The 10 Worst Oscars Hosts Of All Time, Ranked

In a perfect world, the Oscars would be a true celebration of everything cinema accomplished the previous year. No one should listen to the naysayers who say that cinema is filled with nothing but remakes and sequels. Anyone who says that isn’t a serious person and probably only goes to the theater twice a year anyway. If you look closely enough, you’ll find plenty of amazing films that speak to the human condition or comment on modern societal ills in an entertaining way. There are always movies to celebrate, and the Academy Awards should ideally honor all those. 

Sadly, the Oscars are often their own worst enemy. Cinephiles just want to have fun during this event, but the ceremony frequently shoots itself in the foot by pandering to people who don’t even like movies and eliminating movie clips even though WE ALL WANT TO SEE THE PERFORMANCES THAT WERE NOMINATED. Of course, one of the most egregious offenses the Oscars frequently make is getting a host who seems to hate hosting. 

To be fair, hosting any award ceremony can often be seen as a thankless gig. It honestly doesn’t pay much, and there are always going to be people who criticize you no matter how well of a job you do. That still doesn’t explain the hosts who utterly faceplanted during their time making monologues and ushering in presenters. From bad to somehow even worse, these are the worst Oscars hosts of all time who somehow created even cringier moments than when “Green Book” won Best Picture. 

This first entry is a bit of a cheat since technically the 1989 Oscars ceremony didn’t have a host, but that’s something of a travesty in an of itself. Without a host giving a monologue, the event needed to have something else to kick things off, and that’s where we get the reason a hostless Oscars winds up on this list. 

Snow White (Eileen Bowman) comes onstage and enters into a musical number, transitioning to Merv Griffin singing “I’ve Got a Bunch of Lovely Coconuts” with a faux British accent. In a move that immediately didn’t age well, Snow White’s introduced to Rob Lowe, coming fresh off a sex scandal involving him making a sex tape with an underage girl. Making him appear next to Snow White, who’s canonically 14 years old, was certainly a choice. Even without Lowe, the 10-minute intro was absolutely cringey. It would’ve been awful if it had been done for a kid’s birthday party, but for a room of established actors, it’s utterly insulting. 

Condemnation was swift. Numerous actors quickly denounced the ceremony, and Disney filed a lawsuit for the unlawful use of Snow White’s likeness. The Oscars wouldn’t go hostless for 30 years, and that instance was … fine? Still, it’s a good demonstration of why the ceremony needs some kind of guiding force, unless you’re talking about the rest of the hosts on this list. 

Bet you didn’t expect to see Bob Hope anywhere near a list of the worst Oscars hosts ever, huh? It may even sound more astounding that he’s here with the likes of Frank Sinatra, Sammy David Jr., and Shirley Maclaine during the 1975 ceremony, with a group like that sounding like it should be a blast. However, while the ceremony itself was largely fine, the group found themselves in the midst of some in-fighting.

Bert Schneider and Peter Davis won Best Documentary Feature at the event for “Hearts and Minds,” which is about the Vietnam War. The war was almost over by this point, but Schneider used his time on the stage to read a statement from a member of the Viet Cong to thank the United States’ anti-war movement. This didn’t sit right with Republican Bob Hope, who made Sinatra read a statement later in the ceremony: “We are not responsible for any political statements made on this program, and it does not reflect the attitude of the Academy.”

In hindsight, it feels like a moment of cowardice, with Hope and Sinatra not being able to read the changing of the tide and the general consensus surrounding whether the U.S. belonged in Vietnam in the first place. Sinatra’s declaration angered Maclaine who apparently chastised Sinatra backstage and later called him out in The New York Times. It goes to show politics at the Oscars are nothing new, but ideally, hosts shouldn’t try to negate someone else’s message.

One of the biggest criticisms directed toward every Academy Awards ceremony is how long it always takes. They try to reduce the runtime by cutting off people’s speeches, but it still always feels like you’re sitting there forever just to see who won Best Picture. Amazingly, in 1959, the Oscars had the opposite problem, which created a conundrum for host Jerry Lewis. 

