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{{trope}}
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[[File:oscarbait_9451.jpg|frame]]▼
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{{quote|''"[[Inspirationally Disadvantaged|The diseased/addicted/mentally impaired]] always get the Oscar."''
|''Vanity Fair''|"Hollywood Rule Book"}}
You would think that a good movie is a good movie, and that good movies just get Oscars, wouldn't you?
▲You would think that a good movie is a good movie, and that good movies just get Oscars, wouldn't you?
Unfortunately, it isn't so. Because [[Academy Award|Oscars]] get people to the theater, and because ticket sales increase a studio's bottom line, movie studios and producers have come up with many schemes to get Oscars for their films. Nevertheless, for a long time, the kinds of movies that won Oscars were enjoyed by both the public and the critics, though not all of them have aged well. Often, bigger was better for budgets and box-office receipts.
But the prime years of [[Steven Spielberg]] and [[George Lucas]], in tandem with the crumbling "[[New Hollywood]]" of the 1960s-70s, caused a schism to emerge. Studios started targeting the [[Lowest Common Denominator]] more often with the rise of the [[Summer Blockbuster]]. While Spielberg and Lucas's best works were beloved and received many nominations and awards, their perceived "lightweight" nature kept them from winning in "important" categories (acting, direction, writing, picture). On the other side of the coin, audiences became less interested in the weightier fare that ''did'' win in those categories; that "serious" fare that has become
If it's not a [[Musical|big Broadway musical]] or an [[Epic Movie|epic, cast-of-thousands extravaganza]], then Oscar Bait is usually a depressing drama because [[True Art Is Angsty]]. Comedy [[Comedy Ghetto|has had a hard time]] at the Oscars from the beginning; this is one reason [[Tom Hanks Syndrome]] exists. Other genres doing hard are western, sci-fi and fantasy. If it deals with some form of mental illness or an example of [[Humans Are
They aren't all gloom and doom. A [[White Man's Burden|heartwarming, inspirational drama]] or [[Dramedy]] or even a [[Black Comedy|Dark Comedy]] film can easily be positioned as
The act of setting out to create a movie with the explicit intention to cleaning up at the Academy Awards is known as "Oscarbation." Making your movie
Indeed, many of these movies have not done well at the box-office in recent years. The diminishing ratings of recent Oscar telecasts may be related to the dislike the casual viewing public has for the average Oscar-nominated film. Some have argued that it's time the voters started getting back in line with "popular tastes" (though there are a few recent nominees that ''are'' blockbusters). But the people who do the nominations are unlikely to change their criteria, so the status quo continues. In extreme cases, this can lead to an [[Award Snub]]: movies widely accepted to be genuinely deserving but don't appear to tick the correct boxes are overlooked in favor of less-deserving fare which does.
It's worth nothing that the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences [https://web.archive.org/web/20100721172303/http://www.moviecitynews.com/Notepad/2009/090624_pr.htm announced] that starting with the 2010 ceremony (honoring the films of 2009) the Best Picture category would be expanded to include ''ten'' nominees instead of the long-traditional five. [https://web.archive.org/web/20120112210336/http://rogerebert.suntimes.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=
It's also worth noting recent Best Picture winners like ''The Departed'' and ''No Country For Old Men'', along with the large number of depressing historical dramas (read: Oscar Bait) that don't win. The Academy may be able to detect more blatant bait.
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{{examples}}
==Oscar Bait tactics and examples (which have become rather confused) include...==
=== Positioning the film to win awards ===▼
▲=== [[Oscar Bait]] tactics and examples (which have become rather confused) include... ===
▲== Positioning the film to win awards ==
* Releasing "Oscar-worthy" films in the last two months of the year (sometimes a headlong rush to get a film shown before December 31) to make it a contender for next year's show.
* Massive advertising ''to members of the Academy'' of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences (the famed "For Your Consideration" ads). These campaigns got so out of hand in recent years that they may or may not have been a reason the Oscar ceremony was moved up to the end of February (instead of March): out of hopes that people would pay more attention to the films than the ads. (The main reason, of course, was to coincide with [[Sweeps]].)
* Free "screeners" of films in contention to these same voters, often for "little" movies which may not have been in the theaters long.
** What's sort of counter to the whole idea of the Academy Awards is that these "screeners" are usually just DVDs mailed en masse to all the voting members. In fact, very few voting members of the Academy Awards actually go to many theatrical screenings (if any). Some of this is because they almost always have jobs with odd hours (sometimes requiring them to go on location in a different country) and might not have the luxury of being able to catch a film in theaters. And even though some Mexican computer scientist has managed to create [https://web.archive.org/web/20090715085907/http://iteso.mx/~lcoria/index_archivos/page0005.html a watermarking technology for these screeners], there's always the Academy member who "coincidentally" happens to know the smuggler around the block, and yet the studios ''insist'' on giving away these screeners.
* Specifically creating
=== Subject matter and characters ===▼
* [[Biopic]] / [[Based on a True Story]] films usually have Oscar in mind. The fact that many are
▲== Subject matter and characters ==
** Let's name a few! ''[[Milk]]'', ''[[Frost/Nixon]]'', ''[[Into the Wild]]'', ''[[The Queen]]'', ''[[Letters From Iwo Jima]]'', ''[[Capote]]'', ''[[Walk the Line]]'', ''[[Munich]]'', ''[[Good Night and Good Luck]]'', ''[[Ray]]'', ''[[Finding Neverland]]'', ''[[The Aviator]]'', ''Seabiscuit'', ''[[Monster (film)|Monster]]'', ''[[The Hours]]'', ''[[Frida]]'', ''[[A Beautiful Mind]]'', ''[[Ali]]'', ''[[Iris]]'', ''[[Erin Brockovich]]'', ''[[Before Night Falls]]'', ''[[Pollock]]''... All of these only in the last decade. On the other hand, 1999's ''[[Man on the Moon]]'' was
▲* [[Biopic]] / [[Based on a True Story]] films usually have Oscar in mind. The fact that many are period pieces just makes them more attractive.
