Top 10 Failed Oscar Bait Movies of the 21st Century
These are the films that try too hard to be taken too seriously! Join http://www.WatchMojo.com as we count down our picks for the top 10 failed Oscar bait movies of the 21st century! For this list, we've looked at those post-2000 Oscar bait movies that failed to earn the awards they craved. An Oscar bait film is anything produced with the intention of garnering Academy Award nominations because of recognisable tropes, qualities or cast members within its make-up.
Special thanks to our users Leo Logan, Zawabo7, LyleVSXyle and Ajb1209 for submitting the idea on our Suggestions Page at WatchMojo.comsuggest
Top 10 Failed Oscar Bait Movies of the 21st Century
Top 10 Failed Oscar Bait Movies of 2019
These are the films that try too hard to be taken too seriously! Welcome to WatchMojo.com and today we’re counting down our picks for the top 10 failed Oscar bait movies of the 21st century! For this list, we’ve looked at those post-2000 Oscar bait movies that failed to earn the awards they craved. An Oscar bait film is anything produced with the intention of garnering Academy Award nominations because of recognisable tropes, qualities or cast members within its make-up. Although many such movies are produced every year, especially around Oscar season, the following are those that especially flopped!
#10: “All the King’s Men” (2006)
Top 10 Failed Oscar Bait Movies of 2018
An adaptation of Robert Penn Warren’s 1946 Pulitzer Prize-winning novel, this was a movie sixty years in the making. For all the film’s promise, however, the product did not wow as was hoped! Sean Penn, Jude Law, Kate Winslet, James Gandolfini and Anthony Hopkins... This was an ensemble cast and then some! But the half of Hollywood that was on set just couldn’t make “All the King’s Men” a royal winner! It made just $7.2 million dollars in U.S. theaters – quite embarrassing considering “Jackass Number Two,” which was released the same weekend - made $28.1 million!
#9: “Nine” (2009)
Top 10 Failed Oscar Bait Movies of 2020
Titled as it is, released when it was, this movie was fated for a ninth place entry in amongst our Oscar-baiters! “Nine” could’ve been brilliant, but it also knew it could’ve been brilliant... Daniel Day-Lewis, Nicole Kidman and Marion Cotillard led an all-star, up to the minute cast, but they failed to bring home the bacon when it came to the red carpet! This musical effort just didn’t hit the right notes, at the right times, for the right people... ‘From the makers of “Chicago”’ - it sucked in comparison to that Oscar winner!
#8: “Amelia” (2009)
Oscar baiting chapter one - the biopic! If anything screams ‘I want Academy Award nominations!’, it’s a biography! Give your movie a one-word title, usually the first or last name of your subject, and you’ve generated hype before you’ve even hit the set! “Amelia” was one such formulaic film, and one such fabulous failure as well. Depicting the life of the iconic aviator Amelia Earhart, Hilary Swank steps into the cock-pit... Aaand, cocks it up! This movie might have soared... But it never even got off the tarmac!
#7: “The Soloist” (2009)
Top 10 Failed Oscar Bait Movies of 2017
Jamie Foxx and Robert Downey Jr. ensure our next movie has an A-list line-up... It’s based on a true story, so the emotional promise is at a peak... It tackles mental health and other complex conditions in a mature way... “The Soloist” ticks almost every Academy Award box, but didn’t come close to the golden statuette! A film that fared a little better than entries 9 and 10, it was still unable to meet the mark expected. Downey Jr. and Foxx gave strong performances, but the positive reviews stopped there!
#6: “Lee Daniels’ The Butler” (2013)
Top 10 FAILED Oscar Bait Movies of 2016
A movie that takes in 34 years of American history, “The Butler” had a lot of material to make an Oscar winner out of... However, this inside look at the White House couldn’t win! Consistently criticized for the blatancy with which it made its emotional and political points, the historical drama teetered upon the edge of spectacular, but couldn’t serve up the success for which it yearned. An all-star cast it may have boasted, but an Academy Award it did not!
#5: “Seven Pounds” (2008)
Top 10 Failed Oscar Bait Movies of All Time
A blistering success at the box office, “Seven Pounds” couldn’t translate its ticket sales into trophies! Provocative performances by Will Smith and Rosario Dawson bulk out a script that relentlessly picks at your heart, but doesn’t really interest your head! In essence, it’s a movie that’s trying to be profound, but isn’t. The marketing campaign was mysterious enough, the cast was well-known enough, the idea was inventive enough... But the movie simply wasn’t good enough!
#4: “Australia” (2008)
When the movie’s one-word title takes in an entire continent, the cinema-goer can be forgiven for expecting something of an epic... And they can be forgiven for feeling more than a little disappointed by “Australia”! With Nicole Kidman and Hugh Jackman topping the acting bill, this Baz Luhrmann effort looked to be all things ‘Aussie’! As it flirted between the patriotic and the sentimental however, it earned just oneOscar nomination: for Best Costume Design. Only an average movie, “Australia” might have been great! Or even a ‘corker’!
#3: “J. Edgar” (2011)
Top 10 Mistakes That Were Left in 21st Century Movies
We go back to the biopic now, and to the life of FBI director J. Edgar Hoover. A more interesting man you might struggle to meet, but a more blatant ‘please, please, please’ for an Oscar you’d have difficulty finding too! Starring Leo DiCaprio in the title role, it’s believed that the actor might have scooped his first Oscar were it not for the film’s various other faults. DiCaprio demanded attention, but he couldn’t quite wrestle it away from a confusing plotline, or the painful profundities aimed at the Academy!
#2: “Alexander” (2004)
Pair biography with history, especially ancient history, and you have an epic on your hands. Attach a $155 million budget, and you have a potentially epic epic! In “Alexander”, however, we have an epic failure! Oliver Stone’s three hour long effort crawls through what was surely one of history’s more interesting life stories. Everything about this movie had us hoping for the next “Gladiator”, but this “Alexander” was far from ‘Great’! Oscar-wise, Stone had the ingredients, but he must have lost the recipe! Before we unveil our top pick, here are a few honorable mentions. - “Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close” (2011) - “Bobby” (2006) - “The Fifth Estate” (2013) - “Troy” (2004) - “The Majestic” (2001)
#1: “Diana” (2013)
Top 10 Portrayals of Princess Diana in Movies & TV
Taking our crown, a right royal catastrophe of a film! Biography again, but even worse than “Amelia”, “Edgar” or anything else! Britain’s Princess Diana is held by many as one of the most inspirational people of the 20th century... But what the makers of this movie failed to grasp is that Oscars aren’t given out for the reputation of a title role alone! Naomi Watts wasn’t nightmarish as the princess, but the script, the sets, the pace and point of “Diana” were all desperately bad! It’s less Oscar, and more ‘oh dear’! Do you agree with our list? Which filmic failure did we forget? For more top 10s that don’t disappoint published daily, be sure to subscribe to WatchMojo.com.
0
1
report