Golden Raspberry Awards


The Golden Raspberry Awards is a parody award show honoring the worst of cinematic failures. Co-founded by UCLA film graduates and film industry veterans John J. B. Wilson and Mo Murphy, the Razzie Awards' satirical annual ceremony is predated by its progenitor, the Academy Awards, by five decades. The term raspberry is used in its irreverent sense, as in "blowing a raspberry". The statuette is a golf ball-sized raspberry atop a Super 8mm film reel atop a 35-millimeter film core with brown wood shelf paper glued and wrapped around it—sitting atop a jar lid spray-painted gold. The Golden Raspberry Foundation has claimed that the award "encourages well-known filmmakers and top-notch performers to own their bad."
The first Golden Raspberry Awards ceremony was held on March 31, 1981, in John J. B. Wilson's living-room alcove in Hollywood, to honor the perceived worst films of the 1980 film season. Sylvester Stallone has the most Razzies, with 12.

History

American publicist John J. B. Wilson went to see a 99-cent double feature of Can't Stop the Music and Xanadu and thought on his drive home that those movies deserved awards for their low quality, and subsequently started thinking of all the other films that disappointed him in 1980, particularly as he had watched hundreds of productions in his job making trailers. The following year during a potluck party held at his home in Hollywood on the night of the 53rd Academy Awards, Wilson passed ballots regarding the worst in film to the attendees, and invited his friends to give random award presentations in his living room. Wilson stood at a lectern made of cardboard in a tacky tuxedo, with a foam ball attached to a broomstick as a fake microphone, and announced Can't Stop the Music as the first Golden Raspberry Award Winner for Worst Picture. The impromptu ceremony was a success and the following week a press release about his event was picked up by a few local newspapers, including a mention in the Los Angeles Daily News with the headline: "Take These Envelopes, Please".File:John Wilson at 29th Razzie Awards.jpg|thumb|John J. B. Wilson at the 29th Golden Raspberry Awards in 2009Approximately three dozen people came to the 1st Golden Raspberry Awards. The 2nd Golden Raspberry Awards had double the attendance, and the 3rd awards ceremony had doubled that number. By the 4th Golden Raspberry Awards ceremony, CNN and two major wire services covered the event. Wilson realized that by scheduling the Golden Raspberry Awards prior to the Academy Awards, the ceremony would get more press coverage: "We finally figured out you couldn't compete with the Oscars on Oscar night, but if you went the night before, when the press from all over the world are here and they are looking for something to do, it could well catch on," he said to BBC News.
In 2022, a dedicated award category, Worst Bruce Willis Performance in a 2021 Movie, was created after Bruce Willis starred in a number of poorly received low-budget films. On March 30 of that year, Willis's family announced that he had been diagnosed with aphasia. The Golden Raspberry Awards subsequently retracted the award category, saying it was inappropriate to award a Golden Raspberry to someone whose performance was affected by a medical condition. At the same time, the Awards retroactively retracted their 1980 Worst Actress nomination of Shelley Duvall in The Shining, stating "We have since discovered that Duvall's performance was impacted by Stanley Kubrick's treatment of her throughout the production". In 2023, following backlash for nominating 12-year-old Ryan Kiera Armstrong for Worst Actress, the Golden Raspberry Awards rescinded the nomination and said individuals under age 18 would no longer be nominated. The Razzies themselves later won the category for the blunder.

Format

Members of the Golden Raspberry Award Organization pay for membership, and number 650 from 19 countries. The ceremonies have generally been scheduled with both nominations and awards revealed in the day before the Academy Awards with only two exceptions; the 32nd Golden Raspberry Awards had the nominees announced the day before the Academy Award nominees but the ceremony took place on April 1, and the milestone 40th Golden Raspberry Awards, the ceremonies of which were cancelled due to the COVID-19 pandemic with the winners revealed online.

Recipients who have accepted their award

was the first person to go to the ceremony in 1996 to receive his award in the category Worst Director for the movie Showgirls. Other recipients who have accepted their Golden Raspberry Award include Bill Cosby, who became the first to accept a Razzie award, but which was presented to him in The Late Show in 1988 for his work on Leonard Part 6, Tom Green, Halle Berry and Sandra Bullock, Michael Ferris and J. D. Shapiro, Alan Menken, Dinesh D'Souza, and Fifty Shades of Grey producers Dana Brunetti and Michael De Luca.

Contenders for worst and best

Several people and/or films have received Razzie nominations while simultaneously receiving award nominations and other cultural honors from different organizations, sometimes for the same work or role.

