10 Oscar Bait Motion pictures That Are Terrible From Begin to End

Not quickly after they had been first given out in 1929, the Academy Awards grew to become a very powerful and coveted award in Hollywood. These days, it is secure to say that an Oscar is the largest honor within the movie business. As such, studios and filmmakers suppose they’ve cracked the components: These films are referred to as Oscar bait. It is a obscure time period that completely different folks could outline in a different way, however in broad phrases, it is a movie that feels prefer it was devised particularly to win Academy gold.

Biopics of historic figures performed by beloved actors; massive ensemble dramas with sociopolitical themes; comeback narratives for actors deemed long-overdue for an Oscar; there are all kinds of issues that may make a film Oscar bait, nevertheless it does not at all times work out. Certainly, there are some fairly terrible movies that however had ambitions to face on the Dolby Theater stage. They might have some redeeming qualities right here and there, nevertheless it’s not sufficient to actually make them not-terrible.

10

‘Amelia’ (2009)

Directed by Mira Nair

In 2000, Hilary Swank received an Oscar for Boys Do not Cry. 5 years later, she received once more for the Finest Image-winning Million Greenback Child. 4 years after that, she swung for the fences in an effort to get a 3rd — and failed spectacularly. The consequence? Amelia, the place she performs legendary American pilot Amelia Earhart in a narrative about her life and her eventual disappearance over the Pacific Ocean.

Not often all through the historical past of the twenty first century have there been Oscar-bait performances more obvious than this one, however though Swank does certainly ship a strong efficiency, the film is not almost as much as her peak. It is such a plainly formulaic film that it genuinely feels prefer it got here out of a bottle. It by no means fairly finds the suitable solution to stability actuality with drama, and consequently, it is one of the crucial remarkably unexciting films about flying ever made.

9

‘Collateral Magnificence’ (2016)

Directed by David Frankel

Earlier than he lastly received his long-awaited Academy Award in 2022 for King Richard (after which shortly stained that second with the notorious slap incident), Will Smith spent years desperately making an attempt to get an Oscar. A few of these makes an attempt had been really nice films, others had been much less exceptional… after which there’s Collateral Beauty. It is a few man retreating from life after a tragedy, questioning the universe by writing to Love, Time, and Demise. He receives sudden solutions and understand how loss can reveal moments of magnificence.

All of it sounds tremendous and dandy on paper, however viewers and critics alike had been capable of see proper by means of the movie’s emotional manipulation. It has good intentions, nevertheless it’s so bonkers in how far it is keen to go in begging the viewers to cry and begging the Academy to provide Will Smith an Oscar that it leaves a nasty style within the mouth. It is certainly one of the worst-written drama movies of latest years, and people who noticed and disliked it are grateful that the Academy did not fall for the lure.

8

‘Pricey Evan Hansen’ (2021)

Directed by Stephen Chbosky

Dear Evan Hansen originated on Broadway with Ben Platt enjoying the titular position. It is a Tony and Grammy-award profitable musical a few socially-anxious high-school senior and his journey of self-discovery after a classmate’s suicide. When a film adaptation was made, as an alternative of casting an precise teenager within the lead, they solid a nearly-30 Platt within the position, put him in a wig and make-up that made him look nearly-40, and referred to as it a day.

There are all kinds of the reason why that is certainly one of the worst movie musicals of the 21st century, other than simply Platt being arduous to purchase as Evan. The musical numbers are lifeless, the visuals are drab and uninteresting, and the story a few manipulative younger man mendacity his approach into turning into well-liked and being together with his grieving crush comes throughout as creepy, to say the least. “Terrifying” can be a extra acceptable time period. It is precisely the type of factor that one would have anticipated to get no less than a few Oscar nods initially, however even the Academy most popular to wave by means of a window as an alternative of touching this absolute mess.

7

‘Amsterdam’ (2022)

Directed by David O. Russell

Although he is now notorious for a way abusive he allegedly is on set, David O. Russell and his films had been Academy darlings up till Jennifer Lawrence‘s Finest Actress nomination for 2015’s Pleasure. Then got here Amsterdam, and issues shortly fell aside. It is a conspiracy thriller set within the Thirties, about three mates who witness a homicide, are framed for it, and need to uncover one of the crucial outrageous plots in American historical past.

Regardless of its extremely stacked solid that includes the likes of Margot Robbie, John David Washington, and Christian Bale, Amsterdam grew to become certainly one of the biggest box office flops of the 2020s so far, and its luck at award exhibits wasn’t a lot better. Individuals thought that each one the dazzling components by no means added as much as a higher entire, Amsterdam as an alternative shedding itself in its personal poorly-plotted narrative and noisy directing.

6

‘Grace of Monaco’ (2014)

Directed by Olivier Dahan

Grace Kelly was one of many best and most attention-grabbing actresses of Hollywood’s Golden Age. From being a Hitchcock Lady to profitable an Academy Award and three Golden Globes, she was a real icon. She was additionally Princess of Monaco because the spouse of Prince Rainier III till her loss of life, and it is a disaster of their marriage that the biopic Grace of Monaco explores, specializing in a interval throughout a political dispute between Rainier III and France’s Charles de Gaulle.