* The drive to create
▲** Let's name a few! ''[[Milk]]'', ''[[Frost/Nixon]]'', ''[[Into the Wild]]'', ''[[The Queen]]'', ''[[Letters From Iwo Jima]]'', ''[[Capote]]'', ''[[Walk the Line]]'', ''[[Munich]]'', ''[[Good Night and Good Luck]]'', ''Ray'', ''[[Finding Neverland]]'', ''[[The Aviator]]'', ''Seabiscuit'', ''[[Monster (film)|Monster]]'', ''[[The Hours]]'', ''[[Frida]]'', ''[[A Beautiful Mind]]'', ''Ali'', ''Iris'', ''[[Erin Brockovich]]'', ''Before Night Falls'', ''Pollock''... All of these only in the last decade. On the other hand, 1999's ''[[Man on the Moon]]'' was [[Oscar Bait]] that didn't take with the Academy, possibly because the [[Comedy Ghetto]] applied to both [[Andy Kaufman|subject]] ''and'' [[Jim Carrey|actor]].
* Let's not forget, we now have Paramount Vantage, a subdivision devoted to "arthouse style films". Translation, Oscar Bait. Case in point, Paramount Vantage in association with (what else) Miramax films released both ''[[No Country for Old Men]]''
▲* The drive to create [[Oscar Bait]] may have been part of the undoing of the [[Disney Animated Canon]] revival. According to insider Jim Hill, when the [[Animation Age Ghetto]] worked against ''[[Beauty and the Beast]]'' winning Best Picture in 1991 (the first animated feature to achieve a nomination in that category, before Pixar's ''Up''), ''[[Pocahontas]]'' was reworked to emphasize an interracial romance with a [[Bittersweet Ending]] and [[Anvilicious]] Aesops - in part to appeal to the Academy (and more adults in general). ''[[The Hunchback of Notre Dame (Disney film)|The Hunchback of Notre Dame]]'' and Don Bluth's ''[[Anastasia]]'' have similar serious elements. But, unwilling to cut loose entirely from the ghetto, they came across as odd mixes of [[Tastes Like Diabetes]] and [[Oscar Bait]]. ''[[Pocahontas]]'' won the music Oscars anyway, the others got nominations, but they played to audiences and critics with diminishing returns. The mega-irony? 1995 was also the year of ''[[Toy Story]]'', which eschewed this and wound up getting a screenplay nomination, something no Disney canon film has accomplished. In fact, several subsequent [[Pixar]] films have pulled off the feat...
* [[Oscar Bait Movies]] can ''also'' be low-budget dramas aimed more at the age group of the Academy voters, as in ''[[Away From Her]]'' and ''[[Steel Magnolias]].''▼
▲* Let's not forget, we now have Paramount Vantage, a subdivision devoted to "arthouse style films". Translation, Oscar Bait. Case in point, Paramount Vantage in association with (what else) Miramax films released both ''[[No Country for Old Men]]'', AND ''[[There Will Be Blood]]'' within two months of each other. Combined Academy Award nominations, 16. Both period pieces, both big name directors ([[The Coen Brothers]] and Paul Thomas Anderson respectively), critically acclaimed stars (Javier Bardem, Tommy Lee Jones, [[Daniel Day Lewis]]), and both...truly excellent films deserving of their status. Perhaps there is an upside to Oscar Bait after all.
* Including ''new'' [[Movie Bonus Song
▲* [[Oscar Bait Movies]] can ''also'' be low-budget dramas aimed more at the age group of the Academy voters, as in ''Away From Her'' and ''Steel Magnolias.''
▲* Including ''new'' [[Movie Bonus Song|Movie Bonus Songs]] to a Broadway musical score when that musical is made into a movie -- whether the score needed it or not -- to ensure the movie gets an additional "Best Original Song" Oscar nomination. The movie versions of ''[[A Chorus Line]]'', ''[[Little Shop of Horrors]]'', ''[[Evita]]'', ''[[Chicago]]'', ''[[The Phantom of the Opera]]'' and ''[[Dreamgirls]]'' all got original song nominations this way, though "You Must Love Me" from ''Evita'' was the only song among these to actually win the award. (''[[Rent]]'' didn't have any because the writer/composer of the original musical had died just before the show opened off-Broadway.)
** However, the tradition of film adaptations of Broadway musicals commissioning brand-new songs from the original songwriters [[Older Than They Think|dates back]] to the earliest movie musicals, before the "Best Original Song" category existed. New songs helped differentiate the movie from the play, giving a reason for those who had already seen the play to see the movie.
* If nothing else works, make a movie set in a [[WWII]] concentration camp. It's like printing money. Even if it's a comedy (like ''[[Life Is Beautiful]]'').
** Better yet, make [[The Counterfeiters|a movie about people in a concentration camp printing money]].
** After the events of the 2009 Oscar ceremony, not only did this [[The Reader|ring true yet again]], but [[Kate Winslet]]'s appearance on ''[[Extras]]'' suddenly became [[Hilarious in Hindsight]]. [[Ricky Gervais]] did not forget to remind her of her appearance at the following [[Golden Globes]] ceremony.
** Over 1995-2000, three of the Best Documentary Feature winners directly involved the Holocaust (''[[Anne Frank Remembered]]'', ''[[The Final Days]]'', and ''[[Into the Arms of Strangers: Stories of the Kindertransport]]''), and one (''[[The Long Way Home]]'') was about post-WWII Jewish refugees.
*** ''[[Queer Duck]]:'' "And the nominees for Best Documentary are: ''Before the Holocaust'', ''After the Holocaust'', ''The Legend of Sleepy Holocaust'', and ''The Story of How Bees Make Honey During the Holocaust.''"
** It took [[Steven Spielberg]] until 1993 to win the Best Director Oscar that he so coveted. I repeat: it took ''[[Steven Spielberg]]'' 19 years and 14 movies to win his first Oscar for Best Director. The movie that finally put him over the top? ''[[Schindler's List]]''.
* The [[Inspirationally Disadvantaged|mental health and capacity department yields lots of
** William Goldman commented on this phenomenon, saying he didn't think [[Angelina Jolie]] should win Best Supporting Actress for ''Girl Interrupted'' because "It's easy to win a Oscar playing someone mentally ill."