Razzie and Oscar

Three people have won both a Razzie and an Oscar the same weekend: composer Alan Menken in 1993, screenwriter Brian Helgeland in 1997, and actress Sandra Bullock in 2010, though all three won for different films. Three actors have received Oscar and Razzie acting nominations for the same role: James Coco, Amy Irving, and Glenn Close.
Nineteen Worst Picture nominees have been nominated for an Oscar, with Pearl Harbor being the only film in 2002 that won in any Oscars category, namely Best Sound Editing.
Disney's The Hunchback of Notre Dame became the first and so far only animated film to be nominated for both an Oscar and a Razzie. The film was nominated for Worst Written Film Grossing Over $100 Million at the 17th ceremony, but it was also nominated for Academy Award for Best Original Musical or Comedy Score at the 69th Academy Awards.
Blonde became the first NC-17 rated film to be nominated for an Oscar and a Razzie. The film was nominated for the most Razzies with eight at the 43rd ceremony: winning only two, while the film's main star Ana de Armas was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Actress at the 95th Academy Awards.
As of 2024, 77 films have been nominated for both an Oscar and a Razzie. Only one film, Wall Street, has won both awards, with Michael Douglas winning the Academy Award for Best Actor, and Daryl Hannah winning the Golden Raspberry Award for Worst Supporting Actress.

Razzie and Tony

Newsies was nominated for Worst Picture at the 1993 ceremony, and Alan Menken won Worst Original Song for "High Times, Hard Times". The 2011 stage adaptation, which did not include "High Times, Hard Times", was nominated for the Tony Award for Best Musical, and Menken won Best Original Score.

Categories

Current Awards
  • Worst Picture: 1980 to present
  • Worst Director: 1980 to present
  • Worst Actor: 1980 to present
  • Worst Actress: 1980 to present
  • Worst Supporting Actor: 1980 to present
  • Worst Supporting Actress: 1980 to present
  • Worst Screenplay: 1980 to present
  • Worst Remake, Rip-off or Sequel: 1994 to present, except 1996 and 1999
  • Worst Screen Combo: 2013 to present
  • Razzie Redeemer Award: 2014 to present, except 2021
Retired
  • Worst Original Song: 1980 to 1999, 2002
  • Worst New Star: 1981 to 1998, except 1989
  • Worst Musical Score: 1981 to 1985
  • Worst Visual Effects: 1986 to 1987
  • Worst Screen Couple: 1994 to 2009, 2011 to 2012
  • Worst Screen Couple/Worst Screen Ensemble: 2010
  • Worst Screen Ensemble: 2011 to 2012

    Special categories

Special categories have also been introduced for specific years. Such special awards include:
YearCategoryWinnerNominees
1996Worst Written Film Grossing Over $100 MillionTwister—Michael Crichton & Anne-Marie MartinThe Hunchback of Notre Dame—Tab Murphy, Irene Mecchi, Bob Tzudiker & Noni White
Independence Day—Dean Devlin & Roland Emmerich
Mission: Impossible—David Koepp and Robert Towne
A Time to Kill—Akiva Goldsman
1997Worst Reckless Disregard for Human Life and Public PropertyCon AirBatman & Robin
The Lost World: Jurassic Park
Turbulence
Volcano
2019Worst Reckless Disregard for Human Life and Public PropertyRambo: Last BloodDragged Across Concrete
The Haunting of Sharon Tate
Hellboy
Joker
1998Worst Movie Trends of the YearGidgets 'n' geezers If you've seen the trailer, why bother to see the movie?!?
30 minutes of story – conveyed in less than three hours!
THX: The audio is deafening!
Yo quiero tacky tie-ins!
2002Most Flatulent Teen-Targeted MovieJackass: The MovieEight Crazy Nights
Crossroads
Scooby-Doo
XXX
2003Worst Excuse for an Actual Movie The Cat in the Hat2 Fast 2 Furious
Charlie's Angels: Full Throttle
From Justin to Kelly
The Real Cancun
2005Most Tiresome Tabloid TargetsTom Cruise, his baby, Katie Holmes, Oprah Winfrey's couch and the Eiffel TowerTom Cruise and his anti-psychiatry rant
Paris Hilton and... "who EVER!"
Mr. and Mrs. Britney, their baby and their camcorder
The Simpsons: Ashlee, Jessica and Nick
2006Worst Excuse for Family EntertainmentRVDeck the Halls
Garfield: A Tail of Two Kitties
The Santa Clause 3: The Escape Clause
The Shaggy Dog
2007Worst Excuse for a Horror MovieI Know Who Killed MeAliens vs. Predator: Requiem
Captivity
Hannibal Rising
Hostel: Part II
2010Worst Eye-Gouging Misuse of 3DThe Last AirbenderCats & Dogs: The Revenge of Kitty Galore
Clash of the Titans
The Nutcracker
Saw 3D
2017The Razzie Nominee So Rotten You Loved ItBaywatchThe Emoji Movie
Fifty Shades Darker
The Mummy
Transformers: The Last Knight
2021Worst Bruce Willis Performance in a 2021 MovieCosmic SinAmerican Siege
Apex
Deadlock
Fortress
Midnight in the Switchgrass
Out of Death
Survive the Game