Netflix's controversial Emilia Perez could become lowest-rated Oscar winner for 20 years

And it would put it on the same footing as Crash in 2006, the much-maligned best picture winner that proved victorious over Brokeback Mountain.

Despite a competitive category, Netflix’s musical crime drama Emilia Pérez about a trans former Cartel boss has been the movie on most people’s lips – especially when it broke Bafta records, emerged as the biggest winner at the Golden Globes and then raked in the most Academy Award nominations this year with 13.

And that’s on top of its triumphant premiere at Cannes in May, often considered the most prestigious film festival in the world.

However, if Emilia Pérez does scoop the main gong at this year’s Oscars, it will actually be the lowest rated best picture winner since Crash, according to review aggregator site Rotten Tomatoes.

It currently holds a 72% critics’ score, 1% lower than Crash almost two decades ago.

For context, last year’s best picture winner Oppenheimer has a rather more impressive 93%, while recent victors Everything Everywhere All at Once and CODA are both on 94%.

Green Book, which won in 2019 and was also considered an erroneous pick in the aftermath, is the nearest recent winner to the movie’s low Rotten Tomatoes score at 77%.

However, when it comes to the audience rating, Green Book has a healthy 91% – the same as Oppenheimer and CODA.

Everything Everywhere All at Once’s fans were more subdued than the critics, giving it 79% – but Emilia Pérez’s is a shocking 16%, a full 56% lower than its not especially high critics’ score.

In contrast, Crash’s audience reception translated into an 88% rating, higher than the critics and a huge 80% higher than Emilia Pérez’s.

Quite a lot has happened which could explain both why fans have rejected the flick and how it’s ended up with the lowest critical score of a (potential) best picture winner in 20 years, though.

The controversial movie has been hit with plenty of criticism, with GLAAD calling Emilia’s transition from her former life as crime boss Manitas ‘a profoundly retrograde portrayal of a trans woman’.

French filmmaker Jacques Audiard has also been slammed for telling a Mexican story as a non-Spanish speaker, with minimal Mexican input (actress Adriana Paz is the only Mexican performer with a main role) and a self-admitted lack of research (“I didn’t study much.”)

Some fans have also dismissed the songs in the musical, written by Camille and composer Clément Ducol, as nonsensical and lacking in quality – although the film is still nominated for best original score as well as two nods for best song.

Most recently, lead actress Karla Sofía Gascón’s campaign to become the first openly trans performer nominated at the Oscars has seemingly imploded too after the unearthing of several incriminating tweets – some of which she claims are fabricated, others of which she has apologised for after ‘caus[ing] hurt’.

Gascón has been noticeably absent from much of the awards season so far, and did not attend the SAG Awards or the Baftas.

Despite speculation that she would skip the ceremony, it has been claimed that she will be joining her castmates, including Selena Gomez and Zoe Saldaña, at the Oscars.

She was not in attendance at the Oscar nominees dinner at the Academy Museum on February 25.

So far, Emilia Pérez has had an interesting awards season – landing 11 Bafta nominations but only winning two of those, with Saldaña taking home the best supporting actress trophy as well as film not in the English language category.

At the Screen Actors Guild Awards last weekend, Saldaña was awarded the movie’s only gong, getting the accolade for outstanding performance by a female actor in a supporting role.

While The Brutalist seems to have moved to pole position in the best picture race, with just under four weeks to go, many are still hedging their bets over which film will be garlanded as the year’s best at the Oscars.

The highest-rated past best picture winners on Rotten Tomatoes are Parasite, Casablanca, All About Eve and On the Waterfront, all of which are currently tied on 99%.

The lowest is 1929’s The Broadway Melody, which won the second-ever Oscar for best picture, after Wings the year before.

This article was originally published on February 3.

Emilia Pérez is streaming on Netflix now.