** ''[[Rain Man]]'' arguably kicked off the mental health/capacity boom in 1988. [[Dustin Hoffman]] won Best Actor, and the film also won for Picture, Direction, and Original Screenplay. Other leading man examples include ''Shine'' (won Best Actor) and ''I Am Sam'' (Best Actor nomination).
** [[Older Than They Think]]: Cliff Robertson won Best Actor for playing the mentally handicapped hero of ''Charly'' (a ''[[Flowers for Algernon]]'' adaptation) in 1968, after a massive For Your Consideration campaign.
*** It's the only Best Actor Oscar in a science fiction film, with drama plus mental health overcomes the sci-fi background. There's only one other acting Oscar in sci-fi, Don Ameche in ''[[Cocoon]]'' won in the Supporting Actor category. No victories for actresses.
** Olivia de Havilland won Best Actress for playing a mental patient in "The Snake Pit" 20 years before Robertson won.
** ''[[What's Eating Gilbert Grape]]'' earned [[Leonardo DiCaprio]] his first Oscar nomination for playing a mentally retarded boy.
** ''[[One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest]]'', one of the most critically acclaimed films of all time, and one of only three films to win all of the "Big Five" Oscars (Picture, Screenplay, Director, Actor, and
** [[Peter Sellers]] was nominated for playing Chance the Gardener in ''[[Being There]]'' (1979) -- a mentally challenged character; as well, he gained weight for the part (see below). But while he always wanted to win an Oscar, and had been nominated before, he ''did not'' want to make this film because it was Oscar bait but because of its inherent challenge and extremely personal [[Reality Subtext]]. And in part due to the [[Comedy Ghetto]], he didn't win the Oscar; it's now regarded as a [[Award Snub|snub]]. Ironically, years later ''Sellers himself'' became awards bait. Geoffrey
** This trend was mercilessly spoofed by ''[[Tropic Thunder]]'', in which action star Tugg Speedman ([[Ben Stiller]]) previously made a transparently
{{quote|
'''Tugg Speedman:''' What do you mean?
'''Kirk Lazarus:''' Check it out. [[Dustin Hoffman]], ''[[Rain Man]]'', look retarded, act retarded, not retarded. Counted toothpicks, cheated cards. Autistic, sho'. Not retarded. You know [[Tom Hanks]], ''[[Forrest Gump]]''. Slow, yes. Retarded, maybe. Braces on his legs. But he charmed the pants off [[Richard Nixon|Nixon]] and won a ping-pong competition. That ain't retarded. [[Peter Sellers]], ''[[Being There]]''. Infantile, yes. Retarded, no. You went full retard, man. Never go full retard. You don't buy that? Ask Sean Penn, 2001, ''[[I Am Sam]]''. Remember? Went full retard, went home empty handed... }}
*** Ironically, [[Robert Downey, Jr.]]'s next film was ''The Soloist'', which features a [[Real Life]] paranoid schizophrenic savant musician played by previous Best Actor winner Jamie Foxx (RDJ played the LA Times reporter who befriends him) - no Oscars for either of them, though.
*** Even more ironically, [[Robert Downey, Jr.]] was nominated for "Best Supporting Actor" for playing Kirk Lazarus in ''Tropic Thunder''. He lost to [[Heath Ledger]] though, 'cause everyone knows the level of insanity Heath's role reached...
** And also the movie ''Sling Blade'', which made Billy Bob Thornton into a movie star.
* The female equivalent of the "mental health"
** Averted by [[Julia Roberts]] who finally won her Oscar by donning miniskirts and push-up bras as [[Erin Brockovich]].
** On the other hand, Joanne Woodward won an Oscar for playing a woman with multiple personality disorder in ''The Three Faces of Eve''. So the women can play the mental health card too.
** Actually, in ''The Hours'' [[Nicole Kidman]]'s character ''did'' suffer from a severe case of depression, hearing voices, and eventually suicide (Virginia Woolf); to boot, she won Best Actress. Conversely, Gwyneth Paltrow played the same card in the biopic based on Sylvia Plath's life only a year later and didn't receive any nominations.
*** Lampshaded in a comedy bit during the 2006 Oscars that was a spoof of political campaign ads and narrated by [[Stephen Colbert]]. It claimed that Charlize Theron once again resorted to looking homely to get a "Best Actress" award in ''[[North Country]]'' while her competition [[Keira Knightley]] was content to not only stay pretty in ''[[Pride and Prejudice]]'' but also having "Cheeks flecked with God Dust"! The voice over ended by stating: ''[[Keira Knightley]], Acting while beautiful.''
* It's not just mental health, but also being handicapped/disabled. The only Oscar ''[[John Wayne]]'' has ever won was for portraying the half blind Marshall Rooster Cogburn in ''[[True Grit]]''. Jamie Foxx (''Ray''), [[Al Pacino]] (''[[Scent of a Woman]]'') and [[
* Then there's the tried-and-true method of [[White Man's Burden|a privileged white character benevolently helping an underprivileged minority.]] Examples include ''[[Gran Torino]]'', ''[[The Blind Side]]'', ''[[Freedom Writers]]'', ''[[Glory Road]]'', and ''[[Dangerous Minds]]''.
* Playing a Gay/Lesbian/Transgender character is also an up and coming trend.
** First, in terms of acting, there is:
*** Sean Penn for ''[[Milk]]''
*** [[Tom Hanks]] for ''[[Philadelphia (film)|Philadelphia]]''
*** Philip Seymour Hoffman for ''[[Capote]]''
*** and Hilary Swank for ''[[Boys Don't Cry]]''.
** Then, consider the infamous 2006 Oscars where ''[[Brokeback Mountain]]'' got snubbed for Best Picture. It still won Best Director. [[Heath Ledger]] and Jake Gyllenhaal were nominated for Best Actor and Best Supporting Actor respectively, as well as Felicity Huffman for playing a trans woman in ''[[Transamerica]]''.
** Ultimately, ''[[Brokeback Mountain]]'' and ''[[Transamerica]]'' were out-Oscar Baited by ''[[Crash (film)|Crash]]'', which had the far safer message of "[[Anvilicious|Racism is bad]], [[South Park|mmm-kay?]]".
