Catherine Zeta-Jones

Back in 1991, it seemed incredible that the Welsh sitcom star of The Darling Buds of May would go on to nab two highly coveted American men—Michael Douglas and Oscar—in quick succession. After swashbuckling with Antonio Banderas (The Mask of Zorro) and cavorting among laser beams with Sean Connery (Entrapment), Zeta-Jones snared a Golden Globe nomination for Steven Soderbergh’s Traffic. It was just a short two-step to her 2003 Oscar for Chicago, but like many a Hollywood-feted damsel, she’s made some bad rom-com decisions. Intolerable Cruelty and The Terminal pulled her into an abyss from which not even Ocean’s Twelve could save her. What followed: another Zorro film and the blink-and-you-missed-them vehicles No Reservations and Death Defying Acts. Coffin-nailing might be a more accurate descriptor.
—AK

Cuba Gooding Jr.

Ugh, we don’t want to say it. Don’t. Want… Show me the money! There. (Show me the money!) When Cuba Gooding Jr. rode his Jerry Maguire catchphrase to 1997’s Best Supporting Actor win, he could do no wrong. (He even made Tom Cruise look good.) But the wreckage strewn through Gooding’s next decade of work speaks to the seriousness of the Oscar curse like no other. As Good as It Gets and Instinct can’t be held against him; these movies at least put him in the company of serious stars like Jack Nicholson and Anthony Hopkins. But how about the company of Michael Bay (Pearl Harbor)? Or dogs (Snow Dogs)? By 2002’s Boat Trip, Gooding had become a joke—and he hadn’t even made Daddy Day Camp yet. Selling out or buying in? Show us the talent, Cuba.—JR

Halle Berry

“I am the vessel!” Halle Berry exclaimed through tears, picking up her Best Actress statuette for 2001’s Monster’s Ball. (The performance is fine, but Rosa Parks this is not.) Little did Berry know, though, that she’d soon be traveling through a vessel—one that leads to consistent suckitude. She slunk around an especially lame Bond film, Die Another Day, then played second fiddle to special effects in the X-Men movies. But the worst was yet to come: Gothika, Catwoman, Perfect Stranger and Things We Lost in the Fire, all major stinkers. Any one of these would seriously cramp a career, but because Halle’s presumably got a very persuasive agent, she continues to stay in the game—barely. Is the win itself to blame? Before Monster’s Ball, Berry was a perfectly likable supporting player (see Bulworth, Jungle Fever). Now she’s a guarantee of wasted time.—JR

Renée Zellweger

From the moment Zellweger told Tom Cruise that he “had her at hello” in Jerry Maguire, this blond Texan had moviegoers smitten. (Seriously: What is it with Jerry Maguire and career breakdowns?) She completed us, and seemed poised to fill the post–Meg Ryan void as the new perky all-American sweetheart. Playing the titular heroine of Bridget Jones’s Diary and Chicago’s Roxie Hart made Zellweger’s rise stratospheric; her turn in 2003’s Cold Mountain won her a small bald man, and we’re not talking about Toby Jones. It wasn’t long, however, before her mysteriously inexpressive visage started gracing duds: a lackluster Bridget sequel, two DOA biopics (<Cinderella Man and Miss Potter), the only recent George Clooney movie to fizzle (Leatherheads) and a tepid-at-best oater (Appaloosa). Even a return to her romantic-comedy roots yielded…New in Town. [Shudder] Et tu, Renée?—DF

Roberto Benigni

A major star in his native country, Italian comedian Roberto Benigni first caught American filmgoers’ attention in Jim Jarmusch’s Down by Law. The manic funnyman became a household name, however, after Life Is Beautiful won him the Best Actor Oscar in 1999. Writer, director and star Benigni was so overjoyed that he skipped over seats and kissed Martin Scorsese’s shoes; the world was suddenly his for the taking. Alas, the Jerry Lewis of Rome next appeared in a lesser entry of the French “Asterix and Obelix” franchise (it was never released here) and embarked on the most expensive Italian flop to date: a disastrous reimagination of Pinocchio, with Benigni in the title role (!). He announced in 2004 that his next picture would take on the Iraq War; when said comedy, The Tiger and the Snow,was released here the following year, the monumentally misguided effort barely played for a week.—DF

The 81st Academy Awards air Sun 22 at 7:30pm on ABC.

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