To be fair to Lewis, this particular ceremony had quite a few hosts, including Laurence Olivier, Bob Hope, Tony Randall, Mort Sahl, and David Niven. However, it was Lewis that went down in history for ad-libbing at the end of the event with 20 minutes left to go. He brought audience members to the stage and awkwardly tried to fill the airwaves, including talking about how competing programs were losing in terms of viewership, which feels like poor sportsmanlike conduct. 

It’s a tough act to try to fill 20 minutes, so it’s hard to fault Lewis too much. Being a good comedian doesn’t inherently translate to being a good improviser. It wouldn’t be the last time Lewis’ antics were the source of controversy, as his Holocaust drama “The Day the Clown Cried” remains unreleased for seemingly making light of the unimageable tragedy. 

Steven Martin is hilarious. Alec Baldwin had some of the best line deliveries on “30 Rock” and remains one of the best “Saturday Night Live” hosts the sketch show has ever seen. Pairing the two up for an Oscar hosting gig seems like a no-brainer and a formula for comedic perfection. However, the result was anything but. 

To be fair, the duo wasn’t necessarily bad, but from their opening monologue, it was clear that something was just … off. There are far too many awkward pauses, with Martin and Baldwin having absolutely zero chemistry with one another. It doesn’t help that many of the jokes themselves simply fall flat. A joke about Woody Harrelson smoking weed? Someone get these guys jobs as apple pickers with all the low-hanging fruit they’re going after. 

Ultimately, this hosting stint winds up on the list because it really feels like the pairing should’ve been way better than what we got. But now that we think about it, Steve Martin and Martin Short should absolutely host an Oscars ceremony at some point. If nothing else, it’d give Martin a chance at redemption.

For the 1987 Oscar ceremony, Chevy Chase co-hosted with Paul Hogan and Goldie Hawn. The whole affair went pretty well, so the following year, Chase got to host the whole thing by himself, which maybe proved that he’s better when in an ensemble. 

Of course, Chase was a bit up a river without a paddle during this particular Academy Awards. The Writers Guild of America went on strike on March 7, 1988. The Oscars were on March 30, so Chase had far less help coming up with material for the show than usual. Still, he got off on the wrong foot with the audience when he opened his stint with the greeting, “Good evening, Hollywood phonies.” There are actually some cuts to the audience during Chase’s monologue where people look like they have the utmost contempt for him. 

Outside of that, Chase’s monologue was largely rambling, including an extended tangent talking about film critics. It seems weird to bemoan critics when celebrating the best of what Hollywood has to offer because one would assume most of the movies up for trophies were well-received. Maybe Chase was still salty over the critical reception to “Three Amigos!” and took the Oscars as a chance to air out his grievances. 

The Academy opted for a different approach in 2011 to attract younger viewers. Instead of comedians they may or may not have heard of, they opted for two big stars to host the proceedings, namely Anna Hathaway and James Franco. If you thought Steve Martin and Alec Baldwin lacked chemistry, wait until you get a look at these two. 

It deserves to be said that Hathaway should largely be seen as innocent in this debacle. She absolutely does her best, bringing an overly enthusiastic attitude to hosting Hollywood’s big night. With someone else as a co-host, maybe this wouldn’t have come across so bombastic. However, she’s paired with Franco, who’s acting like the kid in a group project who didn’t do any of the work and is now bluffing his way through the presentation. 

If Hathaway is too enthusiastic, Franco’s energy is to the floor. Apparently, that was Franco’s idea. In 2021, The Ringer did a retrospective write-up about their hosting gig with writer David Wild, who explained, “I think he wanted to play it as buddy-cop movie with two opposite characters.” Opposing dynamics may work in movies like “Pineapple Express” and other Franco vehicles, but they don’t land at an award show. At least Hathaway got some Oscar redemption a couple of years later, winning Best Supporting Actress for “Les Misérables.”

Speaking of Oscar hosts who are on completely different wavelengths, look no further than the 1983 ceremony that had four hosts entertain the crowd — Liza Minnelli, Richard Pryor, Dudley Moore, and Walter Matthau. The event began with a musical number where Minnelli seems to be the only one putting in the work, basically becoming the Anne Hathaway of this particular Oscar night. 