* [[Dyeing for Your Art|Punishing your body for the role]] is frequently rewarded, though it's medically unwise to do so. Of note is a (perhaps justified) [[Double Standard]] at play here however: Of the three basic methods of non-surgical body modification (namely losing weight, gaining weight,<ref>In the form of body fat</ref>
** [[Robert De Niro]] essentially started this with ''[[Raging Bull]]'', when he gained 60 pounds for the part. He won Best Actor.
** [[George Clooney]] gained 35 pounds for his Oscar-winning role in ''[[Syriana]]''.
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** ''[[The Dark Knight]]'' for [[Heath Ledger]]'s [[Author Existence Failure|swan song]].
** [[Natalie Portman]] for ''[[Black Swan]]'', having slimmed down to 97 pounds and undergone intense ballet training for six months for the role.
** [[Christian Bale]] cut a ton of weight for the third time of his career for [[The Fighter]] which won him the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor.
* Remember, the Academy loves underdogs (''[[Mr. Smith Goes to Washington]], [[Erin Brockovich]], [[On the Waterfront]], [[Cinderella Man]]'').
* Movies set in foreign locations with hints of realism, are becoming a big thing with the Oscars. Example are films like ''[[Slumdog Millionaire]]'', ''[[City of God]]'', ''[[Babel]]'' etc.
** Though in ''City of God'''s case, it didn't the run for Best Foreign Film the year before it went up for the major awards (then again, the AMPAS wing responsible for that category is considered the most conservative of all).
* A trend in recent years is to give nominations and awards to what is almost a sub-genre of independent films which can best be described as 'quirky'; often featuring "hip" dialogue with an emphasis placed on irony and / or the seemingly trivial, eccentric characters and a primary theme being an often sarcastic, scathing expose of the hollow, boring and pointless emptiness of everyday modern society and [[You Suck|those who inhabit it]]. See movies such as ''[[American Beauty]]'', ''[[Little Miss Sunshine]]'', ''[[Juno]]'' etc. With some of these movies, there can also be a sense that the filmmakers are striving hard to appear edgy and radical [[Rule-Abiding Rebel|without actually]] ''[[Rule-Abiding Rebel|being]]'' [[The Man Is Sticking It to the Man|edgy and radical]].
==
▲=== Films (or otherwise) that come across as particularly obvious in their ambitions include... ===
* ''[[Million Dollar Baby]]'': a serious film (narrated by [[Morgan Freeman]]) about a disadvantaged woman making a place for herself in a traditionally male-dominated occupation. The other major character has an internal morality struggle and ultimately discards his traditional ethic and does the unthinkable, which is what you're clearly supposed to want him to do, in a long melodramatic drawn-out [[Downer Ending]]. Four Academy Awards including Best Picture. Box-office success, because the first two-thirds of the film is actually watchable.
** Heck, ''anything'' [[Clint Eastwood]]'s directed lately: [[WW 2]] films ''[[Flags of our Fathers]]''/''[[Letters From Iwo Jima]]'', 1920s missing child/conspiracy film ''[[Changeling (film)|Changeling]]'' starring Oscar Bait actress Angelina Jolie, and bigot redemption film ''[[Gran Torino]]'' (which didn't get nominated for an Oscar, but earned Eastwood a special Palme d'Or instead at Cannes). ''[[Invictus]]'' was about Nelson Mandela and rugby player [[The Bourne Identity|Jason Bourne]] uniting post-apartheid South Africa, and ''J. Edgar'' was a J. Edgar Hoover [[Biopic]].
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*** Since ''Benjamin Button'', [[David Fincher]] has had an up-and-down relationship with the Oscars. His next film, ''[[The Social Network]]'', was heavily campaigned for the Oscars but lost Best Picture (and more astonishingly, Best Director) to the bait-ier ''[[The King's Speech]].'' The disappointment with that led to him backing out of campaigning with ''[[The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo]]'', saying the film has "too much anal rape" to appeal to Academy viewers (though that hasn't stopped [[Pulp Fiction|other]] [[Deliverance|films]] from getting Oscar attention, so who knows? specially as the anal rape victim got a Best Actress nom!).
* ''The Cider House Rules'': Serious drama featuring a disadvantaged main character (orphan), who suffers several tragedies. Also features WWII. Another major character becomes disabled. Finally, the major character encounters a situation in which he has a morality struggle and eventually discards his traditional ethics. Serious ending, albeit perhaps not a downer as such. Two Oscars and numerous additional nominations.
* ''[[Doubt (theatre)|Doubt]]''. It won multiple Tonys on Broadway, including Best Play and Best Actress for Cherry Jones. The film's cast is
** It managed acting nominations for all four principal actors, and an Adapted Screenplay nod as well.
** It was [[Troperiffic]] Pulitzer bait long before it was Oscar Bait. It's, essentially, a [[Ripped from the Headlines]] battle of wits between [[Manipulative Bastard|a popular and well-liked]] [[Pedophile Priest]] and the [[Drill Sergeant Nasty|rather acerbic]] [[Dean Bitterman|School Principal]] / [[Nuns-N-Rosaries|Nun]] who suspects him of molesting a young boy. Add this to the fact that the boy is not only [[Civil Rights Movement|the first black student in an otherwise white school,]] but the boy's Father [[Gayngst|suspects him to be gay as well]] and [[Don't Make Me Take My Belt Off|punishes him for it]]. John Patrick Shanley has gone on record linking it to [[The War on Terror]] because of its ambiguity and [[Who Shot JFK?|the Kennedy assassination]] because of [[The Sixties|the time period]] and the overtones of [[Innocence Lost]]. [[Old Shame|This is all from the same guy who wrote]] ''[[We're Back! A Dinosaur's Story]]''.
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** Intrestingly, that episode didn't get nominated for a Emmy, but "[[No Dialogue Episode|Hush]]" got nominated for Best Writing in a Drama Series.
