Oscar Bait

As Oscar season approaches more and more of the internet wants to act like they know things about film. Terms like “Oscar-bait” get thrown around a lot with absolutely no thought into what that term means. Just because Meryl Streep is in a movie doesn’t make it Oscar-bait. So let's talk about what that phrase actually means and maybe what movies of this year actually qualify.

Oscar-bait specifically means a movie created for the sole purpose of getting the academy’s attention. Now these movies are actually really obvious but I think the term gets conflated a lot with just movies that are considered high-brow. Movies that make you think aren’t immediately Oscar-bait.

The one I've seen the most with this tag is Babylon for some reason. Which I find kind of hilarious because Babylon is highly critical of the film industry and is something that definitely would not (and did not) appeal to the academy which is why it was only nominated for technical awards despite the fact that it deserved more than that.

Ways to spot actual Oscar-bait movies; 1. The film spells out its themes too clearly, like they are trying to spoon feed things to the audience. There is no room for interpretation even though they already did a good job of spelling out their themes. 2. Honestly the movie is either about filmmaking or it is historically based. Biographies and historical dramas are great contenders for Oscars. 3. These movies aren't good…they put a lot of effort into being preachy with their themes and it might have some good qualities but because they aren’t story or character focused, the movie isn’t good.

Now of the movies I’ve seen this year the only one I think really qualifies is May December. Themes that were clearly spelled out, though I actually think they could have done it better, not more just better. A movie about making movies. High profile casting. Bad movie. Because they didn’t focus enough on the characters and the results of their themes it's not a good movie. This is 100% it's an Oscar-bait movie. I really hope that it gets overlooked because there have been some absolutely incredible movies this year and May December just isn’t one of them. I know it got nominated for some Golden Globes (in the comedy category???) but that was a wild and stupid mistake that I truly hope does not get duplicated come Oscar time.

Now I would like to remind everyone that nominations closed on November 15th which means any film wanting to be considered needs to have been submitted by that date, even ones that haven't opened yet. Now I would love to believe that December releases aren’t super overlooked because there are some incredible movies coming out in December. Now this didn’t used to be the case, movies released in December used to do really well during awards season. I am assuming that is when the deadlines for submissions were a little bit later. But as of late (the last 10 years or so) the primetime for release seems to be October/November. The closer to the submission deadline the better. It seems that the submission date moves from year to year as it was from March-December in just 2021. Now to clarify for a film to be eligible to submit it just needs to run for at least a week, anywhere with paid admission during the year. So all movies that are releasing this month are still eligible for Oscars. There seems to be confusion there. Submission can be made before theatrical release. Voting doesn’t happen until January, nominations are released in February.