In 1994, Entertainment Weekly spoke with long-time Oscar writer Buz Kohan about what went wrong: “They were all scared stiff, but ordinarily if you’re scared, then you put in the time and rehearse. They took the opposite approach. So Liza was forced to carry the number.” From watching clips, you can see how awkward everyone else is, with it seeming like Pryor isn’t even singing at points. 

Minnelli immediately poked fun, saying later in the night that “Richard, Dudley and Walter are still rehearsing our opening number.” Minnelli probably could’ve handled the hosting duties all on her own, proving a valuable lesson that more hosts doesn’t always equate to better hosts. 

The Academy Awards really had a bad string of hosts in the early 2010s. In 2013, they took a wild swing by bringing in Seth MacFarlane, who seems either inspired casting or an odd choice. 

He brings many of his “Family Guy” sensibilities to the ceremony, but “Family Guy” usually gets away with its more controversial moments because that’s what people want out of the animated sitcom. The same can’t be said for an award ceremony meant to celebrate film. The part where they re-enact “Flight” with sock puppets is actually pretty funny, if nothing else that it’s the sort of absurd thing you’d assume the Oscars would steer clear of. Then there’s his most infamous bit where he sings “We Saw Your Boobs” about all the times actresses have appeared nude in films. 

There are cuts to many of them in the audience where it’s up for debate whether they were actually offended. Charlize Theron looked annoyed but later worked with MacFarlane on “1,000 Ways to Die in the West,” so there must not have been too much bad blood between them. Even still, MacFarlane’s humor just doesn’t jibe with the ceremony, including William Shatner appearing as Captain Kirk to tell him how he messes everything up. The newspaper headline he brings up — “Seth MacFarlane pretty bad Oscar host” — turned out to be rather prescient. 

When looking back at his 1995 Academy Awards hosting gig to The Hollywood Reporter, David Letterman described it as “excrement.” Despite hosting a late-night talk show, which seems like the perfect practice for hosting an awards show, many of Letterman’s bits fell flat. The most famous of these is the “Oprah-Uma” joke that he kept bringing up repeatedly throughout the rest of the telecast. 

Yes, those are names you don’t see too many people have. No, it isn’t very funny to just say them in quick succession as though you’re trying to get a laugh out of a toddler. 

Elsewhere in his THR interview, Letterman discussed how he forgot about all the references he made to that gag throughout the rest of the show: “‘If you have an extra life raft, throw one to me!’ That’s what I was trying for. But I had forgotten that — I thought it was just one and out. It must have been pure survival instinct.” Even ignoring the Oprah-Uma joke, many of his other moments didn’t fare too well either, including a fatphobic joke directed toward Roger Ebert. It deserves to be said; just because a critic didn’t like something you made doesn’t mean everyone else in the room will enjoy you disparaging them. 

When it comes to designating someone as the worst Oscars host ever, it’s really a matter of what makes someone the outright worst. Sure, there have been awkward and disinterested hosts, but the worst host should be someone who appears to have the utmost contempt for what the Oscars stand for. For the purposes of this list, we’re opting for Neil Patrick Harris during the 2015 ceremony. This is a night to celebrate everyone’s hard work and the art they created, but Harris seemed more interested in tearing people down where possible.

Look at the aftermath of Dana Perry and Ellen Goosenberg Kent winning for Best Documentary Short Subject for “Crisis Hotline: Veterans Press 1,” during which Perry dedicated the award to her late son. Perry also happened to wear a dress with some black fuzzballs, to which Harris joked after, “It takes a lot of balls to wear that dress.” He also made a joke about David Oyelowo’s British accent, so the whole affair had a nasty undercurrent to it. 

Even Harris’ jokes that weren’t off-color just kind of sucked. At one point, he literally introduces Reese Witherspoon by saying, “This next presenter is so lovely you could eat her up with her spoon.” Obviously, there’s a team of writers to help with the jokes, but was the writing team nothing but people’s dads that year? If you weren’t rolling your eyes with the puns, you were cringing at Harris being downright mean to people when they likely just want a nice evening and maybe take home a trophy. The other worst Oscar hosts at least had some bright spots, but there’s really nothing worth salvaging here.