* ''[[The Hours]]''. Costume drama? Check. Meryl Streep? Check. Fashionable message? Check, check, check (something about AIDS, something about homosexuality, something about oppression of women). Nicole Kidman's nose? Probably not related (although given the note above regarding female actors and the amount of publicity that surrounded said nose, it probably didn't hurt and could only have helped).
* An interesting example is the DreamWorks/Paramount movie ''[[Dreamgirls]]''. It was Oscar bait from the moment it was announced and the award hype only increased during production. Sure enough, come Oscar time it was nominated for eight awards (including ''three'' nominated [[Movie Bonus Song
** And the feeling in Los Angeles is that it ''would'' have won Eddie Murphy a deserved Oscar for Best Supporting Actor, were it not for the hideous, ten-story posters emblazoned all over the city for the movie ''Norbit'', starring Eddie Murphy and... Eddie Murphy. Ouch.
* ''[[The Reader]]'', a Holocaust-themed drama complete with Harvey Weinstein pimping it out to voters. Actually, probably all of the class of '09 Best Picture nominees. Oddly, compared to the other four, ''Slumdog'' almost seems the ''least'' Oscar-baity, and it turned out to be the big winner.
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** What makes Winslet's win even funnier is that ''[[Wayne's World|Waynes World]]'''s Oscar-clip spoof with Wayne tearfully admitting "I never learned to read!"
* ''The Great Ziegfeld'', Best Picture winner of 1936, was three long hours of big Broadway musical ''and'' angsty melodrama. This lavish [[Biopic]] starred William Powell as the producer whose name, four years after his death (depicted in the film's last scene, of course), was the most legendary in show business.
* ''[[Precious]]'' is such a painfully obvious example of
** It worked: the movie got 2 Oscars for Best Supporting Actress and Best Adapted Screenplay, the first for an African-American.
** While we are on the subject of abused, illiterate Black women, ''[[The Color Purple]]'' should be considered the FIRST Oscar Bait: Black Edition movie, even though it failed when Oscar night arrived. [[Film of the Book]], big stars, big director, period piece, 2 excellent musical numbers, well received at the box office. It was nominated for all the major Oscars, but didn't win a single one.
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* The winner of the Golden Bear award in 2010 is the Turkish movie ''Bal'' (Honey). It's about a six year old boy wandering through a forest looking for his father, who is a beekeeper and disappeared after all his bees vanished. Of course the father dies in an accident. There's few dialog or music in the film (and probably not much of a plot as well), and all the characters seem not to be quite right.
* The 2008 film ''Defiance'' might be one of the more shamelessly obvious, borderline cynical attempts at an Oscar grab in the past few years. It's [[Based on a True Story]], set during the Holocaust, and follows a community of Belarussian Jews as they hide in the forests and fight back against the Nazis (in other words: Oscar gold). It has the fairly standard dark and gritty tone favored by Academy voters, with a brooding [[Anti-Hero]] (played by frequent award winner [[Daniel Craig]]) forced into cruel, angsty moral dilemmas that play out as if saying "you seeing this, voters?" [[Schindler's List|The film ends with a short montage of the fates of the people depicted, with real life pictures and the assurance that the descendants of this group numbers in the tens of thousands today.]] Ironically enough, in spite of having pretty much everything needed for a total Oscar blowout, it only received nominations for its music from both Academy Awards and Golden Globes. Proof that the Academy is not entirely gullible, perhaps?
* A different sort of Oscar-bait took place in 2011 with [[Younger and Hipper]] hosts Anne Hathaway and James Franco, who both happen to be in the Oscar-bait-tastic movies ''[[Love and Other Drugs]]'' (in which she plays a woman falling in love with a guy played by Jake Gyllenhaal while dying of a disease) and ''[[127 Hours]]'' (in which he plays a [[Real Life]] hiker who
** [[Lampshade Hanging|Lampshaded]] by her:
{{quote|
* ''[[Johnny Belinda]]'' is based on the true story of a deaf-mute girl who is raped. Then has her rapist's baby. Then has to fight to try to keep her baby when she is declared "unfit" to raise it. Then is put on trial for the murder of her rapist. All while struggling to pay the bills on the family farm. Jane Wyman some how managed to get the Best Actress Oscar.
* Susanne Beir's ''Hævnen'' (''In a Better World'', though the Danish title means Revenge), which won for Best Foreign Film, features a failing marriage; vicious school bullies; one boy attacking another with a bicycle pump and threatening him with a knife; a doctor working in an African refugee camp terrorised by a man who cuts pregnant women open; and a 12-year-old boy whose mother has just died, who nearly kills three
* ''[[The Help]]''. [[Period Piece]] taking place in [[The Sixties]]? Check. [[White Man's Burden]]-type plot? (the main character is a white female reporter who helps black maids) Based on a bestselling novel? Check.
* Several reviews use the term itself in reference to [[Steven Spielberg]]'s 2011 film version of ''[[War Horse]]''. The film's bombastic, overwrought trailer provoked a similar reaction from many moviegoers even before its release.
* A rather obvious example of the "December release" bait is the 2012 film ''[[The Iron Lady]]'', getting a limited release on December
** Of course, that's not counting the bait revolving around the movie itself. Technically, it's a period piece, controversial, biopic, [[Inspirationally Disadvantaged]] (they show Thatcher's struggle with dementia), [[Meryl Streep]], need we go on? When the rumors first started that Streep was playing Thatcher in a film, a few people joked that there must be a box of awards with Streep's name already on them, and they were just making the movie as an excuse to finally give them to her.
* The English release of ''[[The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo]]'', while still a solid enough film, has hallmarks that should endear it to the Academy: [[Rooney Mara]]'s character Lisbeth Salander gets {{spoiler|anally raped}}, the movie came out around Christmas, and is set in a foreign location. Fincher and Mara both feel the movie isn't really Academy material, however, it did pick up two Golden Globe nominations: Best Actress and Best Score (for [[Nine Inch Nails|Trent Reznor and Atticus Ross]]'s soundtrack)
** However, it did not get nominations for Best Picture or Best Director, though it did get five others, including Best Actress for Rooney Mara.
