The 1st Golden Raspberry Awards were held on March 31, 1981, at founder John J. B. Wilson's living room alcove to recognize the worst the film industry had to offer in 1980. For it was a double feature of Can't Stop the Music, winner of Worst Picture, and Xanadu that inspired Wilson to start the Razzies. Each category included as many as ten nominees; the maximum was lowered to five the following year to mirror the Oscars. "There was a fake stage in John's apartment," remembers Maureen Murphy, who was a presenter.[1][2][3]
The awards are often criticized for nominating The Shining for two categories: Shelley Duvall for Worst Actress and Stanley Kubrick for Worst Director.[5] In 2022, Razzies founder John J. B. Wilson admitted that he regrets the nomination, saying: "Knowing the backstory and the way that Stanley Kubrick kind of pulverized her, I would take that back."[6] That same year, the awards committee rescinded Duvall's nomination, but not Kubrick's.[7][8][9] The nominations for Brian De Palma's Dressed to Kill have also been criticized.[10]
^The Razzie committee officially rescinded the nomination on March 31, 2022, stating: "We have since discovered that Duvall's performance was impacted by Stanley Kubrick's treatment of her throughout the production." The retraction of the nomination was in response to public backlash the Razzies received after refusing to retract Bruce Willis's win for "Worst Bruce Willis Performance in a 2021 Movie" (a one-off category for his roles in eight films released that calendar year), after Willis's family announced that the star had been diagnosed with aphasia, a cognitive brain condition, and was subsequently retiring from acting on March 30, 2022. The Razzie committee retracted both Willis's win and Duvall's nomination the following day.[4]