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10 years of Oscar hosts ranked from best to worst

It’s a tough job, but someone has to do it every year.

Oscar host Ellen DeGeneres' selfie in 2014 with Hollywood heavyweights broke the Internet.
Oscar host Ellen DeGeneres' selfie in 2014 with Hollywood heavyweights broke the Internet.Read more

If Oscar hosting has turned into an Olympic sport, we should blame Billy Crystal, the nine-time host who set the bar so high he failed to clear it himself when he returned in 2012 after Eddie Murphy backed out.

Here, ranked from best to worst, are other recent hosts Chris Rock will be measured against Sunday.

Ellen DeGeneres

Hosted: 2007 and 2014.

How she did: Better the second time, breaking the Internet with a selfie with some of the world's biggest stars.

Hugh Jackman

Hosted: 2009.

How he did: Wolverine brought his song-and-dance skills, and though reviews were mixed, I thought he was charming. If anything, he was too little seen, as though someone thought we'd rather watch montages than a nice-looking guy in a tuxedo.

Jon Stewart

Hosted: 2006 and 2008.

How he did: Reviews were mixed, and he was in a notably tough room, but playing to the biggest audiences of his life, Stewart wisely kept his performances a little small.

Sample line (from 2006): To Steven Spielberg, who directed best-picture nominee Munich - "Schindler's List and Munich . . . I think I speak for all Jews when I say, 'I can't wait to see what happens to us next.' "

Neil Patrick Harris

Hosted: 2015.

How he did: Expectations were high for the talented Harris, who had excelled in other hosting gigs, but his debut fell mostly flat, and his jokes occasionally stepped on moments of true emotion.

Sadly unforgettable: Harris' appearance on stage in his tighty-whities, an homage to Birdman.

Alec Baldwin and Steve Martin

Hosted: 2010.

How they did: Let's just say two heads aren't always better than one.

Sample banter: Martin: "Oh, look, there's that damn Helen Mirren."

Baldwin: "That's Dame Helen Mirren."

James Franco and Anne Hathaway

Hosted: 2011.

How they did: She was at her charming, energetic best. He looked half-asleep. The writing didn't help.

Franco to Hathaway: "You look so beautiful, and so hip."

Hathaway: "Thank you, James. You look very appealing to a younger demographic, as well."

Seth MacFarlane

Hosted: 2013.

How he did: The Family Guy creator squandered his own considerable talents, setting a possible new low for Oscar casts with his song "We Saw Your Boobs," name-checking actresses who had been topless in films.

- Ellen Gray