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* Ron Howard's ''[[A Beautiful Mind]]'', (loosely) about [[Real Life]] paranoid schizophrenic (and Nobel Laureate in Economics) John Nash. Cured by [[The Power of Love]]? Check. Whitewashes potential unsavory details, such as Nash's bisexuality? Check. Special mention goes to winning an Best Screenwriting Oscar for the man who wrote ''[[Batman and Robin (film)|Batman and Robin]]''.
* ''[[Green Zone]]''. Academy Award nominated star and director? Check. War movie? Check. Themes [[Ripped from the Headlines]]? Check. Supposed anti-war message? Check. However, the film got pushed back and was panned by critics when it was released.
== Notable exceptions ==
* The categories for Best Original Screenplay and Best Adapted Screenplay are famous for almost always going to the actual best movie of the year. Seriously; look down those lists and the one for Best Picture. Not a coincidence.
** This trend can be seen going all the way back to ''[[Citizen Kane]]'', whose sole Oscar win was for its screenplay.
* The Animated Feature category established in 2001 may ghettoize the form, but the voters are now more open to nominating independent efforts such as ''[[Persepolis]]'' and often eschew [[Quality by Popular Vote]] (''[[Spirited Away]]'''s 2002 win, [[
** An infamous
** This category itself can be an exception if you take a look at the winners:
* ''[[Silence of the Lambs]]'' swept the major Oscars (Best Director, Adapted Screenplay, Actor in a Leading Role, Actress in a Leading Role, and Picture), and is certainly dark and dealing with mental illness and man's inhumanity to man. It's also a rollicking good ''horror movie'', a genre that, if it ever gets awards, gets them for technical and production categories like makeup and special effects.
** It is notable, however, that the producers of the film frequently did all they could to distance the movie from the horror genre, frequently preferring to use terms such as 'psychological thriller' to describe it instead.
** ''[[Silence of the Lambs]]'' was also released in [[Dump Month|January]] of 1991...a full 14 MONTHS before it won all those awards at the 1992 Oscars ceremony.
** The last horror film to win one of the top awards (and ''only'' one prior to ''Silence'') was ''[[Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde]]'', for which Fredric March won Best Actor...in 1932!
** Consider that the one other film among the 1991 Best Picture nominees that compared in terms of critical praise ''and'' box-office popularity was ''[[Beauty and the Beast]]'', which had the [[Animation Age Ghetto]] working against
* ''[[The Lord of the Rings]]'' and ''[[Titanic]]'' were about trying to get dream projects on screen, not about winning Oscars. Yet one got a sweep, and the other got almost all of its awards, though the former did not do so until the entire trilogy was finished (it's suggested the awards for Return of the King apply to the whole trilogy as the Academy didn't want a three-year shutout). Both films were widely praised and made a ridiculous amount of money and remain excessively popular to this day, even factoring in the usual [[Hype Backlash]].
* ''[[Star Wars]]'' (the original 1977 film) got Oscar nominations for Best Director, Best Picture, Best Supporting Actor (for Sir Alec Guinness) and Best Screenplay. It didn't win any of them, of course, but ''still''. ''[[Raiders of the Lost Ark]]'' also managed to get nominations for Best Director and Best Picture.
** Same for ''[[E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial|ET the Extraterrestrial]]''.
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** Rightfully so.
* ''[[Annie Hall]]'': Despite being a comedy (which rarely win and when they do it's usually just for screenplay or maybe acting), it won Best Actress, Best Screenplay, Best Director and Best Picture. That said, it was a notably [[Bittersweet Ending|bittersweet]] comedy and close to a drama at times, which possibly helped sooth the Academy's conscience about awarding it.
* ''[[The Shawshank Redemption]]''
** Then again, remember what it was [[Forrest Gump|up]] [[Pulp Fiction|against]].
** The next Darabont direction of a King adaptation was ''[[The Green Mile]]''...another prison piece with the [[Magical Negro]] (getting Michael Clarke Duncan a Best Supporting Actor nod), and was nominated for three others, including Best Picture...but whiffed itself. Probably why the next time Darabont directed a King adaptation, they went as far from
* ''[[The Dark Knight]]'', the first comic-book movie to win an acting nomination (for [[Heath Ledger]]), with three acting nominations for films based on graphic novels (or in one case, a comic strip) preceding this win
* ''[[The Departed]]'' along with its immediate successor to the Best Picture throne ''[[No Country for Old Men]]'' is one of the grittiest, most violent (non war related) movies to ever take the Best Picture Oscar. It also notably has the most profanity of any film to win Best Picture. Other than Martin Scorsese's involvement there's not really anything about it that screams
* The two "dinner scenes" in ''[[The Nutty Professor]]'', which featured [[Eddie Murphy]] playing all the members of his family, were widely credited with giving the film the Best Makeup award over the favorite, ''[[Star Trek: First Contact]]''. Thing is, this was completely accidental - the director hated the idea and didn't want to film the sequences, but Eddie Murphy and Rick Baker managed to persuade him to keep them in.
** Eddie Murphy also won a Best Actor award from the National Society of Film Critics for his multiple performances.
* ''[[The Hurt Locker]]'' subverts most of the conventions of
** Also there was the narrative to consider; finally getting a woman as Best Director, beating the director of the most successful film ever, and her ex-husband, no less.
* Not only does ''[[Tropic Thunder]]'' mercilessly spoof and lampshade this trope, the film itself was responsible for an aversion of sorts when Robert Downey, Jr. was nominated for Best Supporting Actor, as the film is an out and out comedy.
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* The 1992 [[Spike Lee]] film ''[[Malcolm X]]'' seems like an Oscar bait film if ever there was one: an epic biopic about an icon of the civil rights movement, even managing to work in an inspirational [[The Cameo|cameo]] by none other than ''Nelson Mandela''... which ultimately got nominated for two Oscars (Best Actor for Denzel Washington and Best Costume Design), winning neither. Turns out, since the filmmakers were more concerned with fulfilling their vision and doing justice to the life of Malcolm X than raking in awards, they weren't actually too bothered by this.
* ''[[Julie and Julia]]'', despite being a period film starring [[Meryl Streep]], is just about she and [[Amy Adams]]' character learning to cook.
