'Green Book' is the worst Oscar best picture winner since 'Crash,' according to movie critics

Universal

Mahershala Ali and Viggo Mortensen in "Green Book."

• "Green Book" is the worst-reviewed Oscar best picture winner since "Crash" won in 2006.
• Both movies deal with race relations in America, and both have been lambasted by film critics for how they do so.

When "Green Book" won best picture at the Oscars on Sunday, it immediately prompted backlash from film critics across the internet. It's been 13 years since a worse-reviewed movie won the Academy Awards' top prize.

That movie was "Crash," which took home the trophy at the 2006 Oscars, beating out the projected winner, "Brokeback Mountain," in what is considered to be one of the biggest Oscar upsets of all time.

"Green Book" has a 79% Rotten Tomatoes critic score, while "Crash" has a 74% score. No best picture winner since "Crash" has received a worse Rotten Tomatoes rating than "Green Book." In a ranking of all 91 best picture winners based on Rotten Tomatoes critic scores, "Crash" ranks 83, while "Green Book" places at 75.

"Green Book" and "Crash" both address race relations in America, and both have been lambasted by critics for how they do so. The Paul Haggis-directed "Crash," which also won the Oscars for original screenplay and film editing, weaves together several different stories of racial tensions in Los Angeles.

READ MORE: A new documentary tells the history of the real Green Book, but the director doesn't support the Oscar-winning movie

"Haggis embeds 'Crash's' script so deeply in allegory that every revelation feels manipulative and programmatic, in spite of some terrific individual scenes and performances," Scott Tobias wrote in his 2005 review for The AV Club. "Just because a movie is about racial politics doesn't mean that they should dictate it."

"Green Book," which also won the Oscars for original screenplay and supporting actor for Mahershala Ali, tells the true story of Frank "Tony Lip" Vallelonga (played by Viggo Mortensen), an Italian-American bouncer in New York City who drives African-American musician Don Shirley (Ali) through a tour in the 1960s Deep South.

"'Green Book' is a but also movie, a both sides movie, and in that, it extends a 50-year-plus tradition of movies that tell a story about American racism that has always been irresistibly appealing, on and offscreen, to that portion of white Americans who see themselves as mediators," Vulture's Mark Harris wrote in November.

"Green Book" was also mired in controversy throughout the Oscar season. Its director, Peter Farrelly, known for slapstick comedies like "Dumb and Dumber," apologized last month after reports from the 1990s resurfaced that he flashed his genitals in front of colleagues. The movie's co-writer, Nick Vallelonga (son of Tony), also apologized last month and deleted his Twitter account after a 2015 anti-Muslim tweet resurfaced in which he claimed Muslims were cheering after the 9/11 terrorist attacks.

Additionally, Shirley's family has spoken out against the contents of "Green Book," claiming the movie misrepresents him. Both Shirley and Vallelonga died in 2013.

"They decided to make Don Shirley estranged from his black family, though that was not true," Shirley's great niece, Yvonne Shirley, told The Hollywood Reporter. "They decided to make him absurdly disconnected from black community and culture, though that was not true."