan taking home the prize for Best Actor for his work in Ryan Coogler’s Sinners, beating out the likes of Leonardo DiCaprio, Timothee Chalamet, Ethan Hawke, and Wagner Moura.
Whether or not you thought Timothee Chalamet should have won Best Actor for Marty Supreme is irrelevant to this conversation, as the narrative surrounding Michael B. Jordan’s win has less to do with his competition and more to do with his actual performance.
While there are certainly many who were blown away by MBJ’s performance and believe he was deserving of the Oscar, numerous tweets questioning the honor went viral on social media, suggesting his win is a bit controversial.
“Don’t understand how the academy can watch the range , the emotive power of performances like Plemons in Bugonia, Mescal in Hamnet, Leo, Chalamet, Stellan, etc etc and give that award to MBJ. Who was great btw, but is primarily a plot mover surrounded by a cast that outshines him,” one viral tweet read.
I’m dead ass this is like giving Paul Rudd an Oscar for Antman https://t.co/bmX6jglSSi
— William D. Hendrix (@SpecificNY) March 16, 2026
Personally, I believe that Michael B. Jordan is a phenomenal movie star and that Sinners is one of the best movies of the year. But I don’t think that playing a pair a slick gangster bootleggers is a necessarily challenging or deep role, nor one that significantly elevated the movie beyond the greatness it already had.
el tipo actuó de dos personas distintas en la peli y en ningun momento supe diferenciar quien era quien
asi de normalito fue https://t.co/JMDHeG8uRH— lau (@motorpsicos) March 15, 2026
Meanwhile that performance: https://t.co/b1MwpQlt7e pic.twitter.com/j56hYlwF2M
— శశి ☄️ (@235Shashi) March 16, 2026
El nivelazo de la actuación de Michael B. Jordan es tal que la forma de diferenciar a cada hermano en la película, en vez de ser interpretaciones distintas, es ponerles un sombrero de diferente color. https://t.co/bzs7PSoRvd
— Dᴀʟʟᴀs (@SrDallas_RM) March 16, 2026
With MBJ’s divisive win, we thought we’d take a look back at some of the most controversial wins in modern Academy Awards history.
What are the most divisive and controversial wins in modern Academy Awards history?
Best Supporting Actor/Actress
Judi Dench, Best Supporting Actress (1999) — Won for Shakespeare in Love with just about 8 minutes of screen time, which many felt trivialized the category.
Jamie Lee Curtis, Everything Everywhere All at Once (2023) — Jamie Lee Curtis wasn’t even the best Oscar-nominated supporting actress performance in her own film: that distinction belonged to Stephanie Hsu. Besides, it was Angela Bassett for Black Panther: Wakanda Forever who should have won.
Best Actor/Actress
Gwyneth Paltrow (1999) — Her win for Shakespeare in Love over Cate Blanchett in Elizabeth remains an oft-pointed-to “wrong winner” example.
Anthony Hopkins (2021) — The Academy broke with tradition and moved Best Actor to the final slot of the night, widely seen as a setup for a Chadwick Boseman posthumous win for Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom to close on an emotional high. Boseman had swept the precursors and his win felt like a foregone conclusion. Hopkins won, however, and wasn’t even present to accept, leading to the the ceremony awkwardly and abruptly ending.
Best Director
Ron Howard over David Lynch, 2002 — A Beautiful Mind over Mulholland Drive and Moulin Rouge! was widely seen as the Academy taking the safe, vanilla route.
Best Picture
Shakespeare in Love (1998) — Famous for being spurred on by a ruthless Harvey Weinstein-run awards campaign and somehow beating Saving Private Ryan, making it one of the bigger black marks in recent Oscars history.
Crash (2005) — Probably the most criticized Best Picture win of the era, with the backlash only growing over time as the film continues to age poorly.
The King’s Speech (2011) — The King’s Speech is a fine movie. But it beat The Social Network, which is widely considered to be one of the best movies of the century at large.
Green Book (2018) — Won over Roma and The Favourite despite being largely reviewed as a reductive, hoaky take on race relations.