== Spoofs of this trope ==
▲== [[Film|Films]] -- Live-Action ==
* ''[[The Mask (film)|The Mask]]'', where after dodging a series of gunshots in several comedic forms, the Mask finally turns into a cowboy, allowing himself to be shot, and proceeds to die in another character's arms with a heartfelt [[Final Speech]] - at which point the audience cheers, prompting him to get up and tearfully accept an award.
** This particular joke has been around since the days of the original [[Looney Tunes]]. Given the Mask's personality, that's most likely where he got the idea.
*** The hilarious part is that the mobsters that were shooting at him also react to the audience, checking their hair and straightening their suits like they were on television.
* ''[[Wayne's
* The ''[[Road To]]'' series had a couple of spoofs:
** At the end of ''[[Road
** In ''Road to Bali'', when [[Bing Crosby]] finds the Oscar [[Humphrey Bogart]] received for ''[[The African Queen]]'', Bob Hope snatches it away from him, tells him he already has one. Hope then begins making his acceptance speech. (He never was nominated for a competitive one, but he would receive 4 Honorary Oscars and the Jean Hersholt Humanitarian Award - plus, he frequently appeared at the show, often as the host.)
* In ''[[Don't Be a Menace to South Central While Drinking Your Juice in the Hood]]'', after parodying one of the dramatic scenes from ''[[Boyz N the Hood]]'', the main character tells his girlfriend that he's trying to win the Best Black Actor at the Soul Train awards.
* ''Satan's Alley'', one of the [[Real Trailer, Fake Movie|fake trailers]] in ''[[Tropic Thunder]]'' is a head-on parody of this.
* The trope is referenced and mocked in ''[[Bowfinger]]'' by black action star Kit Ramsey (Eddie Murphy):
{{quote|
'''Manager''': I know that, but look...
'''Kit Ramsey''': Did I get nominated? No, and you know why? 'Cos I haven't played any of them slave roles, where I get my ass whipped -- that's how you get the nominations! A black dude plays a slave role and gets his ass whipped, they get the nomination; a white boy plays an idiot, they get the Oscar. Maybe I'll split it: get me a five-minute script as a retarded slave, ''then'' I'll get the Oscar!
'''Manager''': ''(awkward pause)'' Uh, I'm gonna go schmooze. I'll be right back. ''(starts to leave)''
'''Kit Ramsey''': Yeah, and go find that script. "Buck the Wonder-Slave"! }}
* Villain Hedley Lamarr announces near the climax of ''[[Blazing Saddles]]'' that he is "risking an almost certain Academy Award nomination for Best Supporting Actor."
** Amusingly enough, while part of the joke was (presumably) that a whacked-out cowboy farce laced with racial humour and fart jokes was ill-positioned for acting nominations, the film ''was'' in fact nominated for Best Actress in a Supporting Role (Madeline Kahn).
* Since an Oscar speech kicks off the plot of the comedy ''[[In and Out]]'', the first 15 minutes of the movie has a field day with this trope. First, Matt Dillon's character wins for playing a gay soldier unfairly discharged from the military in a movie called ''To Protect And Serve'', which is a hilariously hammy pastiche incorporating elements of ''A Few Good Men'', ''Philadelphia'' and ''Forrest Gump.'' Second, the other nominees in the category are listed as follows: "Paul Newman for ''Coot'', Clint Eastwood for ''Codger'', Michael Douglas for ''Primary Urges'' and Steven Seagal for ''Snowball in Hell''."
* ''[[The Naked Gun]] 33 1/3''. The films nominated at the Oscars were all ridiculously [[High Concept]] ("the story of a woman coming to terms with the death of her dog during the Hindenburg disaster).
* In ''[[Om Shanti Om]]'', bratty star Om "OK" Kapoor belatedly realizes that he is in the Indian equivalent of one of these films when the director describes the scene he has to film that day as OK playing a [[Inspirationally Disadvantaged|blind deaf mute quadruple amputee]] in the middle of [[Sad Bollywood Wedding|his former fiancée's wedding with another man]]. Om (which, judging by the other films of him we see, is more of a commercial actor than an arthouse one) [[Wag the Director|strongarms the director]] into filming an [[Item number]] instead of said scene, on the logic that "critics may love this film, but [his] fans are going to get extremely bored".
** Later in the film, we are treated with a parody of a Filmfare Awards ceremony (The closest equivalent to the Oscars in Hindi film industry), and we see the nominations for Best Main Actor. Two of the nominations are parodies of the kind of action films the other nominees (Abhishek Bachchan and Akshay Kumar [[Adam Westing]]) are known to do, the other two are films by OK which are parodies of romantic films that Shah Rukh Khan (Ok's actor) have famously done.
=== [[Live Action TV]] ===
* ''[[The Drew Carey Show]]'' parodied ''Emmy'' Bait with its fifth season finale "A [[Very Special Episode|Very Special]] Drew," which includes helping a homeless woman give birth, Kate dying of ''[[Soap Opera Disease|a terminal disease]]'' on her wedding day, Drew battling his [[Compressed Vice|heretofore unheard-of]] lifelong illiteracy, Mimi battling her (also heretofore unheard-of) obsessive-compulsive disorder, and a [[Littlest Cancer Patient]]. Who wins the Emmy.
{{quote|
'''Drew:''' Shoot me!
'''Lewis:''' No, shoot me! }}
** Lets not forget Lewis snapping at people and then taking an aside monologue to question why he does so, Oswald starting to steal so he can feel close to his imprisoned father and Mr. Wick developping an eating disorder.
* French & Saunders' take on ''Cold Mountain'', where the
* ''[[The Chaser's War on Everything]]'' had a sketch titled [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5kj78anyCkM "Oscar Bait"], spoofing many of the common elements of this trope.
* [[The Fast Show]] spoof 'Cute Disabled Man' won an award for "Best Portrayal of a Disabled Person by a Fit and Healthy Young Actor Who Wants to Win an Oscar'. "I love you, black man."
* A ''[[Kids in The Hall]]'' sketch shows the best actor nomination at an Oscar show, where we see three clips of three actors playing handicapped (from deaf to having a spike in the head) giving the exact same speech, standing up to their detractors (you know, guys who hate the deaf, and such) with the same appropriately stirring music - and a fourth clip of a guy playing Hamlet. The winner? "Omigod - everyone but the Hamlet guy!"
