No Oscar for You! The 7 Most Obvious Oscar Bait Movies That Failed
These movies had the right actors and dealt with the right topics, but they still fell short.
Sometimes we can sense that a movie will be nominated for an Oscar as soon as we see the trailer. Whenever filmmakers take on a socially important issue or turn out a biopic of a famous historical figure, or make use of state-of-the-art CGI, it's clear they're out for an award. However, our intuition and movie producers' calculations sometimes fail miserably.
Here are seven Oscar-bait movies that failed in their ultimate mission of getting the coveted statuette.
50/50 (2011)
Led by Joseph Gordon-Levitt, the movie tells the story of Adam, a Seattle radio journalist diagnosed with spinal cancer. As he battles the disease, his life changes dramatically. Surprisingly, 50/50 didn't even get a single Oscar nomination, let alone an Academy Award.
Extremely Loud & Incredibly Close (2011)
Centred around an autistic nine-year-old named Oscar, the movie follows his life in New York after his father's death on 9/11. Despite receiving two nominations and starring Tom Hanks and Sandra Bullock in lead roles, the film failed to win an Academy Award.
The Dark Knight Rises (2012)
Another instalment in the classic DC franchise, Christian Bale's Batman killed it at the box office, grossing over $1 billion. However, it didn't receive a single Oscar nomination, despite seemingly having all the ingredients for that.
The Irishman (2019)
This Netflix original movie, about a former mob hitman, starred such legends as Robert De Niro and Al Pacino. And it almost made it, getting an impressive ten Academy Award nominations. Unfortunately, it ended up not getting a single Oscar.
Cats (2019)
Based on Andrew Lloyd Webber's play and directed by Les Misérables' Tom Hooper, this movie adaptation received no Oscar nominations despite a star-studded cast including Jennifer Hudson, Judi Dench, Idris Elba, James Corden, Rebel Wilson, and Taylor Swift.
Don’t Look Up (2021)
This Netflix original earned four Academy Award nominations but failed to actually win any, making it, instead, onto our list of little engines that couldn't. Even the iconic Leonardo DiCaprio, Meryl Streep, Cate Blanchett, and Jennifer Lawrence didn't help it secure a single win at the Oscars.
Babylon (2022)
This intentionally shocking movie about 1920s Hollywood is epic in scale and stars Brad Pitt and Margot Robbie. It looks like it and the Academy Awards were a match made in heaven. However, after securing three nominations, the film ultimately failed to win any Oscars.
It looks like there is no such thing as a foolproof recipe for winning Academy Awards, seeing how even these productions that seemingly have all the right ingredients still failed to get even a single Oscar, despite some of them coming really close and getting multiple nominations. Perhaps, they tried too hard.