The visuals are lavish, the cinematography is gorgeous, and Nicole Kidman is dazzling as Kelly, however the movie is so offensively vapid that it is maybe one of many weakest biopics of the last quarter-century. It is the type of movie that is all type, zero substance; the writing is atrociously missing within the complexity of the real-life topic’s story, the directing is fully inert, and the casting exterior of Kidman is fairly horrible.

5

‘Diana’ (2013)

Directed by Oliver Hirschbiegel

Nicole Kidman wasn’t the one one who tried to nab an Oscar nomination by enjoying a European royal within the 2010s. Naomi Watts did it too (and arguably to even worse outcomes) in 2013’s Diana. It is a romance drama exploring the final two years of Princess Diana’s life, as she embarks on a closing ceremony of passage: a secret love affair with a Pakistani coronary heart surgeon.

It feels extra like an inexpensive TV film than a manufacturing with even a fraction of the magnificence of its topic, with performances which might be lower than splendid.

The movie, certainly one of the most contrived Oscar-bait movies ever, is a horrible disservice to each the Princess Diana mythos and Diana Spencer as an individual. It feels extra like an inexpensive TV film than a manufacturing with even a fraction of the magnificence of its topic, with performances which might be lower than splendid — sadly, together with Watts’s. It is sappy, surface-level, utterly pointless, and a pathetic try at paying respect to Diana’s reminiscence.

4

‘Blonde’ (2022)

Directed by Andrew Dominik

Girl Di and the legendary Hollywood star Marilyn Monroe had been remarkably comparable ladies. It is then much more tragic — and ironic, contemplating how a perversion of their public photographs was a standard downside for each — that Marilyn, too, is the star of an atrocious Oscar-bait movie. Blonde is much less a biopic and extra of a fictionalized retelling of the actress’s romantic {and professional} lives. Extra notably, it is in regards to the mythologization of her picture and the way it’s consumed to today.

Blonde did get an Oscar nod, a Finest Actress nomination for Ana de Armas (a not-entirely-undeserved honor), however that does not make it any much less unhealthy. It is in all probability certainly one of the worst Oscar-bait movies ever, contributing to the exploitation of Marilyn’s picture and private life 100 instances greater than it feedback on it. It is all tragedy and trauma porn made by individuals who ought to have identified higher.

3

‘Emilia Pérez’ (2024)

Directed by Jacques Audiard

Made by a French director who does not converse a lick of Spanish and who says he did not do any analysis on Mexico for the movie (you’ll be able to inform), Emilia Pérez pretends to be an incisive satirical have a look at the nation’s delicate sociopolitical scenario, from narco tradition to compelled disappearances. As an alternative, it is probably the most offensively tone-deaf and idiotically-written movie of 2024, with out even an oz. of compassion or reality in the way it treats its material. The story follows a lawyer who’s employed by a trans narco chief with a view to assist her transition, and later to get her nearer to her spouse and youngsters, who do not learn about her true gender identification and suppose she was killed.

Emilia Pérez proposes all kinds of untamed concepts which have proved offensive to each Latin People and the trans group. That being transgender out of the blue absolves you of all of your sins, that Mexico is a hellscape of delinquents dwelling in depressing circumstances, and that the individuals who have terrorized Mexico for many years are deserving of redemption are however a number of of the movie’s baffling theses. As if that weren’t sufficient, the comedy is painfully unfunny, the musical numbers are astonishingly cringe-worthy, and save for a pair of strong performances by Zoe Saldaña and Karla Sofía Gascón, there are not any rescuable qualities on this absolute catastrophe. It has already won four Golden Globes, and its Oscar prospects look simply as brilliant… for some motive.

2

‘Music’ (2021)

Directed by Sia

If the historical past of movie has confirmed something, it is that irrespective of how gifted they’re, some musicians ought to simply steer clear of films. This contains Sia, who received formidable and directed within the atrocious Music certainly one of the most boring Oscar-bait films of all time. However being boring is not even the film’s worst crime — It is being horrible throughout. It is a few newly-sober girl who receives information that she’s to turn out to be the only real guardian of her half-sister named Music, who’s on the autism spectrum.

Sooner or later, the film’s baffling misunderstanding of what autism is or the way it works stops being humorous and begins being wildly offensive. The characters are utterly empty vessels for Sia to manipulate the viewers on this awfully self-indulgent vainness challenge, with horrible music scenes and the clumsiest screenplay possible. Please persist with singing, Sia.

1

‘Cats’ (2019)

Directed by Tom Hooper

Even being just a bit over half a decade previous, Cats already requires no introduction. Based mostly on the Broadway cult traditional of the identical identify, it is a fantasy musical a few tribe of cats who should determine yearly which certainly one of them will ascend to the Heaviside Layer and are available again to a brand new life. The film appears like a waking nightmare of traumatizing CGI, musical numbers, and weird story beats and inventive choices.

There have been only a few films all through the twenty first century extra terrible than Cats, and the truth that Oscar gold was a real expectation that the workforce behind it had whereas making it makes it even funnier. It is certainly one of the worst films of the past couple of decades, a very appalling insult to cinema that is not even humorous sufficient to be a so-bad-it’s-good cult traditional: It is simply unhealthy.

KEEP READING:The Worst Oscar Bait Movies of the Last 5 Years, Ranked