* ''[[Married... with Children]]'' had at least one episode that ended with a heartwarming scene and the subtitle: "For your Emmy considerations."
* Parodied in [[30 Rock]] with ''Hard to Watch'', an obvious takeoff on [[Precious]].
* In ''[[Extras]]'', [[Kate Winslet]] plays in a movie about the Holocaust because of this. What makes this [[Hilarious in Hindsight]] is that she would win Best Actress in 2008 for ''[[The Reader]]''... a Holocaust movie.
=== [[Video Games]] ===
* [[Touhou]] has '' {{spoiler|"The End of the Maiden's Illusion"}}''.
=== [[Web Comics]] ===
* [[Multiplex]] referenced it, by name, in [http://www.multiplexcomic.com/strip/541 this strip].
=== [[Web Original]] ===
* There's a [http://baitanoscar.weebly.com/index.html monthly online contest] called "Bait an Oscar" where contestants write film pitches to be voted on as if they were Oscar contenders. Oddly enough, this is a [[Subverted Trope|subversion]] of the parodies listed below as almost all of the entires are sincere attempts to create good ideas for movies and the contestants tend to be ''fans'' of the Oscars rather than people who attack them.
* ''[[Yu-Gi-Oh!: The Abridged Series|Yu-Gi-Oh the Abridged Series]]'' had "A Very Special, Award-Winning Episode of Zorc & Pals".
{{quote|
'''Zorc''': I have [[Soap Opera Disease|a terminal disease!]]
'''Florence''': You can't die! What about [[Ho Yay|our adopted daughter]]?
'''Zorc''': [[Rule of Drama|She also has]] [[Ill Girl|a terminal disease!]] }}
* Parodied [http://www.cracked.com/video_18156_a-trailer-every-academy-award-winning-movie-ever.html in this spoof video] done by BriTANicK.com and hosted on [[Cracked.com|Cracked]]. It was such a spot-on parody that it even got its own page
{{quote|
** See also [http://www.cracked.com/article_18460_5-reasons-oscars-matter-even-less-than-you-thought.html this article] offering further proof that the Oscars exist solely to shit the bed.
* [[Kickassia]] has this in every scene regarding Spoony's attempts to avoid "giving in to the madness," ie his evil split personality Dr. Insano. He's a quite uncharacteristic [[Large Ham]] about having to constantly surpress his evil urges, and occasionally gets into [[Ham
* In the 3rd segment of [[Atop the Fourth Wall|Linkara]]'s ''History of Power Rangers'' series, he shows a clip of Bulk and Skull trying to save a bunch of kids from drowning in a lake (they turned out to be playing, not drowning, as the lake was knee deep at that part), running down the pier on slow motion with inspirational music as they strip from their cadet uniforms into their swimsuits. At one point Linkara puts "Oscar clip" at the bottom of the screen.
* ''Nerd to the Third Power'' host Dr. Gonzo swore up and down that ''Precious'' would win best picture, because "It's about an underprivileged black rape victim who gives birth to an incest baby with down syndrome. I haven't even SEEN the movie and I already want to kill myself! It HAS to win!" Those keeping score will know the ''The Hurt Locker'' won Best Picture that year.
=== [[Western Animation]] ===
* ''[[American Dad]]'': In a ''[[James Bond]]'' [[Whole-Plot Reference]] of sorts, Roger played the role of Tearjerker, a villain who made an [[Evil Plan]] to kill critics and moviegoers by making an incredibly sad movie. The movie, ''[[Meaningful Name|Oscar]] [[Punny Name|Gold]]'', was filled with Oscar Bait: It was about a mentally-challenged Jewish boy that is [[The Alcoholic|driven to alcoholism]] by the death of his puppy during the Holocaust, done in [[Deliberately Monochrome|black and white]]. All while hiding from the [[Nazi Germany|Nazi regime]], Anne Frank-style, in an attic.
** And he mentions having an even sadder movie, which is nothing but [[Rule of Drama|6 hours of a baby chimpanzee trying to revive its dead mother.]]
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** It turns into a [[Crowning Moment of Funny]] (or at least one hell of a [[Take That]]) {{spoiler|after they lose...}}
** They also did a more standard gag earlier: in a Thanksgiving episode, Miles Standish was out hunting turkey and the Warners were playing Native Americans ''raised'' by turkeys. This allowed Dot to wax eloquent over their hardship all while "ACADEMY MEMBERS VOTE NOW!" flashed on the screen.
** There's also a brief, but blunt reference during "Jokahontas" their [[Take That]] against Disney movies in particular. During the song "Same Old Heroine" (a parody of Pocahontas' "Colors of the Wind"), which is ALREADY a brutally mocking song about Disney recycling practically the same script for every movie, we hear these lines:
{{quote|
* Parodied in ''[[The Simpsons (animation)|The Simpsons]]'' with [[Burt Reynolds]] new film "Fireball And Mudflap"
{{quote|
* Spoofed on [[The Boondocks]] on the episode "The Color Ruckus," where Ruckus tells his depressing life story, while Grandpa and Riley can't help but listen, especially because it's so sad.
=== [[Real Life]] ===
* A hilarious musical performance actually took place at the 79th Academy Awards, featuring [[Will Ferrell]] and [[Jack Black]] lamenting about how they never win Oscars for their comedy. They sing about beating up serious actors in the audience until John C. Reilly joins them on stage and tells them that they should also do serious films from time to time like he does.
{{quote|
'''Jack Black''': "He's right! I'm gonna re read that script about the guy who gets lead poisoning and then sues a major corporation, there's not a laugh in there!
'''Will Farrell''': "And I'm gonna take that project about the guy with no arms and legs who teaches gangbangers Hamlet!" }}
* Similarly, invoked by perennial Oscar host [[Bob Hope]], who in 1968 joked, "Welcome to the Academy Awards, or as they're known at my house, Passover."
{{reflist}}
[[Category:Film Genres]]
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[[Category:Award Bait]]
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